Why China is Electrifying Everything

This week, we go to China. I spoke with David Fishman, senior manager at The Lantau Group, on the motivations and strategy behind China’s world-leading electrification efforts. What seems like a climate-action utopia to Western analysts appears to be a pragmatic response to pollution and energy security concerns. China's vulnerability to maritime oil blockades has spurred aggressive electrification across transport, industry, and urban infrastructure; and its state capitalist model has enabled a pace and scale of investment in nuclear power, electrified transport, and renewable energy that makes Western efforts to achieve an energy transformation look piecemeal. Episode title on podcast apps: "Electric Dreams" Listen to Decouple on: • Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6PNr3ml8nEQotWWavE9kQz • Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/decouple/id1516526694?uo=4 • Overcast: https://overcast.fm/itunes1516526694/decouple • Pocket Casts: https://pca.st/ehbfrn44 • RSS: https://anchor.fm/s/23775178/podcast/rss Website: https://www.decouple.media Chapters: 00:00 Introduction 04:00 Maritime chokepoints and energy security 08:30 Electrification across economic sectors 15:45 EV adoption and infrastructure 23:30 Nuclear power development 31:15 Solar industry evolution 39:00 Competition in renewable manufacturing 45:20 Rooftop solar deployment strategy 52:40 Grid integration challenges 58:15 Future energy mix projections