Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

China completes green belt around Taklamakan Desert

sand-boarding.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 161 posts

Re: China completes green belt around Taklamakan Desert

#41

Post by oivey »

emptysongglass wrote: post #32
abeppu wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've sometimes wondered whether arid parts of the American Southwest could, through the right kind of permaculture interventions, support more biological carbon sequestration, more plant life, drive development of richer soil etc. But I suspect if you said "we're gonna use this big section of BLM land to incrementally try to keep water in the landscape, and introduce a sequence of plant species that can increase carb…

That's kind of the point of democratic institutions, though: centralizing a lot of these directive powers leads to explosive efficiencies at the cost of liberty to, for example, surface objections as you illustrate. Or, more dramatically, throwing people who object into dark cells. That's how autocratic regimes can take on megaprojects without a lot of the red tape that leads to, for example, a paralytically slow rol…

This isn’t the traditional thought process on this topic. Traditionally, it was thought that the ills of resource allocation under democracy were far outweighed by the automatic optimization of the free market. The Soviets did a lot to suggest that the free market was actually better than central planning.

China is showing that with 21st century needs, technologies, and planning that may no longer be the case.

Re: China completes green belt around Taklamakan Desert

#42

Post by nyclounge »

skybrian wrote: post #25

I wonder whether this is working, as far as preventing desertification goes. The project has critics. It might just the state declaring victory? Edit: apparently it’s controversial. Will China’s “green Great Wall” save it from encroaching sands? https://www.economist.com/china/2024/12/05/will-chinas-green... https://archive.is/FVimm

That is probably why China is doing weather modification:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/03/asia/china-weather-modificati...

However people in India may have something concerns:

https://www.downtoearth.org.in/science-technology/-weather-m...

Yeah we are like kids playing match sticks!!! Just because we can, we shouldn't just do it!

Re: China completes green belt around Taklamakan Desert

#43

Post by zhaohan_dong »

soneca wrote: post #29

> ”The initiative combines solar-powered sand-blocking technology with extensive vegetation planting to stabilize the desert’s edges.” What sand-blocking tech is that? Does anyone know?

I think they put solar panels up and plant some bushes under the shade

Re: China completes green belt around Taklamakan Desert

#44

Post by maxglute »

skybrian wrote: post #25

I wonder whether this is working, as far as preventing desertification goes. The project has critics. It might just the state declaring victory? Edit: apparently it’s controversial. Will China’s “green Great Wall” save it from encroaching sands? https://www.economist.com/china/2024/12/05/will-chinas-green... https://archive.is/FVimm

Sandstorm days in BJ went from ~30s per year in 50s to single digits post 2000s. It's working, but sandstorm days also picking back up due to climate change (also increasing floods and other enviroment disasters), so more accurately to suggest it's mitigating.

Re: China completes green belt around Taklamakan Desert

#45

Post by emptysongglass »

oivey wrote: post #41
emptysongglass wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's kind of the point of democratic institutions, though: centralizing a lot of these directive powers leads to explosive efficiencies at the cost of liberty to, for example, surface objections as you illustrate. Or, more dramatically, throwing people who object into dark cells. That's how autocratic regimes can take on megaprojects without a lot of the red tape that leads to, for example, a paralytically slow rol…

This isn’t the traditional thought process on this topic. Traditionally, it was thought that the ills of resource allocation under democracy were far outweighed by the automatic optimization of the free market. The Soviets did a lot to suggest that the free market was actually better than central planning. China is showing that with 21st century needs, technologies, and planning that may no longer be the case.

Right, but I wasn't referring to old thought processes. I was referring to current.

Re: China completes green belt around Taklamakan Desert

#46

Post by JumpCrisscross »

bloopernova wrote: post #2

It took 46 years to create the 1,900 mile, ~3060 km green belt around the 130,350 square miles (337,600 km2) desert. The linked article doesn't say anything about negatives, but the positives seem to be very beneficial for the area. I really wish other major powers would commit to similar projects. In my opinion, communities need larger goals to strive towards, to provide a sense of continued belonging and reinvestme…

> wish other major powers would commit to similar projects

American engineering around the Mississippi River is massive. As is our hydroelectric engineering, and reclamation of urban and farm land. We don’t really have a lot of fucked territory that needs to be terraformed.

Re: China completes green belt around Taklamakan Desert

#47

Post by photochemsyn »

soneca wrote: post #29

> ”The initiative combines solar-powered sand-blocking technology with extensive vegetation planting to stabilize the desert’s edges.” What sand-blocking tech is that? Does anyone know?

They might be referring to dependence on solar-powered water pumps to irrigate the green belt, or the use of a field of solar panels with vegetation underneath to break up wind-driven sand migration. Another source discusses the construction of meter-high earthen walls, though its unclear how widely that was done. They're planning on building more solar and wind there, and China's UHV (ultra-high-voltage) grid will allow that power to be shipped east to where demand is highest:

https://interestingengineering.com/energy/chinas-largest-des...

> "Further energy development is underway in the Taklamakan Desert. The China Three Gorges Corporation plans to build a massive energy project featuring 8.5 gigawatts of solar power and 4 gigawatts of wind energy, expected to be completed in four years."

Re: China completes green belt around Taklamakan Desert

#48

Post by baserev »

maxglute wrote: post #33
baserev wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China has built 30,000 miles of high speed rails it doesn't need [1], going into $1 trillion of debt and other liabilities. Just keeping up with its debt requires $25 billion annually. Incidentally, Chinese local governments are now $11 trillion in debt [2], with all provinces except Shanghai in 2023 being positive on revenues. And now there are around 4000 ghost railway stations [3] [1]: https://www.wsj.com/world/ch…

>4000 ghost railway stations lol wut. There are ~5000 rail way stations TOTAL, ~1000 HSR, of which ~30 are considered ghost, i.e. 3% wasted stations on size of PRC network is stupid efficient. The system is generating positive profit with increasing utilization, hence expansion.

Citations please

Re: China completes green belt around Taklamakan Desert

#50

Post by lucianbr »

oivey wrote: post #41
emptysongglass wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's kind of the point of democratic institutions, though: centralizing a lot of these directive powers leads to explosive efficiencies at the cost of liberty to, for example, surface objections as you illustrate. Or, more dramatically, throwing people who object into dark cells. That's how autocratic regimes can take on megaprojects without a lot of the red tape that leads to, for example, a paralytically slow rol…

This isn’t the traditional thought process on this topic. Traditionally, it was thought that the ills of resource allocation under democracy were far outweighed by the automatic optimization of the free market. The Soviets did a lot to suggest that the free market was actually better than central planning. China is showing that with 21st century needs, technologies, and planning that may no longer be the case.

Looks like China is attempting a hybrid approach. Free market with the government intervening whenever and wherever it feels like.

They still get some optimization and some otherwise-impossible-projects. I'd say the jury is still out on this strategy.

Post reply on HN