For years the image of China has been a nation choked by smog and pollution in its major cities as their power plants and large population burned fossil fuels to power their daily lives. While they do still have their problems with air quality, they have taken huge steps to reverse that issue, and in the process, they are leading the world in clean energy expansion, especially solar. They are also doing this at a time when the U.S. is rolling back regulations that aim to control pollution, many of which helped to eliminate or at least greatly reduce similar air quality issues in the 1970’s.
Over the last couple of years, China has added huge solar farms across the nation, and in just the first few months of 2018, they have created almost 10 gigawatts of new solar energy production. This is equal to the output of 10 large nuclear plants, which is an impressive amount of new energy production, especially since it is was done in essentially the first 3 months of the year. China is also feverishly working to upgrade their power-grid to keep up with the increase of available power output. They have clearly taken the lead when it comes to clean energy these days, and soon, the images of smog choked cities will likely be an outdated talking point with no real teeth behind it.
