Quoted from vid1900:As of 2017, China has 35% of the world's electricity generating windmills.
Last year, it cancelled 103 coal power plants that had begun construction, and replaced them with solar farms.
And China has 20 nuclear power plants under construction right now. (the US has built one new nuclear plant in the last 20 years).
Even though China is rich with coal, they are clearly moving away from the 12th century fuel.
All I know is what I read on the internet. And the internet says China is choking on coal polluted skies with people moving around wearing masks. Sounds like China got religion.
With regards to nuclear power, It has been 40 years ago when the plan in the U.S. to control nuclear waste generated from nuclear power plants was going to be trucked to Nevada and buried in the Nevada desert. The state of Nevada and Harry Reid waved the middle finger salute and said not in my backyard. So, for the last 40 years, the nuclear waste has been piling up at each power plant with no solution in sight.
I have no idea how China will deal with its nuclear waste, but since it is a communist government it will probably pick a spot for the waste and if it happens to be in your backyard, well, that's just tough shit. "We'll relocate you to where we relocated all of the others who were in the way of Three Gorges Dam.
We, in the U.S. have state's rights. No one wants the waste.
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Quoted from vid1900:How has the USA fallen so far behind, where they once were the leaders in new technology?
I'll take a guess a lot of the regulations we deal with started with a large oil spill in 1969 in California at Santa Barbara.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-santa-barbara-spill-20170428-htmlstory.html
It is food for thought that we lived through the 1973 oil crisis followed by another oil crisis in 1978 and in all of these years maybe we could have been doing the drill-baby-drill thing and Saudi Arabia and Iran would have never been able to "hold us hostage".
One thing leads to another and then Three Mile Island crapped on the nuclear party.
The end result is lots of regulations.
Nuclear power was not helped when cost over runs and corruption during the construction of the power plants was front page news.
China does not have to deal any of the legacy? issues like the U.S.
Those are my guesses.