HOT CHEAP, AND OUT OF CONTROL

CHINA'S RENEWABLE ENERGY REVOLUTION AND ITS GLOBAL ONSLAUGHT OF CHEAP POWERIS A HUGE MESS THAT MIGHT SAVE THE WORLD.

- JEREMY WALLACE

THERE'S A PARTICULAR kind of sci-fi nerd who equates fusion tech with utopia. If we could only harness the engine of the stars, it would uncork near limitless energy and neatly sweep away a whole mess of humanity's problems. But how would that work exactly? What would the transition look like? You don't have to wonder. It's happening now.

Solar panels and wind turbines capture the fusion of the sun and convert it to electricity. And at the scale and pace that China is producing them, plenty of things stand to be swept away-including, quite possibly, the once seemingly intractable problems of energy poverty and fossil-fuel dependence. In 2024, the total installed electricity capacity of the planet-every coal, gas, hydro, and nuclear plant and all of the renewables-was about 10 terawatts.

The Chinese solar supply chain can now pump out 1 terawatt of panels every year.

In China itself, vast energy megabases combining solar and wind stretch for miles in the country's western deserts and Tibetan highlands, each producing the power of multiple nuclear plants and connecting to population centers in the country's east via ultrahigh-voltage power lines. At the smaller end of the scale, panels have sprouted on rooftops all over the more populated eastern half of the country, thanks to policies that standardize the process and paperwork required to install and tie them into the grid. Huge factories, urban apartment buildings, and humble village homes are plastered with panels. In Europe, Chinese-made photovoltaic panels are so cheap that they cost less than fencing materials. Globally, the glut of solar has lowered the average cost of generating electricity to 4 cents a kilowatt hour-perhaps the cheapest form of energy ever.