Originally Posted by jalami

Wind power is problematic because it is expensive and is not constant, and while we are good at generating energy, we really suck at storing it (ultracapacitors and the like are making short-term energy storage a real possibility in the future though).

Think of it this way -- if we had lots of electric cars and limited their recharging time to the twilight hours, it wouldn't be a huge issue for the power companies since they don't have much energy demand at midnight, and most of their generation is constant, such as hydroelectric, with much of it wasted.

Anyway the main point is that there are 3 base power generation technologies that generate a lot of power, fairly cheaply, and on a constant basis: hydroelectric, fossil fuels (coal or oil-fired plants), and nuclear. Of the 3, nuclear is the best, especially if you reprocess spent fuel instead of hiding it in the desert like they do now. For those of you screaming about nuclear waste, it's only "waste" because we're not allowed to re-use it, by a Carter-era law. A few countries have breeder reactors that are generating electricity using spent nuclear fuel, which has tons of juice in it. China will be next, once petroleum gets more pricey and their ridiculously huge Three Gorges Dam isn't enough, look for them to come out with gigantic Soviet-era reactors and nuclear re-processing.

Anyway, the real reason why China is moving so far ahead is that in a way, their political system is superior to ours. They can do plenty of things without having to worry about people complaining (try building a big hydro dam in the US that displaces 2 million people and buries precious historical artifacts underwater). In that sense, in the short-term China is going to grow faster than us and out-do us, but their political system won't last forever, eventually people will get tired of being oppressed, as is true in all heavy-handed governments, including the US if they continue the way they're going.