Authored by Haley Zaremba via OilPrice.com,
China just broke ground on a revolutionary new hybridized energy production and storage facility. The power plant will store excess energy in the form of molten salt, and then produce electricity during peak demand times through a supercritical carbon dioxide system. The goal of the project is to limit energy waste while also stabilizing the local power grid. The project could also inform future next-gen energy and energy storage systems, including for application in the nuclear power sector and even on the moon.
Construction of the Ruitan demonstration project began last week in Shandong province in eastern China. The facility is expected to be up and running by next year, at which point it will be the first of its kind to operate on the planet. The first phase of the project will involve a supercritical unit with a capacity of 50 megawatts, and a molten salt energy storage system with a 100 megawatt capacity.
The facility is being built on the site of an existing coal-fired plant, the Bajiao power station in Yantai. The new system will capture surplus energy from the coal plant when demand is low and store it in the form of thermal energy within a molten salt reactor. Then, at peak demand hours, that thermal energy will be used to power a supercritical unit that uses carbon dioxide to spin a turbine to create electricity, instead of using steam like a traditional power plant. The carbon dioxide is held under very specific temperature and pressure ranges, at which point the molecules behave like both a liquid and a gas and can power a closed-loop system.
Supercritical carbon dioxide units offer several critical advantages. "These plants are smaller than traditional units, do not require water, have higher power generation efficiency and produce fewer carbon emissions," reports the South China Morning Post. Moreover, they are highly adjustable and more agile than traditional power plants.
The experimental site is just one of a huge number of cutting edge and next-gen clean energy technologies being developed and deployed across China. The country is currently home to the biggest and fastest-growing clean energy tech sector on the planet, with research and development of new methods on the rise at an astonishing pace. In 2000, Chinese companies filed approximately 5 percent of the world's clean energy patent applications. By 2022, that figure was 75 percent.
"Accused for years of copying the technologies of other countries, China now dominates the renewable energy landscape not just in terms of patent filings and research papers, but in what analysts say are major contributions that will help to move the world away from fossil fuels," the New York Times wrote in an August 2025 report.
This assertive approach has helped China to rapidly establish itself as the world's first electrostate. Between the years 2019 and 2025, China outspent the rest of the world combined on energy energy investing, contributing more than half of the $1.1 trillion invested globally. By comparison, the United States, the world's largest economy, saw a relatively paltry $236 billion in clean energy investing. This has given China unprecedented reach and leverage in global clean energy markets. Thanks to the extreme concentration of clean energy manufacturing and development in China, the rest of the world is reliant on Chinese technologies to enable their own clean energy buildout.
And when it comes to energy storage, the United States is moving backward. In an attempt to wean U.S. markets off of Chinese clean energy supply chains, the Trump administration recently ordered a ban on using Chinese-made batteries in utility-scale energy storage systems. However, the vague wording of the executive order has left developers in limbo, while barring U.S. companies from buying affordable Chinese-made batteries may kneecap capacity additions in the short term.
While the technology being developed at Ruitan cannot directly compete with battery storage and will likely never make up a huge segment of the energy storage system, it is one piece of an all-of-the-above approach to energy tech that has allowed Beijing to establish what will likely be lasting energy dominance on a global scale.
Tyler Durden Fri, 09/25/2026 - 21:45The Ansar Allah movement, commonly called the Houthis, have remained the most recognizable name and force in Yemen of late, but lesser known among many headline consumers is the country's internationally recognized government, which is directly backed by the Saudis and recognized by the United Nations.
Rashid Al-Alimi, president of the 'legitimate' government based out of Sanaa, on Friday called on all Yemenis to mobilize and join the armed forces against the Houthi rebels' onslaught.
Source: Iranian presidency's officeThe general call to arms, coupled with a declaration of future general amnesty to any Houthi fighters who decide to lay down their weapons and defect - suggests that the Saudi-backed coalition seeks desperate measures.
"I call upon the sons of our great people to engage in general mobilization and national mobilization, to rally around their armed and security forces," Al-Alimi, who is also Supreme Commander of the Yemeni Armed Forces, said in a speech.
Things quickly went from bad to worse for Riyadh on the Yemen front this month, especially after Houthi rapid gains along the Red Sea coast.
After some direct drone or missile hits on the East-West pipeline earlier in September (which may have been Iraqi Shia militias, per US officials), Saudi Aramco told European refineries that it would cancel crude shipments in October. But Reuters has since reported that the pipeline has restarted.
The Saudis are currently trying to rally support from Mecca Defense Pact allies Pakistan and Turkey, though its anything but clear how much support these will actually commit.
In the midst of all this, somewhat unexpectedly, French President Emmanuel Macron declared he would send "military means" to help shield the vital Yanbu oil terminal from Houthi attacks - though it's unclear what precise difference a handful of ground units might make.
More Houthi ballistic missiles were launched on Saudi Arabia this week:
🇫🇷🇸🇦🇾🇪 L'Arabie saoudite a dit avoir intercepté une attaque de missiles tirés du #Yémen voisin par les Houthis pro-iraniens. Les défenses aériennes ont abattu six missiles visant les régions de Taïf et de Yanbu.
👉 Emmanuel #Macron a déclaré y envoyer des "moyens militaires"… pic.twitter.com/P76NzF7RIy
"We are going to send military resources, that is to say, soldiers, radar systems and defense systems, to protect this site," but "not to get us involved in any conflicts," Macron informed French media.
But instead they could just find themselves in the direct line of fire for Houthi projectiles.
Tyler Durden Fri, 09/25/2026 - 21:20Authored by News Desk via The Cradle,
China has sent Iran around 1,300 shipments of missile and drone parts this year through the end of June, as the Islamic Republic faced a brutal US-Israeli campaign against it, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on 23 September.
(Photo credit: NurPhoto/Getty Images)One of the shipments arrived the same day the April ceasefire was announced, according to Iranian customs data cited by the outlet.
It carried a shipment for the Iranian Defense Ministry that included electronic components used to make parts for drones and missile guidance systems.
Another Chinese shipment two days later carried drone parts for Iran, worth more than $6 million, according to WSJ.
WSJ writes that there has been a surge in Chinese cargo flights to Iran over the past year, coinciding with several new Iranian warnings.
Tehran's military recently said it received intelligence of upcoming US attacks.
After the 12-day war between Iran and Israel in June 2025, Hebrew media began expressing concern over Chinese military support for Iran.
The concern lay with Chinese-Iranian cooperation on the manufacture of surface-to-surface missiles, Yedioth Ahronoth said in August last year.
Since the start of the latest illegal war by Washington and Tel Aviv, Iran has inflicted unprecedented damage on US military installations across the region.
Israel, which uses heavy military censorship to cover up losses, was also heavily targeted.
The Islamic Republic recently warned that new weapons will be used in the event of a renewed escalation by the US or Israel.
"Iran is prepared for a prolonged war," said Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) spokesman Brigadier General Hossein Mohebbi this week.
He added that "If a new aggression takes place, there will definitely be significant changes in our defense and our counteroffensive."
"We will definitely bring new weapons with new capabilities into the battlefield, and the world will be surprised," Mohebbi went on to say. "We will definitely change the geography of the war."
Tyler Durden Fri, 09/25/2026 - 20:55