https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/03/opinion/trump-bill-clean-energy-china.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Tk8.uxKJ.aIU_eeKBcPJw&smid=url-shareYou cannot make this up: Even Saudi Arabia is doubling down on solar power to meet the needs of the A.I. data centers it wants to recruit from the West, while Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” actually does just the opposite. It quickly phases out tax credits enjoyed by utility-scale solar and wind — as well as electric vehicle tax credits. This virtually guarantees that China will own the future of solar energy, wind power and electric cars and trucks, as well as autonomous vehicles.
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Consider this snapshot: In 2000 China produced just over 1,300 terawatt hours of electricity while the U.S. produced nearly 3,800 (a terawatt is equal to a million megawatts). Fast forward to today, China produces over 10,000 terawatt hours while the U.S., since 2000, has added only 500 — an increase of only 13 percent in two and a half decades. Much of China’s electricity growth originally came from expanded coal-fired generation, but in recent years it has been driven by expanding hydro, solar, wind and battery sources, which are easier, cheaper and quicker to build and also help the climate.
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Let’s say you want to generate additional electricity for more data centers just through natural gas today. Even if you have an abundance of gas, as America does, you need more giant turbines to convert the gas to electricity. If you ask the major manufacturers of those turbines — GE Vernova, Siemens Energy and Mitsubishi Power — they will likely tell you that they will be very happy to deliver you one, but you will be lucky to have it installed by 2030. That is how long their backlogs are. And there is no telling what that turbine will cost with all of Trump’s new steel and aluminum tariffs.
By contrast, you can build and put online a new solar farm with battery storage in Texas in just 18 months.
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The result for Americans? The research firm Energy Innovation, whose peer-reviewed energy modeling is widely respected, projects that Trump’s effort to diminish America’s renewable energy industry will cause wholesale electric power prices to increase roughly 50 percent by 2035, and that cumulative annual consumer energy costs will increase more than $16 billion by 2030. It also projects that some 830,000 renewable energy jobs will be lost or not created by 2030.
For all of these reasons, I am certain there are only two political parties in the world today cheering the passage of this bill: Trump’s Republican Party and the Chinese Communist Party — because nothing is more destined to make China great again than Trump’s “big, beautiful, America surrenders the future of electricity to Beijing” bill.