How will that happen? China is building more generation as we speak. And I mean a lot. The gap is widening and the rate of change is even worse, thanks to "clean beautiful coal" or whatever Trump said.
You are aware that China is building dozens of new coal power plants right? Just this year they have commissioned 50.[1] Granted, it's less than before, but still much more than other developed countries.
Yes, I am aware. They are increasing the energy output gap so much it's laughable, including coal. The MAGA administration isn't even building coal properly, but they are shuttering wind and solar. Wow, America! So much winning. China will catch up much sooner than anyone could believe thanks to GOP.
Wind and solar combined generation increased by 12.2% during the first 11 months of 2025, providing 19% of total US electricity compared to 17.3% during the same period in 2024.
Surely there is some lag on these numbers, and they correspond to projects commissioned during the Biden admin? The current administration has been extremely hostile to renewables in terms of rhetoric, I would be surprised if they were lying about that.
> Surely there is some lag on these numbers, and they correspond to projects commissioned during the Biden admin?
That's a reasonable assumption. At the same time, I don't know that you can neatly attribute things happening during one adminstration to the prior administration. We need more rigorous analysis than that. For instance, the economy tends to do better under Democratic than Republican rule, but using your lag mental model we should then actually ascribe it to Republic policy? Back to energy, notably, in Jul 2025, more coal was added than wind... should we ascribe that to the prior admin due to lag?
> The current administration has been extremely hostile to renewables in terms of rhetoric, I would be surprised if they were lying about that.
Yes, that's clear. They are very hostile in rhetoric and action.
The administration characterizes wind and solar as expensive and unreliable energy sources that have been subsidized by taxpayers for too long. In July 2025, President Trump signed an executive order to eliminate subsidies for wind and solar in accordance with the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act". On his first day in office, Trump issued an order blocking the government from auctioning off the rights to build wind farms on public lands or in public waters. The administration has halted already-issued permits for offshore wind projects and suspended leases for five major wind projects in December. Solar and wind projects are now subject to an elevated review process likely to slow down approval. Tax credits for renewable energy projects were restricted, requiring projects to begin construction within a year or produce electricity by 2028.
The adminstration prefers fossil fuels (oil, natural gas, coal), hydropower, nuclear energy, and critical minerals as domestic energy resources.
Despite all that, 2026 is still projected to have 99%+ new capacity in 2026 to be solar, wind, and storage.
Yeah, absolutely no way to bring down power prices when compared to China. They installed over 400 GW (peak) of new renewable capacity in 2025 and show no signs of intending to stop.
But still, it's possible that a smaller, dirtier build-out in the US will significantly drop prices relative to today, and certainly relative to the rest of the world (which is failing spectacularly at building out power infrastructure).
But yes, the only way you're ever going to smelt Aluminum in the US again is if you have customers who can't/won't buy Chinese Aluminum. And even then, worth keeping an eye on the richer Arabs states. They're quickly roofing over their deserts, and certainly don't worry about local NIMBY opposition to power lines...
