On the one hand, the geometry is beautiful and almost serene; on the other, it's a reminder that decarbonization at this scale is still an industrial transformation of landscapes
Photos capture the breathtaking scale of China's wind and solar buildout
121–130 of 612 posts
Re: Photos capture the breathtaking scale of China's wind and solar buildout
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
I expect China to overbuild and the west to underbuild.
You say that and OpenAI is signing compute deals in excess of 20X current revenues.
Good point. Reality is more nuanced than simple overbuilding and underbuilding. Still, we aren't really still building enough housing and mass transit infrastructure.
That may hamper us more than anything else. If AI proves to be as beneficial as its proponents hyped, the economic gains will just mostly get soaked up by landowners. Even UBI won't save us, because it will just get absorbed by landowners. Ditto for renewable energy.
Re: Photos capture the breathtaking scale of China's wind and solar buildout
#123It is incredible to see just how many big-oil talking points there are in this thread. From renewable energies resource costs, to their land use impact. I didn't realise just how effective their propaganda was in the tech space till reading this thread. That is not to say that these projects should be free of criticism, but anyone who believes these negatives are remotely close to the damage that fossil fuels are doi…
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Ok, I'll bite. What if solar panels turn into breeding grounds with perfect environmental temperatures to create viruses that kill us all? Who is to say the sun won't blow up tomorrow? Why not enumerate all the things that might happen to distract? There is a nice quote going around re a weather scientists who gets asked annually what's it going to be like this year? He's tired, and notes "this year, and every year for the rest of your life is going to be the hottest ever." That's in large part to oil, full stop.
Re: Photos capture the breathtaking scale of China's wind and solar buildout
#124If the US ever blocks Chinese ports the lights will be kept on. Although I'm sure that situation will end with a mushroom cloud.
Re: Photos capture the breathtaking scale of China's wind and solar buildout
#125It is incredible to see just how many big-oil talking points there are in this thread. From renewable energies resource costs, to their land use impact. I didn't realise just how effective their propaganda was in the tech space till reading this thread. That is not to say that these projects should be free of criticism, but anyone who believes these negatives are remotely close to the damage that fossil fuels are doi…
Criticism is healthy. False equivalence isn't.
Re: Photos capture the breathtaking scale of China's wind and solar buildout
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was just about to make precisely the same comment. The fear, uncertainty, and doubt about renewables here is ridiculous, and I expected better. I suppose everyone watched too much Landman . China is rocketing ahead in every domain possible, from resource and financial independence, to infrastructure in terms of high-speed rail, bridges, roads, advanced fission reactors and bleeding-edge fusion research. Heavy indus…
I expect China to overbuild and the west to underbuild.
Overbuilding energy doesn't seem like a problem, if Jevon's paradox applies to ANYTHING, it applies to energy.
Re: Photos capture the breathtaking scale of China's wind and solar buildout
#127It genuinely makes me so sad to see the US not doing the same. Having grown up to the constant beat of “energy independence” as the core goal of a party it seemed obvious that the nearly limitless energy that rains down from the sky would be the answer. But instead we’ve kept choosing the option which requires devastating our, and other’s around the world, community. That’s not to exclude the harsh reality of mining…
The rhetoric around "energy independence" always sounded like it was pointing exactly toward renewables, and it's hard not to see the missed opportunity in hindsight
Re: Photos capture the breathtaking scale of China's wind and solar buildout
#128It genuinely makes me so sad to see the US not doing the same. Having grown up to the constant beat of “energy independence” as the core goal of a party it seemed obvious that the nearly limitless energy that rains down from the sky would be the answer. But instead we’ve kept choosing the option which requires devastating our, and other’s around the world, community. That’s not to exclude the harsh reality of mining…
The US invented fracking.
Arguably the US is energy independent. It has Texas, Canada and Venezuela.
They never did discover any large oilfields in China despite decades of frantically searching for it.
Re: Photos capture the breathtaking scale of China's wind and solar buildout
#129Depressing to look at.
No, they are beautiful.
Re: Photos capture the breathtaking scale of China's wind and solar buildout
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US has done well historically, roughly on par with China on per capita renewable rollout, slightly ahead of China between 2019-2023 but probably falling behind now. China being so big and populous makes it hard to make simple comparisons. edit: looked it up, US is still ahead of China as of 2024: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/renewable-electricity-per... Bear in mind that pre 2000 is likely hydro, in the ear…
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> no one talks about it
People regularly talk about how much new coal capacity China has been building.
Quite often this is followed by "capacity, sure; they're not using all that capacity, those plants exist and are mostly not running", or some variation thereof. I've never bothered fact-checking the responses, but this conversation happens is most of the Chinese renewables discussions I've seen in the last few years.