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Will War Make Europe’s Switch to Clean Energy Even Harder?

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At the Siemens Gamesa factory in Aalborg, Denmark, where the next generation of offshore wind turbines is being built, workers are on their hands and knees inside a shallow, canoe-shaped pod that stretches the length of a football field. It is a mold used to produce one half of a single propeller blade. Guided by laser markings, the crew is lining the sides with panels of balsa wood.The gargantuan blades offer a glimpse of the energy future that Europe is racing toward with sudden urgency. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia — the European Union’s largest supplier of natural gas and oil — has spurred governments to accelerate plans to reduce their dependence on climate-changing fossil fuels. Armed conflict has prompted policymaking pledges that the more distant threat of an uninhabitable planet has not.Smoothly managing Europe’s energy switch was always going to be difficult. Now, as economies stagger back from the second year of the pandemic, Russia’s attack on Ukraine grinds on and energy prices soar, the painful trade-offs have crystallized like never before.Moving investments away from oil, gas and coal to sustainable sources like wind and solar, limiting and taxing carbon emissions, and building a new energy infrastructure to transmit electricity are crucial to weaning Europe off fossil fuels. But they are all likely to raise costs during the transition, an extremely difficult pill for the public and politicians to swallow.The crisis that has inspired Europe to more quickly reach toward clean energy sources like wind and solar also risks pitching it backward by unwinding efforts to shut coal mines and stop drilling new oil and gas wells to replace Russian fuel and bring prices down.Workers at Siemens Gamesa preparing a mold used to produce one half of a single propeller blade.Carsten Snejbjerg for The New York TimesIn Germany, Europe’s largest economy, leaders are planning to have several coal-fired power plants that were recently taken off the grid placed in reserve, so that they could be quickly fired up if needed. After years of dithering about investing so much in the natural gas infrastructure, Germany is also accelerating plans to build its own terminals for receiving liquefied natural gas, another fossil fuel.“Security of our energy supply stands above everything else at the moment,” said Robert Habeck, the country’s economy minister and a Green party leader in the coalition government.Local officials are taking similar steps. Last week, the Munich government decided to extend the life of one of the city’s coal-fired power plants, scrapping plans to convert it to burn natural gas in spring 2023.And that’s in a country that has helped spearhead Europe’s efforts to shift to renewable energy.In Poland, which gets 70 percent of its energy from coal and has been at loggerheads with the European Union over the climate agenda, the sudden energy shortage is being used by critics as evidence that the push to shut mines was a mistake.A power plant in Poland run by CEZ Group, a Czech conglomerate of companies in the energy sector.Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York TimesDominik Kolorz, head of the Silesian region of Solidarity Trade Union, said through a translator that “the so-called E.U. climate policy” was leading to a “huge economic crisis” and “total energy dependence on the Russian Federation.”In many ways, Europe has been a leading laboratory for the decades-long transition. It started establishing taxes on carbon emissions more than 20 years ago. The European Union pioneered an emissions trading system, which capped the amount of greenhouse gases companies produced and created a marketplace where licenses for those emissions could be bought and sold. Polluting industries like steel were gradually pushed to clean up. Last year, members proposed a carbon tax on imports from carbon-producing sectors like steel and cement.And it has led the way in generating wind power, especially from ocean-based turbines. Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, for example, has been instrumental in planting rows of colossal whirligigs at sea that can generate enough green energy to light up cities.Europe, too, is on the verge of investing billions in hydrogen, potentially the multipurpose clean fuel of the future, which might be generated by wind turbines.At Siemens Gamesa in Brande, a prototype for an even larger wind turbine.Carsten Snejbjerg for The New York TimesWind turbines can potentially generate enough green energy to light up cities.Carsten Snejbjerg for The New York TimesSuch exhilarating innovation, though, sits next to despair-inducing obstacles.Even before the invasion of Ukraine, a tight natural gas market, exacerbated by Russia’s restraining of supplies, had pushed gas and electricity prices to record levels, leading to shutdowns of fertilizer plants and other factories because of high costs. Household energy bills are set to rise by about 50 percent in Britain and drivers across Europe faced shock at the pump.European countries, most notably Germany, had mapped out strategies that relied on increasing dependence on Russian gas and oil in the medium term. That is no longer an option.After the invasion, Olaf Scholz, the chancellor of Germany, halted approval of Nord Stream 2, an $11 billion gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea that directly links Russia to northeastern Germany.As Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, said when she announced a plan on March 8 to make Europe independent of Russian fossil fuels: “We simply cannot rely on a supplier who explicitly threatens us.” The proposal calls for member nations to reduce Russian natural gas imports by two-thirds by next winter and to end them altogether by 2027 — a very tall order.This week, European Union leaders are again meeting to discuss the next phase of proposals, but deep divisions remain over how to manage the current price increases amid anxieties that Europe could face a double whammy of inflation and recession.On Monday, United Nations Secretary General António Guterres warned that intense focus on quickly replacing Russian oil could mean that major economies “neglect or kneecap policies to cut fossil fuel use.”A hydrogen test station near the Siemens Gamesa design center. Hydrogen produced with wind power could be a multipurpose clean fuel of the future.Carsten Snejbjerg for The New York TimesThere are other technological, financial, regulatory and political hurdles. The ability to cheaply generate, transport and store a clean replacement fuel like hydrogen to power trucks, cars and airplanes remains years away.And there is the need to find a better business model.Siemens Gamesa is the world’s leading maker of offshore wind turbines, a key vehicle for achieving climate targets. The company is also working on a giant turbine that would be dedicated solely to producing green hydrogen.Yet, at the company’s offshore design center in Brande, a two-hour drive from Aalborg, the conversations focus on worries as much as bright prospects. The company just replaced its chief executive because of poor financial performance.Industry executives say that despite the huge climate ambitions of many countries, Siemens Gamesa and its competitors are struggling to make a profit and keep the orders coming in fast enough to finance their factories. It doesn’t help that building plants is often a condition for breaking into new markets like the United States, where Siemens Gamesa agreed to erect a facility in Virginia.Morten Pilgaard Rasmussen of Siemens Gamesa says companies like his struggle to get projects approved swiftly.Carsten Snejbjerg for The New York TimesMorten Pilgaard Rasmussen, chief technology officer of the offshore wind unit at Siemens Gamesa, said that companies like his “are now forced to do investments based on the prosperous future that we are all waiting for.”The Russia-Ukraine War and the Global EconomyCard 1 of 6Rising concerns. More

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    Russian Conflict in Ukraine is Reshaping the Climate Debate

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    Energy security has gained prominence while the conflict in Ukraine raises concerns over the possible interruption in the supply of oil and natural gas.It was only three months ago that world leaders met at the Glasgow climate summit and made ambitious pledges to reduce fossil fuel use. The perils of a warming planet are no less calamitous now, but the debate about the critically important transition to renewable energy has taken a back seat to energy security as Russia — Europe’s largest energy supplier — threatens to start a major confrontation with the West over Ukraine while oil prices are climbing toward $100 a barrel.For more than a decade, policy discussions in Europe and beyond about cutting back on gas, oil and coal emphasized safety and the environment, at the expense of financial and economic considerations, said Lucia van Geuns, a strategic energy adviser at the Hague Center for Strategic Studies. Now, it’s the reverse.“Gas prices became very high, and all of a sudden security of supply and price became the main subject of public debate,” she said.The renewed emphasis on energy independence and national security may encourage policymakers to backslide on efforts to decrease the use of fossil fuels that pump deadly greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.Already, skyrocketing prices have spurred additional production and consumption of fuels that contribute to global warming. Coal imports to the European Union in January rose more than 56 percent from the previous year.In Britain, the Coal Authority gave a mine in Wales permission last month to increase output by 40 million tons over the next two decades. In Australia, there are plans to open or expand more coking coal mines. And China, which has traditionally made energy security a priority, has further stepped up its coal production and approved three new billion-dollar coal mines this week.“Get your rig count up,” Jennifer Granholm, the U.S. energy secretary, said in December, urging American oil producers to raise their output. Shale companies in Oklahoma, Colorado and other states are looking to resurrect drilling that had ceased because there is suddenly money to be made. And this month, Exxon Mobil announced plans to increase spending on new oil wells and other projects.A coal-fired power station in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, in January.Martin Meissner/Associated PressIan Goldin, a professor of globalization and development at the University of Oxford, warned that high energy prices could lead to more exploration of traditional fossil fuels. “Governments will want to deprioritize renewables and sustainables, which would be exactly the wrong response,” he said.Europe’s transition to sustainable energy has always been an intricate calculus, requiring it to back away from the dirtiest fossil fuel like coal, while still working with gas and oil producers to power homes, cars and factories until better alternatives are available.For Germany, dependency on Russian gas has been an integral part of its environmental blueprint for many years. Plans for the first direct pipeline between the two countries, Nord Stream 1, started in 1997. A leader in the push to reduce carbon emissions, Berlin has moved to shutter coal mines and nuclear power plants, after the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan. The idea was that Russian gas would supply the needed fuel during the yearslong transition to cleaner energy sources. Two-thirds of the gas Germany burned last year came from Russia.Future plans called for even more gas to be delivered through Nord Stream 2, a new 746-mile pipeline under the Baltic Sea that directly links Russia to northeastern Germany.On Tuesday, after President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia recognized two breakaway republics in Ukraine and mobilized forces, Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany halted final regulatory review of the $11 billion pipeline, which was completed last year.The Nord Stream 2 pipeline was set to deliver Russian gas to Lubmin, Germany.Stefan Sauer/picture alliance via Getty Images“I don’t think the threat from Russia is outweighing the threat of climate change, and I don’t see coal mines opening up across Europe,” said James Nixey, director of the Russia-Eurasia program at Chatham House, a research organization in London.Certainly, the path of energy transition has never been clear. Five climate summits have taken place over the past 30 years, and progress has always fallen short. This latest setback may just be the latest in a long series of halfway measures and setbacks.Still, without a more comprehensive strategy to wean itself off gas, Europe won’t be able to accomplish its goal of reducing emissions 55 percent by 2030 compared with 1990 levels, or to reach the Glasgow summit’s target of cutting net greenhouse gases to zero by 2050.As Mr. Nixey acknowledged, “this debate is changing” as leaders are forced to acknowledge the downsides of dependency on Russian energy.Even in Germany, where the progressive Greens have gained a more influential voice in the government, there has been a shift in tone.This month, Robert Habeck, Germany’s new minister for the economy and climate change and a member of the Greens, said events had underscored the need to diversify supplies. “We need to act here and secure ourselves better,” he said. “If we don’t, we will become a pawn in the game.”Energy prices started to climb before Mr. Putin began massing troops on Ukraine’s eastern border, as countries emerged from pandemic closures and demand shot up.But as Mr. Putin moved aggressively against Ukraine and energy prices soared further, the political and strategic vulnerabilities presented by Russia’s control of so much of Europe’s supply took center stage.“Europe is quite dependent on Russian gas and oil, and this is unsustainable,” said Sarah E. Mendelson, the head of Heinz College in Washington. She added that the United States and its European allies had not focused enough on energy independence in recent years.Overall, Europe gets more than a third of its natural gas and 25 percent of its oil from Russia. Deliveries have slowed significantly in recent months, while reserves in Europe have fallen to just 31 percent of capacity.Mateusz Garus, a blacksmith at a coal mine in Poland. “We will destroy the power sector,” he said, “and we will be dependent on others like Russia.”Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York TimesFor critics of the European Union’s climate policies, the sudden focus away from greenhouse gas emissions and on existing fuel reserves is validating.Arkadiusz Siekaniec, vice president of the Trade Union of Miners in Poland, has long argued that the European Union’s push to end coal production on the continent was folly. But now he hopes that others may come around to his point of view.The climate policy “is a suicidal mission” that could leave the entire region overly dependent on Russian fuel, Mr. Siekaniec said last week as American troops landed in his country. “It threatens the economy as well as the citizens of Europe and Poland.”For Mateusz Garus, a blacksmith at Jankowice, a coal mine in Upper Silesia, the heart of coal country, politics and not climate change are driving policy. “We will destroy the power sector,” he said, “and we will be dependent on others like Russia.” More

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    The Achilles’ Heel of Biden’s Climate Plan? Coal Miners.

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    For years, environmentalists have sought compromises with labor unions in industries reliant on fossil fuels, aware that one of the biggest obstacles to cutting carbon emissions is opposition from the unions’ members.States like Washington, New York and Illinois have enacted renewable-energy laws that were backed by unions representing workers who build and maintain traditional power plants. And unions for electricians and steelworkers are rallying behind President Biden’s climate and social policy legislation, now in the Senate’s hands.But at least one group of workers appears far less enthusiastic about the deal-making: coal workers, who continue to regard clean-energy jobs as a major risk to their standard of living.“It’s definitely going to pay less, not have our insurance,” Gary Campbell, a heavy-equipment operator at a coal mine in West Virginia, said of wind and solar jobs. “We see windmills around us everywhere. They’re up, then everybody disappears. It’s not consistent.”Mr. Biden has sought to address the concerns about pay with subsidies that provide incentives for wind and solar projects to offer union-scale wages. His bill includes billions in aid, training money and redevelopment funds that will help coal communities.But Phil Smith, the top lobbyist for the United Mine Workers of America, said a general skepticism toward promises of economic relief was nonetheless widespread among his members. “We’ve heard the same things over and over and over again going back to J.F.K.,” Mr. Smith said. The union has been pointedly mum on the current version of Mr. Biden’s bill, which the president is calling Build Back Better.Unfortunately for Mr. Biden, this skepticism has threatened to undermine his efforts on climate change. While there are fewer than 50,000 unionized coal miners in the country, compared with the millions of industrial and construction workers who belong to unions, miners have long punched above their weight thanks to their concentration in election battleground states like Pennsylvania or states with powerful senators, like Joe Manchin III of West Virginia.When Mr. Manchin, a Democrat and one of the chamber’s swing votes, came out against Mr. Biden’s $150 billion clean electricity program in October, his move effectively killed what many environmentalists considered the most critical component of the president’s climate agenda. The miners’ union applauded.And Mr. Manchin and his constituents will continue to exert outsize influence over climate policy. Mr. Biden’s roughly $2 trillion bill includes about $550 billion in spending on green technology and infrastructure. Even if the bill passes largely intact, most experts say future government action will be necessary to stave off the catastrophic effects of global warming.All of that has raised the stakes for courting coal miners.“Our guiding principle is the belief that we don’t have to choose between good jobs and a clean environment,” said Jason Walsh, the executive director of the BlueGreen Alliance, which has united labor and environmental groups to marshal support for initiatives like Mr. Biden’s. “But our ability to continue to articulate that belief with a straight face depends on the policy choices we make.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}“Coal miners,” he added, “are at the center of that.”It is impossible to explain mine workers’ jaundiced view of Mr. Biden’s agenda without appreciating their heightened economic vulnerability: Unlike the carpenters and electricians who work at power plants but could apply their skills to renewable-energy projects, many miners are unlikely to find jobs on wind and solar farms that resemble their current work. (Some, like equipment operators, have more transferable skills.)It is also difficult to overstate the political gamesmanship that has shaped the discourse on miners. In her 2016 presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton proposed spending $30 billion on economic aid for coal country. But a verbal miscue — “We’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business,” she said while discussing her proposal at a town hall — allowed opponents to portray her as waging a “war on coal.”“It is a politicized situation in which one political party that’s increasingly captured by industry benefits from the status quo by perpetuating this rhetoric,” said Matto Mildenberger, a political scientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who studies the politics of climate policy.And then there is Mr. Manchin, a complicated political figure who is among the Senate’s leading recipients of campaign money from the fossil fuel industry.Mr. Manchin has sometimes resisted provisions favored by the miners’ union, such as wage-replacement payments to coal workers who must accept a lower-paying job. “At the end of the day, it wasn’t something he was interested in doing,” said Mr. Smith, the union’s lobbyist. A spokeswoman for Mr. Manchin declined to comment.Yet in other ways Mr. Manchin has channeled his constituents’ feelings well, suggesting that he might be more enthusiastic about renewable-energy legislation if they were.At a forum in the spring, he talked about the tendency to forget coal miners — “We feel like the returning Vietnam veteran,” he said — and questioned the proposed trade of “the traditional jobs we’re about to lose, for the transitional jobs that I’m not sure are going to be there.”In interviews, coal workers said they were skeptical that Mr. Biden’s spending plan would ultimately benefit them. Mr. Campbell, a recording secretary for his union local, said he would be pleased if an electric-vehicle battery plant opened in West Virginia under a manufacturing tax credit pending in Congress.“It’s definitely going to pay less, not have our insurance,” Gary Campbell, a heavy-equipment operator at the Loveridge mine, said of wind and solar work.Kristian Thacker for The New York TimesBut he doubted it would happen. “Until something gets done, I don’t want to jump on anyone’s coattail,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of promises, that’s about it.”Dustin Tingley, an expert on public opinion on climate policy at Harvard University, said that while investments in green technology were popular among the general public, many coal country residents simply didn’t believe these investments would produce jobs in their communities over the long term.“If you’re some 35-year-old, 40-year-old worker in fossil fuels thinking about transitioning to some new industry, you need to have the expectation that the jobs will actually be around,” Dr. Tingley said.The clean-energy bill that Illinois passed in September illustrates the tension. The legislation allocated hundreds of millions of dollars to accelerate the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, and ensures that construction workers will receive union-scale wages on most nonresidential projects. It also includes tens of millions of dollars for worker training.But Doris Turner, a Democratic state senator from central Illinois whose district includes a coal-powered plant and mine workers, said she had voted “present” rather than “yea” on the bill because of lingering concerns about workers.Ms. Turner, a first-term senator who helped win a concession to extend the life of the local coal plant, said she sometimes felt like the Joe Manchin of Illinois. “I’m trying to build relationships with new colleagues, and all of a sudden here we are with this energy legislation and I’m like, ‘I can’t do that,’” Ms. Turner said. “Nobody was very rude, but I could hear sighs.”Pat Devaney, the secretary-treasurer of the Illinois A.F.L.-C.I.O., who was involved in negotiating the bill, said coal workers presented the most vexing policy dilemma.“That one is a little bit tougher of a nut to crack,” he said, adding that the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and other labor groups would continue to push for proposals like health benefits and lost-wage compensation for displaced workers, programs that didn’t make it into the recently enacted Illinois law.Such delays in economic relief are typical and have heightened miners’ opposition to clean-energy legislation, said Heidi Binko, executive director of the Just Transition Fund, a nonprofit group focused on growing local economies hit hard by the decline of fossil fuels.Ms. Binko cited the example of the Obama administration, which in 2014 proposed an ambitious regulatory effort to reduce carbon emissions that appeared likely to accelerate the closing of coal-fired plants. The administration later unveiled an economic development package for coal country — after voters there had already become alarmed.“It would have been received so differently if first the administration had done something to help the people left behind,” Ms. Binko said.Private philanthropists have often reinforced the problem, Ms. Binko said, by spending millions on campaigns to shut down coal plants, but little on economic development that would ease the political opposition to renewable energy in states like West Virginia.Carrie Doyle, a senior fellow in the environment program of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, which makes grants to organizations working on climate change, said philanthropists were only beginning to address the shortfall in funding for economic development.“It feels like it should have been put into place a while ago,” Ms. Doyle said. “Some of that funding is happening now, but it needs to scale.”While such efforts will come too late to ease the passage of Mr. Biden’s climate legislation, they could be essential to ensuring that renewable energy remains politically viable.Some scholars point to international trade as a cautionary tale. In the 1990s and 2000s, Congress approved multiple trade deals. Economists argued, as they do on renewable energy today, that the benefits to the country would far outweigh the costs, which would be concentrated among a small group of workers who could be compensated for their losses, or find new jobs for similar pay.But the failure to ease the economic blow to manufacturing workers, who many economists now concede were devastated by greater trade with China, helped unravel political support for free trade. In 2016, both major presidential nominees campaigned against the 12-nation trade pact that the Obama administration had spent years negotiating.If displaced fossil fuel workers go through a comparable experience, these scholars say, the political effects could be similar, unraveling support for climate policies.“There are lessons to be learned from that experience,” said Dr. Tingley, speaking of the fallout from trade. Among them, he added, “was just recognizing how hard it is to pivot, given where people are in life.” More

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    China Power Outages Close Factories and Threaten Growth

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    High demand and soaring energy prices have forced some factories to shut down, adding further problems for already snarled global supply chains.DONGGUAN, China — Power cuts and even blackouts have slowed or closed factories across China in recent days, adding a new threat to the country’s slowing economy and potentially further snarling global supply chains ahead of the busy Christmas shopping season in the West.The outages have rippled across most of eastern China, where the bulk of the population lives and works. Some building managers have turned off elevators. Some municipal pumping stations have shut down, prompting one town to urge residents to store extra water for the next several months, though it later withdrew the advice.There are several reasons electricity is suddenly in short supply in much of China. More regions of the world are reopening after pandemic-induced lockdowns, greatly increasing demand for China’s electricity-hungry export factories.Export demand for aluminum, one of the most energy-intensive products, has been strong. Demand has also been robust for steel and cement, central to China’s vast construction programs.As electricity demand has risen, it has also pushed up the price of coal to generate that electricity. But Chinese regulators have not let utilities raise rates enough to cover the rising cost of coal. So the utilities have been slow to operate their power plants for more hours.In the city of Dongguan, a major manufacturing hub near Hong Kong, a shoe factory that employs 300 workers rented a generator last week for $10,000 a month to ensure that work could continue. Between the rental costs and the diesel fuel for powering it, electricity is now twice as expensive as when the factory was simply tapping the grid.“This year is the worst year since we opened the factory nearly 20 years ago,” said Jack Tang, the factory’s general manager. Economists predicted that production interruptions at Chinese factories would make it harder for many stores in the West to restock empty shelves and could contribute to inflation in the coming months.Three publicly traded Taiwanese electronics companies, including two suppliers to Apple and one to Tesla, issued statements on Sunday night warning that their factories were among those affected. Apple had no immediate comment, while Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.It is not clear how long the power crunch will last. Experts in China predicted that officials would compensate by steering electricity away from energy-intensive heavy industries like steel, cement and aluminum, and said that might fix the problem.State Grid, the government-run power distributor, said in a statement on Monday that it would guarantee supplies “and resolutely maintain the bottom line of people’s livelihoods, development and safety.”Still, nationwide power shortages have prompted economists to reduce their estimates for China’s growth this year. Nomura, a Japanese financial institution, cut its forecast for economic expansion in the last three months of this year to 3 percent, from 4.4 percent.A power generator at a shoe factory in Dongguan. The rental and fuel costs make electricity from the device twice as expensive as when the factory was simply tapping the grid.Gilles Sabrié for The New York TimesThe electricity shortage is starting to make supply chain problems worse. The sudden restart of the world economy has led to shortages of key components like computer chips and has helped provoke a mix-up in global shipping lines, putting in the wrong places too many containers and the ships that carry them.Power supplies are little different. Compared with last year, electricity demand is growing this year in China at nearly twice its usual annual pace. Swelling orders for the smartphones, appliances, exercise equipment and other manufactured goods that China’s factories churn out has driven the rise.China’s power problems are contributing in some part to higher prices elsewhere, like in Europe. Experts said a surge in prices in China had drawn energy distributors to send ships laden with liquefied natural gas to Chinese ports, leaving others to scurry for further sources.But the bulk of China’s power problems are unique to the country.Two-thirds of China’s electricity comes from burning coal, which Beijing is trying to curb to address climate change. Coal prices have surged along with demand. But because the government keeps electricity prices low, particularly in residential areas, use by homes and businesses has climbed regardless.Faced with losing more money with each additional ton of coal they burn, some power plants have closed for maintenance in recent weeks, saying this was needed for safety reasons. Many other power plants have been operating below full capacity, and have been leery of increasing generation when that would mean losing more money, said Lin Boqiang, dean of the China Institute for Energy Policy Studies at Xiamen University.A workshop producing shoe parts in Dongguan. Prices for the components have already increased 30 to 50 percent from last year.Gilles Sabrié for The New York TimesChina’s main economic planning agency, the National Development and Reform Commission, also ordered 20 large cities and provinces in late August to reduce energy consumption for the rest of the year. The regulators cited a need to make sure that the cities and provinces met full-year targets set by Beijing for their carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels.Besides coal, hydroelectric dams supply much of the rest of China’s power, while wind turbines, solar panels and nuclear power plants play a growing role.China’s difficulty in keeping the lights on and the faucets running poses a challenge for Xi Jinping, the country’s top leader, and the Chinese Communist Party. They have taken a triumphalist stance this year, emphasizing China’s success in quickly eliminating outbreaks of the coronavirus and in winning the release of a senior Huawei executive, Meng Wanzhou, in a dispute with the United States and Canada.But Mr. Xi risks getting tagged for problems as well as successes. He has moved strongly to quell any opposition within the Communist Party and has extended its reach into more sectors of Chinese life. If people in China begin to point fingers, there are few others to blame.China’s economic rebound from the coronavirus has been driven in large part by heavy investment in infrastructure as well as the rise in exports. Overall industrial use consumes 70 percent of the electricity in China, led by the mostly state-owned producers of steel, cement and aluminum.“If those guys produce more, it has a huge impact on electricity demand,” Professor Lin said, adding that China’s economic minders would order those three industrial users to ease back.Disruptions from power shortages have already been felt in Dongguan, at the heart of China’s southern manufacturing belt. Its factories produce everything from electronics and toys to sweaters.The local power transmission authority in Houjie, a township in northwestern Dongguan, issued an order shutting off electricity to many factories from Wednesday through Sunday. On Monday morning, the suspension in industrial electricity service was extended at least through Tuesday night.Air-conditioners outside a worker dormitory in Dongguan. Factories in the city produce everything from electronics to toys to sweaters.Gilles Sabrié for The New York TimesThe throaty roar of huge diesel generators rumbled on Monday morning through the streets and alleys of Houjie, where scores of five-story, concrete-walled factories are nestled among low-rise apartment buildings for migrant workers. Air-conditioners were not running as temperatures climbed into the 90s, and only a few fluorescent lights gleamed in some of the factories’ windows.One of the noisy generators rumbled in a 20-foot yellow shipping container behind a factory where workers in bright blue and orange jumpsuits labored to assemble men’s and women’s leather shoes for American and European buyers.Mr. Tang, the general manager, said his factory had already faced especially strict power usage rules because the government labeled it a “low-profit, high-energy-consuming factory.”Along nearby alleys, a warren of small workshops was making insoles and other shoe components for assembly at Mr. Tang’s factory and other similar plants nearby. Prices for the components have already increased 30 to 50 percent from last year as labor costs and raw material prices rise, Mr. Tang said.“Many of us working in this line of business say that we are basically losing money this year,” he said at his factory on Monday morning, adding that power outages began this summer.Mr. Tang had to turn off his generator for two days last week after residents filed noise complaints with the local government. He also rented a metal cage to cover the generator to reduce the din.Some in the neighborhood, particularly shoe component manufacturers, were sympathetic, voicing a mixture of business pragmatism and nationalism.“Although it’s a bit noisy, I understand it,” said Wang Weidong, the owner of a shoe insole processing workshop. “There’s no other way — we will answer the call of the country.”Li You More