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David Fishman Profile picture
@pretentiouswhat
Jun 20, 2021 • 18 tweets • 5 min read • Read on X
Hi! I often tweet long threads about China's energy sector, mostly grid, renewables, and nuclear.

This is a master collection of my favorites, from oldest to newest.

I will add more as they are created and remove oudated ones.
1. The messy recent history of China's nuclear power industry:

2. A summary of China's regional power grids and dispatch model:

3. A discussion of China's renewable power subsidies and tariff structure:

4. A pretty nerdy and niche summary of how engineers design nuclear power plants to be safe from airplane strikes.

5. An introduction to China's UHV transmission network:

6. China's power shortages in December 2020: Translation of Caixin article + commentary.

7. A short thread about barriers to increased Chinese RE investment in BRI:

(was hoping to expand on this, but my project's funding was yanked and I started doing other things).

8. Everything you wanted to know about nuclear waste:

9. A short thread about the competitiveness of Chinese nuclear exports:

10. Helping out a confused man who didn't know much about nuclear power or China:

(got myself blocked for my efforts)
11. A thead about pumped hydropower storage in China:

12. A history of renewable energy Feed-in-Tariffs in China.

13. Why the Fukushima wastewater release really isn't that big of a deal:

14. Commentary on new RE consumption quotas for Chinese provinces in 2021:

15. A commentary on the Taishan radioactivity release alarmism:

16. Translation/commentary of the subsequent NNSA press release re: Taishan

17. A commentary on Guangdong's new direct power purchase rules for Renewable Energy - important for corporates.

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More from @pretentiouswhat

David Fishman Profile picture
Jun 14
The Urban Village of Xiamen

In the north of Xiamen's main island in Huli District, just west of the airport, is Dianqian Community, one of Xiamen's last urban villages (and its largest).

Urban villages are called 城中村 (literally: village in a city) or sometimes 村子. Image
Urban villages can be found in large cities in southern China especially, and are often described as China's "ghettoes" or "slums".

This is not quite correct in my opinion, and the topic deserves a separate thread. But they are indeed generally home to people with lower incomes. Image
Dianqian has gained fame in recent years on social media as a place of pilgrimage for aviation enthusiasts visiting Xiamen.

It lies immediately beneath the final descent path of airplanes arriving at Xiamen's Gaoqi Airport, offering unique photography opportunities. Image
Read 22 tweets
David Fishman Profile picture
Jun 9
Yicai released its influential 2025 China "Rank of City Attractiveness" list last week. This is the source of the "1st Tier, 2nd Tier" etc. labels.

I went through the list and compared to the 2024 rankings, finding interesting items to comment on. 🧵
yicai.com/news/102638963…Image
But before we get started, if you're unclear what I'm talking about, you'll want to review my thread from last year where I introduce the Yicai city tiers and ranking system, how it's calculated, and what it's good for (and what it isn't!)

The Yicai ranking of top Chinese cities for 2025 is:

1. Shanghai
2. Beijing
3. Shenzhen
4. Guangzhou
5. Chengdu
6. Hangzhou
7. Chongqing
8. Wuhan
9. Suzhou
10. Xi'an
11. Nanjing
12. Changsha
13. Zhengzhou
14. Tianjin
15. Hefei
16. Qingdao
17. Dongguan
18. Ningbo
19. Foshan
Read 20 tweets
David Fishman Profile picture
May 15
Chinese carbon emissions indeed appear to have leveled off. A peak into a plateau, perhaps, but a peak nonetheless.🥳

As highlighted in the thread, this is a *structural* decline. It's NOT caused by power usage decreasing (which naturally allows less coal use) like in the past.
All the major fossil-fuel consuming segments are now consuming less than they did last year, with the exception of the coal-to-chemicals segment.

But for the sake of completeness, what are the counterfactuals we must be aware of? What could cause emissions to grow again?
WHAT IF? 1: Power consumption growth picks up again and new renewables are unable to meet 100% of consumption growth.

This could happen if new renewables capacity additions slow down in the 2H of the year (or any time we have a bad year for hydropower).

This could also happen if the power consumption growth rate picks up again (it's been pretty sluggish through the first 5 months of the year, but I suspect we're heading for a sweltering summer that will drive cooling demand to record highs).

Remember, renewables additions need to meet or exceed 100% of consumption growth EVERY YEAR to keep coal consumption in the power sector from rising. Consumption growth was roughly 650 TWh last year. That needs to be met by new renewables every year. If it doesn't, power sector emissions rise, which means whole-of-economy emissions could rise (powergen is like 60% of China's coal usage)

But the fact that this is being made possible by huge renewables growth, and not declining power usage, is really the key point here. This is nothing like 2013-2015, when emissions were flat because power usage dropped.
Read 9 tweets
David Fishman Profile picture
May 1
The social commentary on China in this thread is ~90% wrong.

I rarely wade into cultural affairs, but this was too egregious (and was seen by too many people) to just ignore.

Long thread...(sorry in advance)🧵
"The Chinese want to get rich. All of them."

No. Some Chinese want to get rich. Some want to make art, or start a climate NGO, or be in a rock band, or help rural farmers sell honey, or join the navy. They want to improve themselves, provide a better life for their children and take care of their aging parents. They could be motivated by personal dreams and ambitions, familial or social obligations, nationalism, a virtous desire to "do good", or a hundred other things besides "wanting to get rich". Just like everyone else on the planet. It's irresponsible misrepresentation to talk like this.

The pure accumulation of material wealth to sustain certain lifestyle was a more prevalent motivator in decades past, when the society was at a lower rung on Maslow's ladder, but the times have changed.

"Their work ethic is correlated with their desire to succeed. This is a primary threat to anyone competing with them."

They do this not because they're Chinese, but because they're human, and that's what humans striving to win in success-limited conditions do. Making out this out to be some kind of Chinese cultural trait is just orientalism.

"I harnessed it and improved the lives of many"

This comes across as some kind of savior complex. OP employed Chinese people in factories to make goods that he sold for profit. He brags in the replies to his thread that he made good money doing this. Apparently that means he "harnessed" their work ethic to improve their lives. I hope he doesn't pull any muscles, straining so hard to pat himself on the back.Image
"The Chinese want to be taken seriously, and they want to take over the world. Literally."

Yes very much on on the first part. But the second part about "China wants to take over the world" is unsupported nonsense. I wonder what exactly OP thinks "literally" means? And how he would back up this claim?

"They want to prove how great they are and how everyone else is inferior and wrong"

This is quite wrong. Sure, Chinese people want respect, and to be recognized for their strengths. Once again, that's not particularly *Chinese* so much as it's human. Issues only really arise when that respect is not given, or the recognition is withheld, which is also a pretty universal cultural reaction.

China has strong affinity for the wisdom of "different strokes for different folks", and easily accepts that what makes sense for China doesn't necessarily make sense for other places and vice versa. The most common attitude towards cultural differences is not that they arise due to inferiority or wrongness, but because of different primary conditions between Chinese and non-Chinese people.

Thus, the instinct to evangelize a Chinese way of thinking or acting to non-Chinese peoples is pretty weak. By contrast, Western expats are often afflicted with a strong desire to evangelize their ways of thinking and doing things, and subsequently get frustrated when they find limited receptivity. A common and unfortunate outcome is they process this frustration as "Chinese believe everyone else is inferior and wrong".

"Nationalism is very strong. They may disagree with Xi, but criticism (sic) him and see the reaction"

Nationalism IS strong and growing. After all, there's continually more to be proud about. But this logic is erroneous. Chinese people are rational opinion-having actors, not Pavlovian hamsters, and linking pride in being Chinese to having a negative reaction to criticism of Xi is a non sequitur.

Like any human responding to the opinions of others, if you make a criticism they agree with, you'll get a positive response, and if you criticize something they don't agree with, you'll get a negative reaction. That's how humans with beliefs defend their beliefs - not an exclusively Chinese trait.Image
Read 13 tweets
David Fishman Profile picture
Apr 27
Last week, I presented orally at a hearing of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Comission on China's efforts in the clean energy transition, focusing on industrial electrification.

Testimony and recording in link. This is a summary thread. 🧵

uscc.gov/hearings/china…
China has already achieved dominance of the current "big three" pillars of cleantech: solar PV, batteries, and EVs.

To these, add wind turbines and ultra high-voltage transmission, and China's 2030 carbon emissions peaking target seems quite assured.

But what then?
Yes, the emissions peak is mathematically inevitable, with both coal consumption and petroleum consumption having already peaked, or about to peak, depending on to whom you speak. But what must happen post-2030 to ensure the peak turns into a decline, and not just a plateau?
Read 17 tweets
David Fishman Profile picture
Apr 25
Broadly speaking, the USA's China strategy as informed by guys who did a stint in the country 15-20 years ago has been so ineffective and incoherent that it's quite likely you could get sharper China policy and advisory from people who have never been here at all.
IMO, being an expat in China 15 yrs ago grants NEGATIVE effectiveness as a source of insight for policymaking/advisory in 2025.

Similar to HK or TW expats, their knowledge is worse than ignorance. They actively misinform, usually to the detriment of their OWN objectives.
It's not impossible to do better, and policymakers must do so to survive. Where do you imagine the fantasy that China would fold under tariff pressure because of its export reliance came from?

Some "used to be in China" expert, is my guess.🤨

Read 8 tweets

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