Move over, Petrostates. Electricity is the new “king of energy,” declares RMI, and China the first “electrostate.”
Much of the world has long been electrifying its buildings, industry and, increasingly, transportation — and RMI is calling a peak for fossil fuel demand to generate that power.
China has been electrifying at a rate of 10% per decade, nine times faster than the rest of the world. Bloomberg notes that seven Chinese solar companies are out-producing Big Oil’s big seven.
Race to the top
The US is slapping tariffs on Chinese solar panels, electric vehicles and batteries, but China’s massive investment in cleantech is largely responsible for the plunging cost of green energy.
China remains the world’s largest coal consumer, by far. But for the world’s largest energy consumer, “cleantech is a path to leadership, clean air, and zero emissions, so China will continue to deploy cleantech rapidly,” RMI states in the latest “Cleantech Revolution“ report.
“Chinese leadership, and a race to the top, will continue to overwhelm a fragile fossil fuel system, which wastes two-thirds of its primary energy and fails to pay for its externality costs.”
The world’s largest energy consumer “lacks oil and gas, and cleantech is a path to leadership, clean air, and zero emissions, so China will continue to deploy cleantech rapidly,” write RMI’s Kingsmill Bond, Sam Butler-Sloss, and Daan Walter in their latest “Cleantech Revolution” report.
