By Tilak K Doshi
(https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/australianz/power-struggle )
Once again, the outlook through 2040 for rapid coal power capacity growth in Southeast Asia, next only to India in incremental global capacity (https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/11/15/iea-global-coal-demand-bounced-back-in-2017/ ), has become the subject of great concern to the global warmists. David Fogarty, the assistant foreign editor focusing on environmental and climate change issues for The Straits Times, Singapore’s main and only large-circulation English daily, sees it as a “power struggle” — no doubt double entendre intended.
“There is a power struggle going on across Asean, and how it is resolved could determine the course of climate change in a region ranked as among the most vulnerable to rising sea levels and more extreme weather…We don’t need policies that support renewables. We need policies that stop supporting coal, gas and oil. That’s all we need,” said Mr Assaad Razzouk, group chief executive of Singapore-based Sindicatum Renewable Energy, which invests in green energy projects in the region… the region’s power needs have reached a crisis point. Increasingly severe weather disasters, from storms to heatwaves to droughts, are exposing the risks from the region’s decision to back coal- and gas-fired power stations to fuel growth…The World Bank, along with the UN, International Energy Agency (IEA) and investors say there are compelling reasons based on cost, health and energy security for Asean to switch to green power…But entrenched local coal interests, coal-focused bank financing and the wrong policies have hindered a rapid roll-out.
The “power struggle” is thus between government policies that unreasonably “support” coal and other fossil fuels, and those that are calling for rapid growth of renewable energy. Nothing of course could be further from the truth than the “green” renewable energy (David) vs. “black” fossil fuel interests (Goliath) caricature.
As elsewhere in the world, World Bank and Asian Development finance has long been denied to coal power plants in Southeast Asia. There is a veritable parade of private sector banks that have joined the “ corporate social responsibility” rush to end the financing of new coal power plants. A short list includes BNP Paribas, Société Générale, Deutsche Bank, ABN AMRO, RBS, Standard Chartered and Barclays. https://www.banktrack.org/page/list_of_banks_that_ended_direct_finance_for_new_coal_minesplants
The latest leading bank to join this group is Europe’s largest, HSBC. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hsbc-strategy-fossil-fuels/hsbc-to-stop-financing-most-new-coal-plants-oil-sands-arctic-drilling-idUSKBN1HR1NR
Turning from global banks, the leading Southeast Asian banks – specifically those headquartered in the region’s hub in Singapore — DBS, OCBC and UOB – were named as those “funding coal power despite climate change risks” by Singapore’s main English daily (https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/singapore-banks-dbs-ocbc-and-uob-funding-coal-projects-despite-climate-risks-study ). These banks reportedly provided over US$2 billion to fund 21 coal power projects since 2012 mainly in Indonesia and Vietnam. Less than a month after the Straits Times’s publication, a coalition of environmental non-government organizations (NGOs) with activities in Southeast Asia including Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth called on the banks to “end financing of the highly polluting coal-fired power stations in Southeast Asia”. https://www.eco-business.com/news/local-ngos-push-singapore-banks-on-coal-stop-using-our-money-to-fuel-climate-change/
“EcoBusiness”, the region’s leading ‘environment and business’ media organization, headlined its article on the issue as follows: “Funding coal in Southeast Asia is ‘collective suicide’ say experts”. https://www.eco-business.com/news/funding-coal-in-southeast-asia-is-collective-suicide-say-experts/
The anti-coal power alliance does not end there, with the multilaterals (WB and ADB), the main international banks and the mainstream media. This matter was raised in Singapore’s parliament soon after the coverage in The Straits Times, when the Prime Minister was asked whether the financing of coal power plants in Southeast Asia by the Singapore banks had any impact on Singapore’s commitments to the Paris Agreement. http://www.mas.gov.sg/News-and-Publications/Parliamentary-Replies/2018/Reply-to-Parliamentary-Question-on-the-financing-of-coal-power-projects.aspx
The issue gained regional significance given the government’s declaration that as Asean Chairperson for 2018, Singapore would “work with fellow Asean members and … dialogue partners to advance the Asean Plan of Action for Energy Cooperation 2016 to 2025” (https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/spore-declares-2018-year-climate-action ) where the “renewable energy” and “sustainable development” memes takes pride of place.
Perhaps the most astonishing presumption in Fogarty’s “power struggle” narrative is the claim <a la> </i> Al Gore that renewable energy is <already> </i> cheaper than coal and natural gas, and hence merely needs a level playing field in policy terms to compete (https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/11/10/al-gore-claims-wind-and-solar-are-now-cheaper-than-coal/ ). This is gob-smacking in terms of a policy debate own-goal for the renewable energy lobby.
The fact remains that by and large, renewable energy businesses in Southeast Asia count on a significant part of their revenue streams from policy supports such as Feed In-Tariffs (FITs) and renewable portfolio schemes. Most countries in Asia already extend policy support to solar PV projects, beginning with Thailand which pioneered with FITs (locally called the “adder” program) –- and which accounts for greater solar capacity than the rest of Asean put together — over a decade ago. In short, renewable energy investments in Southeast Asia, as elsewhere in Asia, Europe and the US, depend on continued subsidy and other regulatory support, otherwise they fall (as in https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/06/07/china-slashes-solar-subsidies-green-stocks-tumble/ and
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/07/09/uk-government-slashes-renewables-incentives/
The real power struggle in Asean power is among the Chinese and Japanese banks. This includes China Development Bank, China Export Import Bank as well as China’s Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB which both claims to support sustainable goals and supports building coal power plants in Asia http://www.atimes.com/aiib-uproar-reveals-the-east-west-divide-on-coal/ ) and the leading Japanese private banks and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation which plan to build many such plants in Japan itself http://www.globalconstructionreview.com/markets/japan-plans-dash-co7al-43-statio7ns-12-yea7rs/ as well as compete against the Chinese banks in the Southeast Asian coal project funding arena https://www.thegwpf.com/new-coal-war-china-and-japan-compete-for-coal-projects-in-southeast-asia/ .
Perhaps the recent example of the African Development Bank which broke ranks with its World Bank and Asian Development Bank counterparts by supporting coal-fired power projects in Nigeria, Kenya and elsewhere will prove instructive. https://www.chronicle.co.zw/africa-breaks-ranks-with-imf-wb-on-coal/ It is significant that the current US administration, in competition with China in Southeast Asia as elsewhere, is supporting advanced, low-emission coal-powered projects in a “new energy realism” espoused by Energy Secretary Rick Perry. https://www.energy.gov/articles/new-energy-realism-secretary-perry-remarks-cera-week-prepared-delivery
The battle lines of the power struggle in Asean power are being drawn, and no doubt we shall see further developments one way or another.
Tilak K Doshi
The writer is a consultant in the energy sector, and is the author of “Singapore in a Post-Kyoto World: Energy, Environment and the Economy” published by the Institute of South-east Asian Studies (Singapore, 2015).
These countries will use the cheapest most reliable way to get electricity. If their electrical cost is cheaper than other countries then this is an advantage for them. This advantage will draw more industry and increase electricity use further. The greens deny this basic economic reality.
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narrative is the claim Al Gore that renewable energy is cheaper than coal and natural gas,
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Al Gore that renewable energy is cheaper than coal and natural gas,
missing is “already”
for
renewable energy is already cheaper than coal and natural gas,
because the formation marking by around “already”
only exempts “already”
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/ sacrafix!
There is no man made warming by innocent CO2. It is a fact flowing from my investigations.
I am puzzled by US English. ASEAN?
Correct is: ASIAN.
ASEAN:
Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Many thanks for ur comments. I did not know it was an acronym.
Yeah, it would be helpful if the article spelled out what the acronym meant the first time it’s used . Unfortunately failure to do so is a common mistake that article writers (in general) make.
Around this part of the world (Oz) it’s use is as common as ‘USA’, and you don’t need to expand that every time. The omission is understandable.
The problem is the article isn’t being presented to just your part of the world. In the rest of the world, that acronym isn’t so well known.
ASEAN
[ˈasēan]
ABBREVIATION
Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
An acronym for Association of South East Asian Nations.
This article demonstrates that it was Truth that was the first thing that had to die for the Global Socialists to advance their anti-energy agenda. To claim that solar PV and wind renewables don’t need subsidies to compete is of course the Big Lie now advanced as part of their propaganda dis-information campaign.
I say we actually test them on that and see what happens.
Can it not be made widely known that CO2 has but a marginal effect on climate?
We’ve been trying for years, but the sheepele dont want science fact… they prefer political fiction
saveenergy
The “sheeple” we have been trying to convince are wealthy, comfortable western sheeple. Asians and Africans don’t give a monkeys about climate change/AGW and the Asians are notoriously ruthless about getting their way. And so they should be. Why has the west been allowed to progress using fossil fuels and when Asia’s opportunity comes, the west says “no!”
The fact is the Asians, and Brazilians, will keep chopping down tropical rain forests to provide peasants with fuel because it’s a big market. The greens can gnash and wail about the loss of the biosphere all they want but eventually these people will have the heel of their boot on the greens throat – allow us access to cheap reliable electricity or watch your precious rain forests go up in smoke.
It’s happened before. In ancient times the forests would be stripped of trees to provide construction material and fuel. The soil would erode. Goats would make sure nothing could grow. Civilizations would collapse. link
Malthus had a point. Up to the middle ages, human populations would grow past the land’s ability to sustain them. They would weaken and plagues and starvation would finish them off.
At that point things started getting better. The Western European marriage pattern developed and limited fertility. Technology developed, and forests were able to regrow because people began to burn coal.
Humans seem to be the one species that can learn from its mistakes. Whatever the truth is about the rain forests being the planet’s lungs, it would still probably be a very bad thing if they were stripped. We do know where that leads. On the other hand, the rather pleasant environment of Britain contrasts with the boring not very biodiverse forests that preceded human habitation. There’s a huge difference between development and stripping.
commieBob
Great points.
My late father in law was a UN forester and witnessed the ‘illegal’ loggers (by western standards) providing fuel for people as a basic commodity in the 50’s.
He despised the greens, despite him being an advocate for environmentalism long before it became a popular term, because it makes sense when professionally done. ‘Greens’ were/are simply amateurs with no idea what they’re doing beyond knee jerk activism according to him.
Green activism will have us return to the middle ages where we denuded the planet of vegetation for fuel. The vast areas of land required to fulfil just a fraction of man’s needs for energy is simply staggering. Matt Ridley undertakes a thumbnail exercise which is truly terrifying as wind turbines can’t operate in forests so the land required must be stripped. http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/wind-still-making-zero-energy/
The pleasant environment of Britain includes vast areas of Scotland devoted to recreational Grouse shooting on land owned by wealthy individuals, that is kept bare of forestation, despite it being it’s natural condition.
Our green and pleasant land is both visually attractive and productive, but it’s not without it’s downsides. There is considerable land erosion where trees were relied upon to stabilise the topsoil but sheep farming is the priority in some areas so hillsides are collapsing, rivers interrupted and communities flooded because sheep are deemed more important than people.
And as much as I dislike George Monbiot’s politics it’s worth listening to him on his professional perception, as a zoologist, on the state of Britain’s countryside.
And can it be described as “stripping” of Amazonian rain forests when the only source of fuel a community has is wood?
The rain forests aren’t the world’s lungs.
For one thing, about 75% of oxygen comes from the oceans.
Beyond that, the rain forests may make more O2 per square mile than temporate forests, but there are a lot more temperate forests.
Finally, even if the trees are cut down, something else grows there, and that something else also photosynthesis’s.
MarkW
Farmers frequently follow the loggers in and use the land for around 3 years before it’s exhausted of nutrients. They move on and the land frequently turns to dust or mud and either blows away or runs off with the rain. The damage is long term.
The nutrients they need, in the west, are normally products of fossil fuel power. When all the community has to burn is twigs there’s a problem getting fertilizers, not to mention pest control products. Not quite that simple of course but that’s roughly the process.
And don’t forget the “green” palm oil project. This disaster has not yet run its course and even Greenpeace quietly acknowledges what an debacle it is, both financially and ecologically. The incompetence and hypocrisy of green schemers is probably not lost on many people in the region.
I also wonder about how many of these virtue-signalling finance corporations are only ‘withdrawing’ from financing projects in which they were not big players anyway?
If Saudi Arabia came out and announced they were not going finance the building of any more breweries and distilleries, then I don’t think anyone would pay much attention, much less care.
Coeur de Lion: “CO2 has but a marginal effect on climate”
And can it not be made widely known that CO2 has a maximum/central/broad effect on the Carbon Cycle of Life in that it is necessarily required for Carbon Based Life Forms?
Three ‘Hurrahs !’ for the Japanese and Africa Development Bank for supporting new coal fired electrical generation plants across Asia and Africa. Science and Economics is refuting political correctness!
While China will finance new coal fired infrastructure, it comes with heavy interest rates and a debt trap philosophy they impose on borrowers. Things like pledging national resources or ports as collateral, and voting with them at the UN. The Philippines under the narco presidenti Duterte just sold out his country last week to the Belt and Road Mafia run by President Xi from China, who is also the new global provider of Opiates and Meth. Plus China operates under a totally corrupt model of bribing the local officials and getting their feet planted firmly in the national politic. And importing their own workers to do the work so what is the point getting funded by China? The world has a new enemy in Fascist China, and thank God the only one able to check mate China is Trump. The only thing China understands is boot on their neck, and crushing their ability to steal everyone’s money. Hopefully Trump Doesn’t give an inch to the evil Chinese regime.
Japan offers much more reasonable terms and interest rates, as well as superior technology vs. China’s junk, except it can’t finance everyone in SE Asia for everything. Japan and USA should be offering reasonable loans for clean coal development in ASEAN, just to check the evil designs on the world by China.
Earthling2
Largely agree with you except that China is only doing what any enterprising nation would when faced with a lot of mugs wedded to the ideology of climate change and the use of drugs.
We Brits did much the same across the world only far more brutally. Indeed we had the Opium wars with China and gained Hong Kong out of it. We still retain a Commonwealth seized from everyone else and it took hundreds of years for the concept of human rights to eventually sink in.
I think someone pointed out on WUWT the other day that global dominance of any nation only lasts 150 years or so before they become over stretched militarily and financially. Perhaps it’s just China’s turn now.
Geez, I hope not HotScott, since China is much more brutal than the British Empire ever was, even compared to 150 years I think. As one suffering under the boot of the Brits, I am glad it was them and not the Spanish. Ha. Things are pretty good here, except of course for Trudope and Marxism. But that is the French!
The Commonwealth turned out pretty good far and wide, with perhaps a few countries in Africa not doing so well, but that is more they left the Commonwealth…aka Zimbabwe. I think it was a natural blessing that the British Empire set the global standard for what the civil state should be now. The Commonwealth is the universal standard in law and natural justice that the world should adopt, but I may be biased.
Having said that, yes, China is Ascendant and they do not soon forget the Century Of Shame we imposed upon them, or the Opium Wars, as you correctly point out. But I think we owe the world in this latter day and age to try and keep some sort of global norms, especially on things like the South China Sea. China is up to no good in many ways, and I really do think Trump has all these other things in mind when he is sorting out the tariff issues with China. If they are allowed, they will impose their corrupt value system on the world, and I think that is too high a price to pay. But maybe it is too late, short of a major global conflict which is more likely than not. Perhaps the world is unfolding as it should, but I hope not with present day China running things.
Earthling2
The brutality of the Colonial British Vs the Chinese now, is a debatable point. The values brought by Colonialism are, as you rightly point out, a global standard.
In terms of grudges, the Opium wars pale into insignificance compared to the grudge China has harboured against Japan for their activities in China’s past.
But I don’t think that even matters any more. WW2 will be but a distant historical event to our children, and in particular our grandchildren, just as the Opium wars and the war of Independence are to you and I. The fallout from them (a great American nation for example) are more important than the event or the grudge. Few Americans seriously bear the English any ill will now.
China is simply taking advantage of everything it can to drag it’s people from poverty into prosperity and defend its shores, just as every other nation has a right, nay obligation to. Perhaps the strange political hybrid of communism and it’s management of Capitalism is something worth watching into the future. I mean, the two party systems operating across most Western nations is proving utterly tribally divisive.
Could it yet be the route to ‘Western’ destruction? Terminal petrification of a civil society with politicians terrified of saying the wrong thing lest they lose a single vote?
Financial and social values lurching from dealing with one of two political polar opposites every few years causing mayhem and upheaval every time.
Economies barely able to plan for the next two or three years when they should be planning for decades ahead because one wrong decision will see the opposition prevail and wreck their plans?
Meanwhile the Chinese political hybrid simply says, here’s the deal, lets get on with it.
And make no mistake, the Chinese are an industrious nation. I met a young Chinese student over in the UK studying engineering. He was amazed that it takes us weeks to repair an underground gas or water main. He told me it’s routine in China to have a gang of people working on a repair round the clock and there was a compulsion to succeed rapidly because it failed their fellow comrades if they spent a moment longer than necessary. Nor was he resentful of this work ethic, he was rightfully proud.
I have no answers but I’m damn sure the Western world can learn some valuable lessons from China.
Liberals, aka..democrats/socialists, need the poor of the world to stay poor…otherwise, the world would have no need for ” Liberals, aka..democrats/socialists “
They also apparently want to expand their most reliable voting demographic — the dead vote.
With so much invested in AGW the chances of the proponents giving in to facts are slim. Not that anyone should stop pointing out their “science” is faulty though because without push back they would just roll over the world. I suggest a different tact be taken….. namely calling out the countries that are claiming damages from AGW and outing their obvious hypocrisy. There should be a conscious effort to dramatize a world without fossil fuels for energy and chemical applications. The UK and Australia can be the poster children.
Many thanks for ur comments. I did not know it was an acronym.
I did not know ASEAN is an acronym.
“We don’t need policies that support renewables. We need policies that stop supporting coal, gas and oil. That’s all we need,” said Mr Assaad Razzouk”
Reminds me of the poem that goes:
How many Lies
Can a Climate Liar Lie,
If a Climate Liar
Can Lie Lies?
A very interesting poem Bruce. From my perspective I replace climate with Warmist.
But there you are; it all depends on whether one has done one’s homework. So many just peddle second hand opinions naively trusting they are valid.
A climate liar can lie all the lies a climate liar can lie, if a climate liar can lie lies.
Great, then governments the world over can revoke subsidies on renewables. (that’s the sound of an own-goal).
Finitely available, perhaps, and accessible hydrocarbons vs green, unreliable drivers and non-renewable converters. The organic black blob vs the artificial green blight. Go!
The organic black blob. The artificial green blight. Energy. Environment. Politics. Fight.
Whilst the West fiddles, Asia burns [coal].
Our politicians need to take note. Ignore these overtures at their peril.
No one in the developing world are the least interested in climate change and they will find ways of improving their lot despite the Western world telling them they are naughty for burning fossil fuels.
Shameful abdication of responsibility by Western politicians.
The only thing the Third World is concerned about is getting their payments on time from the Paris Accord. Then they will yak it up about climate change, and drowning under rising oceans. But no, they don’t do anything, and nor can they really. They should be cleaning up their air pollution first, and installing clean burning coal. CO2 is not a pollutant, and is not harmful to life or limb, but all the pollution from dirty coal is a problem, including all the 30-40 year old diesel buses or Jeepney’s, or 2 stroke trikes that are as dirty as a coal fired steam engine. Never mind all the Carbon Monoxide pollution that is lowering the IQ in metro (fill in the blank).
Earthling2
Payments from the Paris Accord are utterly meaningless to China. A drop in the bucket. But if the Paris Accord can stall Western economies politically, so much the better for them.
As for their air, sea and land pollution, the West did it first. Albeit the Chinese should have learned from it, but who are we to judge? It’s their country, they didn’t object to western progress when we were choking the planet.
Asians use Tuk Tuk’s and 2 stroke mopeds, we use people carriers and 4×4’s. They pack ten people onto a road going to work every morning to our one person driving a 4×4. And no longer are they nearly as filthy as they were, emission standards for vehicles are probably as good as they are in the UK and the US because they make the things anyway for Western markets, so why not use them?
Industrialisation and progress comes at a cost. The Chinese are paying it, largely to their personal cost, not that I believe for a moment that the images of smog bound cities and mask wearing orientals are any more truthful than their perception of America as a nation of black, gun running, drug dealing rappers.
The political and social model China is developing has, to my knowledge, never been attempted before. It has it’s humanitarian drawbacks, but didn’t our Western political movements until we cleaned them up?
Perhaps we might cautiously welcome a new political dawn rather than scorn it as simply communism. I mean, traditional communism would never have allowed the common man to own a Rolls Royce yet I believe China is the company’s biggest market now.
“Perhaps we might cautiously welcome a new political dawn rather than scorn it as simply communism. I mean, traditional communism would never have allowed the common man to own a Rolls Royce yet I believe China is the company’s biggest market now.”
—
We usually agree but you want to risk it all on the mere possibility that this might be OK?
Not on your Nelly! Not for me or mine thanks.
Whilst the West fiddles (with the data), Asia burns [coal].
fixed it fir ya 🙂
Show the ASEAN countries so called “green” energy systems, that are effective at scale, have high availability, maintainable, deployable now, and are demonstrably (real world examples) equal or cheaper than coal/gas power (with financial game playing). They would probably buy them. The fact that they are not is just a sign of reality and common sense rather than any struggle.
Puerto Rico is a prime example. I am sure a tour can be give to see the future of renewable energy in the tropics.
Pictures of Puerto Rico’s windmills and solar panels are incredible!
Imagine if all the money that has been wasted on windmills and solar panels had been put into engineering less expensive nuclear power facilities. And if all the energy spent demonizing nuclear power had been spent promoting it. Instead of adding some inconsequential proportion of “renewable” energy, much of this additional energy capacity could have been nuclear.
So why does the Activist crowd keep spewing on about windmills and solar panels if a solution to CO2 emissions already exists for the asking? You can only suspend democracy and justify massive wealth transfers when you’re on the path to failure.
Singapore’s islands rise rapidly from the sea. Easily checked on Google Earth.
SLR is of double ought zero consequence to them.
It is demonstrably a white affliction and the sooner we get that the better we will understand that the rest of the world are pragmatists and self-interested in a perfectly normal way. The marxbrothers in Europe know this and that is why they are trying to buy their commitment. The ROW has been holding out its hand in vain and so the predictable – get into coal and the business of raising themselves up out of stagnation and poverty. They know not to trust the ‘Bature’ or ‘Bawana’ but holding your hand out is an easy test. India even proffered the deal they would accept a few years ago, 400Billion was it? and with all the grand fetes it looked promising. Now that a fellow like Trump has inevitably appeared, they knew the game was over and so its back to Plan A which they had all along.
I see this article and Just wrote a poem on the subject
It’s the time of the year again but wishing for White Christmas is racist they call – so be politically correct – burn more coal and make the soot fall.
Here in Australia we have a problem regarding energy. The two parties Liberal, i.e. Conservative, and Labour have over the yeaars locked themselves into climate change, Turnbull of the Lberals was very close to Labour in his thnkng.
Now the fnancial world saay that therir duty is to their shareholders, so anything that makes profits is good, regardless as to where that comes from. So while the Renewables are subsised which , of course they are, then the shareholder is happy if their firm invests in renewables.
No one will build a coal fired power station unless it can make a bigger profit than renewables, which with the one sided subsidies it cannot.
Labour has locked itself into the mess saying that it wants to “Save the Planet”so they are all for even more renewables. The Liberal say they cannot build coal fired power stations, its against their idology that only Free enter prise can fix anything, which clearly in this case it cannot.
Sadly we will just have to wit until the lights go out permantly then it will take year s to clean up the mess.
MJEi
Here in Australia we have a problem regarding energy. The two parties Liberal, i.e. Conservative, and Labour have over the yeaars locked themselves into climate change, Turnbull of the Lberals was very close to Labour in his thnkng.
Now the fnancial world saay that therir duty is to their shareholders, so anything that makes profits is good, regardless as to where that comes from. So while the Renewables are subsised which , of course they are, then the shareholder is happy if their firm invests in renewables.
No one will build a coal fired power station unless it can make a bigger profit than renewables, which with the one sided subsidies it cannot.
Labour has locked itself into the mess saying that it wants to “Save the Planet”so they are all for even more renewables. The Liberal say they cannot build coal fired power stations, its against their idology that only Free enter prise can fix anything, which clearly in this case it cannot.
Sadly we will just have to wit until the lights go out, then it will take year s to clean up the mess.
MJEi
Looking into my crystal-ball, looks like “Asean”, if they can’t build coal plants & are forced to rely on renewables, are indeed headed for an energy crisis. China will then champion themselves as the savior and use that to extend their influence (including military) into the region to “save” it.
Poorer countries look at the “West” and see that access to copious cheap energy has allowed prosperity. Naturally, those countries want to improve in the same way, but have difficulty in accessing finance for sufficient energy. They are not stupid, and can see that the religiously-approved renewables just will not suffice. Probably that is why Rosatom has forward orders for 38 nuclear units in countries ranging from Hungary through Africa, India. China, to Indonesia. Reports indicate that Zambia hopes to break ground for its nuke next year. { Politically, Orban seems to have done well in being able to use EU money to buy a Russian nuke despite the political differences between Hungary and Brussella.}