• naturalgasbad@lemmy.ca
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    2 years ago

    Developing nations need electricity and primary energy growth. They need it to pull people out of poverty, and guarantee basic human needs like food, water, shelter as well as basic human desires like education, employment, and transportation. Western countries should be using their immense economic power to make renewable sources of energy the more cost-effective solution. They’re not.

    China is on track to hit peak oil (this year) and peak coal (next year). This is due to their EV adoption rate (~40% and growing fast) and their solar panel installation rate (this year, more than the entire sum of all US solar panels). China dominates the supply chain: they make up more than half of all battery exports and more than 80% of all solar panels exports worldwide. In less than a decade, China has drove down the cost of EVs to parity with ICE vehicles ($10000/car) and drove down the cost of solar to be less than that of traditional fossil fuels.

    The West could have done the same. Instead, we kept jacking off our O&G producers and giving them billions of dollars in subsidies while solidifying the advantage of established car and solar companies rather than driving innovation from competition.

      • naturalgasbad@lemmy.ca
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        2 years ago

        It’s not even a morality problem, it’s a question of growing your economy by developing emerging industries