China’s renewable energy revolution is a huge mess that could save the world

In fact, the biggest beneficiaries of China’s renewable energy revolution may in fact be consumers, both inside and outside China. In sun-blessed Australia, where solar panels sit on the roofs of nearly a third of all households, the country’s energy minister, Chris Bowen, has proposed a “solar sharing program” to provide three hours of free electricity on sunny days. Solar and battery systems have allowed Hawaii to close its last coal-fired power plants, and such systems are also helping other islands such as Jamaica reduce their need for imported fossil fuels.

One country – one leader in particular – is trying to buck this trend. Donald Trump hates many people and things, but wind turbines and solar panels seem to hold a special place of disdain in his heart. His administration has tried to cancel major offshore and onshore wind projects, along with plans for Esmeralda 7, a massive solar base slated for the Nevada desert that was due west of China. Trump and Energy Secretary Chris Wright often talk about American energy dominance, but they cripple the ability of American companies to deploy and build the cheapest sources of electricity in the history of the planet, in favor of a combination of old arguments about the inevitability of fossils and long-term bets on small modular nuclear reactors and nuclear fusion.

Even among billionaires who do not share Trump’s belief that climate change is a hoax, this recent attraction to advanced, far-reaching technologies has long been a hallmark of American climate investing and philanthropy. This attitude is embodied by Bill Gates, who once dismissed existing green technologies such as solar and wind energy as “cute.” Instead, Gates has always favored a variety of capital-intensive decarbonization, pumping dollars into science-fiction technologies that are still in a perpetual state of being just five years away — not the fast-paced, messy approach that involves solar panels sprouting on every roof and recalibrating electricity pricing plans. (Recently, as it became clear that the shift to renewables was going from strength to strength, Gates wrote a memo saying he was withdrawing from climate finance altogether.)

Mao Zedong famously declared that revolution is not a dinner party. It is an uprising, an act of violence by one class overthrowing another. The green technology revolution – whose violence is primarily financial, a devastating assault on the value of oil and gas companies’ assets – is not a dinner party. Nor is it inevitable. It can still be stopped or slowed down. Yes, it is the result of conscious choices made by individuals, companies and governments, many of which are most important in China. But it is happening now, and faster than our systems – power grids, industrial sectors, employment, geopolitics, and more – are prepared.

And that’s a good thing, too, because there’s another force powered by the merging of the Sun that’s also reaching a strength and scale we’re not prepared for: climate change. When Category 5 Hurricane Melissa tore through Jamaica, Haiti, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic in late October, killing more than 90 people and displacing tens of thousands, most government investments in protecting people from the storm fell short of the challenge. What provided some refuge were the solar panels on the roof, which kept the lights on when the sun rose the next morning. The global energy system is the foundation of modern life. Through all this chaos, this system gets a major upgrade.

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