For anyone who knows the science, it’s settled — fossil fuels need to be banished fast from our energy mix. But how do we achieve it? Can we rely on renewable sources such as wind and solar? Or must humanity turn to nuclear power?
That’s a controversy that has bubbled away for years among people who all accept the dangers of global warming. Now, from the energy sector in China, there’s hard new evidence bearing on this debate.
The experience in China shows that as a way of quickly replacing greenhouse-polluting fuels, renewable energy wins against nuclear, hands down.
With some of the world’s worst urban air pollution, the Chinese authorities have pressing reasons to reduce the coal burning that provides just under 80% of their country’s electricity.
Meanwhile, and unlike the case in the West, the threat of global warming is rarely disputed. As a hopeful solution to China’s coal-based dilemma, nuclear power receives strong backing in the government and state bureaucracy. For all the dangers of the nuclear industry, plans for new reactors meet with little overt opposition.
At the same time — and as if to make the country a perfect test-bed for rival technologies — China also has one of the world’s most ambitious large-country programs for developing renewable energy.
