It actually looks like they are planning more wind than nuclear.
Wrong. (Well, a little bit right, but wrong in all the ways that matter.) According to the article you linked, they’re planning to build about 60-90 GW of nuclear capacity (let’s say 80 GW to simplify the arithmetic) and 100 GW of wind. But what we really care about is how much energy they get from those sources per year, and to find that, we have to multiply the peak power generation capacities by the capacity factor for each source.
Nuclear power has a capacity factor of at least 93% for the newer plant designs that China is building (or even for older plants after operators get experience), so we’ll say that their average production is (80 GW) * 0.93 = 74.4 GW average.
Wind power has a capacity factor of around 21% right now. Since we’re talking about 2020, i.e. The Future!!, let’s assume they get it up to a whopping 30%. Their energy production from wind would come out to (100 GW) * 0.3 = 30 GW average, or less than half of their projected nuclear production.
The average power figures are much more meaningful than the capacity numbers, but the wind salesmen quote whatever numbers make them sound most impressive, and the news media report it. It’s as ubiquitous as it is misleading.
Wrong. (Well, a little bit right, but wrong in all the ways that matter.) According to the article you linked, they’re planning to build about 60-90 GW of nuclear capacity (let’s say 80 GW to simplify the arithmetic) and 100 GW of wind. But what we really care about is how much energy they get from those sources per year, and to find that, we have to multiply the peak power generation capacities by the capacity factor for each source.
Nuclear power has a capacity factor of at least 93% for the newer plant designs that China is building (or even for older plants after operators get experience), so we’ll say that their average production is (80 GW) * 0.93 = 74.4 GW average.
Wind power has a capacity factor of around 21% right now. Since we’re talking about 2020, i.e. The Future!!, let’s assume they get it up to a whopping 30%. Their energy production from wind would come out to (100 GW) * 0.3 = 30 GW average, or less than half of their projected nuclear production.
The average power figures are much more meaningful than the capacity numbers, but the wind salesmen quote whatever numbers make them sound most impressive, and the news media report it. It’s as ubiquitous as it is misleading.
Mea culpa. I forgot how misleading some of the energy numbers could be.