Wind and solar in many ways have already gotten where they need to be. They will continue to get cheaper which will certainly help us. But what we really need now is solutions to tackle the variable output. Thus it may be particular battery technology, nextgen nuclear, metal burning, cheap electrofuels or something else that gets us there.

A note on metal burning. This sounds a bit nuts, but if you grind metal to powder and suspend it in air you can burn it. In fact this is exactly how a Pulverized coal-fired boiler works. They blow pulverized coal into the burner. With powder suspended in air things burn better.

Thus you could modify existing coal plants to burn metal powder instead of coal. This is of course not an energy source but an energy carrier. You would use renewable energy to smelt iron or other metals which are later used as fuel in old coal power plants.

The benefit of burning metal over coal is that you don't get any CO2. Burning metal produce metal oxides, basically rust, which you can collect and smelt again using renewables.

The reason I elaborate on this is because it is very much in line with the old boring technology approach I advocate. Burning metal is pretty low tech. It is not like fusion power.

PS: Regarding China. I honeslty have no idea. They may very well do a good job. But they don't have a great safety record on other things. China is amazing at building large things fast and cheap. But in terms of quality they don't seem to be equally good as in the West. When you got a dictatorship it is harder for peopel to speak out about problems.