تحول الطاقة العالمي: صعود الشمس والكهرباء وتحديات الكربون

China’s solar generating capacity is poised to exceed coal for the time this year, the China Electricity Council said in a report this week. The country, long dependent on coal, should get about half of its installed generating capacity from solar and wind by the end of 2026, whereas coal’s use is expected to fall to about one-third of the total. More specifically, the electricity council puts total coal capacity at about 1,333 gigawatts by Dec. 31. Solar ended 2025 at 1,200 GW and has averaged 270 GW of growth each year for the past three years. The Los Angeles Times reports the country is expected to build out more than 400 GW of new generation in 2026 to keep up with electricity demand, with most of the new capacity to come from wind and solar, which combined would account for about 300 GW. These figures seem to indicate that China is transitioning away from coal. But that would be a wrong assumption. The first number to look at is the 300 GW of renewables. It is smaller than last year, when solar alone accounted for 315 gigawatts of new capacity in China. The reason has to do with a change to China’s power regulatory regime. Local developers wanted to get their projects operational before the change came into effect last June 1. After that date, the country shifted its renewable energy pricing from government-set feed-in tariffs to a market-based auction system. The idea was that by forcing new wind and solar projects to compete in the power market, it would encourage efficiency and lower prices. According to Rystad Energy, in 2026 China is forecast to commission 235 GW of solar and 98 GW of wind capacity, reducing global renewable power generation capacity from 703 GW in 2025 to 650 GW in 2026. In other words, China will be largely responsible for the forecast reduction in new global solar capacity, which reached a record 703 GW in 2025, largely driven by new solar capacity coming online in China during the first half of the year. However, total renewable sources, not just solar, are expected to reach 11,900 terawatt-hours in 2026, overtaking coal as the largest source of power generation — a position it has held for decades. Again, quoting Rystad Energy, coal contributed to almost 40% of the energy mix in 2000, and given that practically all the new demand is being met with renewable sources, coal generation has plateaued. Here comes the catch. This week Carbon Brief reported that proposals to build coal-fired power plants in China reached a record high in China. The report by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air and Global Energy Monitor says that in 2025, developers submitted new or reactivated proposals to build a total of 161 gigawatts (GW) of new coal-fired power plants. The new proposals come even as China’s buildout of renewable energy pushed down coal-power generation and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2025, meaning many coal plants are already running at just half of their maximum capacity. The co-authors argue that while clean-energy growth may limit emissions from coal power in the short term, the surge in proposals could lock in new coal assets, “weaken…incentives” for power-system reform and help keep coal capacity online in spite of China’s climate goals. According to Carbon Brief, the country is continuing to add significant coal-power capacity, with a record 95 GW added to the grid last year and another 291 GW in the pipeline. Around two-thirds of coal-powered capacity proposed in China since 2014 has either been commissioned or is set to be built. This is the reverse of what is happening outside of China, where roughly two-thirds of proposed coal capacity never makes it to construction. Coal may be down in China, but it’s not yet out. By Andrew Topf for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com

Electric vehicle startup Lucid Motors was scrambling to raise a Series D funding round in 2017. It had courted Ford as a potential investor, but Jia Yueting, the founder of rival EV startup Faraday Future, had quietly amassed around a 30% stake and was essentially blocking new investors. David Stern, a mysterious businessman and close advisor to former Prince Andrew, saw an opportunity to break the logjam: bring in Jeffrey Epstein. “Ford will likely be lead in $400m Series D in Lucid. Big strategic move,” Stern wrote to Epstein in emails released last week as part of the Department of Justice’s latest disclosure of 3 million documents related to Epstein. Jia “has massive cash issues” at Faraday, he wrote, and needs to “sell now to make payroll for his other business.” It wasn’t the first EV startup Stern pitched Epstein, and it wouldn’t be the last, according to hundreds of documents reviewed by TechCrunch. At the time, legacy automakers and newly minted startups, fueled by the breakthrough success of Tesla and progress by Google’s self-driving project, were jumping into electric and autonomous vehicles. And Stern was apparently hungry to take advantage of the resulting deal flow. The documents show he also pitched investments in Faraday Future and in another EV startup, Canoo. It’s unlikely Epstein invested in any of them. Lucid didn’t close its Series D until late 2018, when it raised more than $1 billion from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. Faraday ultimately received a major investment from Chinese real estate conglomerate Evergrande in late 2017. Epstein said in a 2018 message included in the Justice Department’s files that he had no “direct” or “indirect” interest in Canoo. These discussions instead provide greater insight into the many connections Epstein, a convicted sex offender, had to Silicon Valley startups up until his arrest and death in 2019. They also provide a snapshot of a relationship that has not been explored in previous reporting. Techcrunch event TechCrunch Founder Summit 2026: Tickets Live On June 23 in Boston, more than 1,100 founders come together at TechCrunch Founder Summit 2026 for a full day focused on growth, execution, and real-world scaling. Learn from founders and investors who have shaped the industry. Connect with peers navigating similar growth stages. Walk away with tactics you can apply immediately Save up to $300 on your pass or save up to 30% with group tickets for teams of four or more. TechCrunch Founder Summit: Tickets Live On June 23 in Boston, more than 1,100 founders come together at TechCrunch Founder Summit 2026 for a full day focused on growth, execution, and real-world scaling. Learn from founders and investors who have shaped the industry. Connect with peers navigating similar growth stages. Walk away with tactics you can apply immediately Save up to $300 on your pass or save up to 30% with group tickets for teams of four or more. Boston, MA | REGISTER NOW By the time of the Lucid emails, Epstein and Stern had been working together closely for nearly a decade, the newly released documents show. To Epstein, Stern was “my china contact.” To Stern, Epstein was “my mentor, and I do what he tells me.” A ‘ghost’ of a businessman Prince Andrew, Duke of York (left) at the opening of Pitch@Palace 6.0. David Stern is sitting next to Queen Elizabeth II. Image Credits:John Stillwell – WPA Pool / Getty Images Stern is a mostly digital ghost with little information available about him on the internet prior to the release of the files. He is perhaps best known as the director of Prince Andrew’s Pitch@Palace startup contest, which ran for a few years until Andrew’s connections to Epstein were exposed. Andrew even referred to Stern as a “ghost” in one 2010 email. Stern appears to have first approached Epstein in 2008, according to the emails released by the DOJ — just one month before the financier pled guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution in Florida. Stern was creating a fund, called AGC Capital, to take advantage of the economic boom in China, and he wanted Epstein to invest. It’s not clear how Stern was introduced to Epstein. Stern did not respond to a detailed list of questions for this article. Stern, who is German, attended the University of London and Shi-Da University in China in the late 1990s, and served as chairman of China Millennium Capital, the Chinese arm of Millennium Capital Partners, according to the bio section of the AGC Capital pitch deck, which is in the DOJ’s files. Stern also worked for Siemens, negotiating “industrial Joint Ventures with Chinese State Owned enterprises,” before joining the Shanghai office of Deutsche Bank. He started a company called Asia Gateway in 2001 that “advised blue chip companies, Chinese enterprises as well as the Chinese government in growth strategies and investments.” These jobs appear to have helped Stern make connections with powerful and wealthy Chinese businessmen, including Li Botan — the son-in-law of the fourth-most senior leader in China under Xi Jinping’s predecessor Hu Jintao. (Li would eventually go on to become a founding investor in Canoo with Stern.) It’s not clear if Epstein invested in AGC Capital; the financier spent the next year serving his sentence. But Stern and Epstein remained in touch, and in 2009 Stern started pitching other ideas. The documents reveal a relationship that starts off formal and terse, with Epstein at one point excoriating Stern for not having properly prepared a potential business deal. “[I]f you want to do real deals you have to be precise and careful„ every error is a fortune,” Epstein wrote. “[Y]our first grade is an F.” David Stern with Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson, and former Prince Andrew. Image Credits:Department of Justice (screenshot) One of the first big projects the two men collaborated on was helping the Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson, with her miserable finances, according to the emails. The relationship deepened over the following decade. The two men got close enough that Stern felt comfortable asking Epstein in 2016 to become the godfather of one of his children. (Epstein wrote that he was “flattered” but declined because he “made a promise to my goddaughter that I would not be godfather to anyone else.”) It’s hard to say how fruitful the relationship was on the business side. But between 2009 and 2019, Stern brought Epstein a number of potential deals across various industries. Early on, he seemed dead set on starting a “secret” new fund with Epstein to invest in Chinese businesses together, which he referred to as JEDS — the two men’s initials combined. (It was also referred to in some emails as “Serpentine Group.”) Stern later pitched buying farmland in Russia, suggested purchasing the news organization Al Jazeera and taking it public, discussed buying troubled music publisher EMI, and considered acquiring an apparently distressed (and unnamed) undersea cable company. They also had their eyes on banks. Stern and Epstein attempted to buy Luxembourg-headquartered private bank Sal. Oppenheim, the emails show. In 2016, they even discussed a buyout of Deutsche Bank, which had for years transacted with Epstein. Stern repeatedly flaunted his connections with high-profile businessmen and politicians in his emails to Epstein and his other contacts. In February 2012, Stern suggested Epstein introduce Jes Staley — the head of J.P. Morgan’s investment bank at the time — to Malaysian politician Anwar Ibrahim. “I know Anwar well,” Stern wrote. “If he becomes prime minister of malayisa [Staley] will clean up and it could be a gold mine for JPM.” (Ibrahim lost a contested election in 2013 but became prime minister in 2022.) Stern also claimed to have had dinner with Jack Ma, had a planned meeting “alone” with UAE president Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and said he was “friends” with the grandson of former Chinese president Jiang Zemin. Going electric By 2017, Stern was apparently eyeing the rush to build new mobility companies. He tried to get Epstein to meet Faraday Future founder Jia to discuss an investment. It’s not clear if that ever happened; the company and Jia did not respond to requests for comment. But former BMW and Deutsche Bank CFO Stefan Krause, who had been brought in to save Faraday Future, made a direct appeal to Epstein in April 2017. “Faraday Future (FF) is a great story in itself, regretfully surrounded by a lot of noise around Jia Yueting (YT) and his other enterprises (LeEco, LeMall, LeSports, to name a few). These businesses are not working, so he run out of cash. FF is starving,” Krause wrote to Epstein. “Great chance to build a better Tesla.” (Krause is described as a “friend” and a business partner of Stern’s in the documents. He didn’t respond to a request for comment.) It appears those conversations petered out. Soon after, Stern suggested the Lucid Motors investment. In May 2017, a pitch deck landed in Epstein’s inbox. It was put together by a fund called Monstera that Stern had created. “Monstera can gain a 32% shareholding in Lucid through the acquisition of the stake currently controlled by Yueting Jia,” one slide reads. Other emails show that Stern expected to spend around $300 million to acquire the 32% stake. He referred to it as a “fire sale” in emails. Monstera could either hold the position or “[o]ffload” it “when Ford comes in.” Ford ultimately pulled out, and Lucid had to wait to close its Series D until August 2018, when Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund invested more than $1 billion. (SEC filings show the Saudi sovereign wealth fund repurchased Jia’s shares over the next few years. Lucid did not respond to a request for comment.) When Krause left Faraday Future to start a new EV company in late 2017 — first called Evelozcity and later, Canoo — Stern was one of the original backers. He contributed just $1 million alongside larger sums from Li, the CCP-connected Chinese bus

The company is making inroads on two potential growth segments: driverless cars and solar energy.

In Brief Carbon-removal startup Terradot is acquiring competitor Eion, the two companies announced today. The sale was driven largely by big investors like sovereign wealth funds, which want to work with companies that can handle large contracts. Eion was simply too small, Eion CEO Anastasia Pavlovic Hans told The Wall Street Journal. Both companies spread pulverized rocks on farm fields to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Known as enhanced rock weathering (EWR), it speeds up a natural process and has the potential to be a low-cost way to remove carbon, but it requires large and distributed operations. The spread between what EWR companies would like to charge and what buyers would like to pay remains wide, according to a survey by CDR.fyi. California-based Terradot’s operations are centered on Brazil, where the company works with basalt as its mineral of choice, while Eion works in the U.S. and uses olivine. Terradot’s investor list includes Gigascale Capital, Google, Kleiner Perkins, and Microsoft, while Eion’s investors include AgFunder, Mercator Partners, and Overture.