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Photos capture the breathtaking scale of China's wind and solar buildout

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Re: Photos capture the breathtaking scale of China's wind and solar buildout

#131

Post by account42 »

comrade1234 wrote: post #12
margorczynski wrote: post #7

Wouldn't it be better to just go with nuclear? Isn't this a gigantic waste of space and overhead to maintain it? And how "renewable" are the materials used to produce these?

There's two big parts of the earth that are uninhabitable because of nuclear. Anyway, they are going with nuclear too.

They are uninhabited by humans currently. They are not uninhabitable as shown by animals and plants living there. And they can also not be called "big parts of the earth" by any stretch of those words.

Especially Fukushima is more of a political issue than a safety one.

Re: Photos capture the breathtaking scale of China's wind and solar buildout

#132

Post by jbl0ndie »

yeureka wrote: post #48
roxolotl wrote: post #21

It 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…

I recently read, and recommend a book titled "Here Comes the Sun" by Bill McKibben. There's a passage where a calculation is made of the amount of minerals that have to be mined in order to build renewable energy to cover all current energy needs. This quantity is huge. However it is equivalent in mass to the amount of fossil fuels that are extracted every year. The major difference is that the equipment for renewabl…

Only there is no forever when you're talking about a finite resource, like fossil fuels.

Re: Photos capture the breathtaking scale of China's wind and solar buildout

#133

Post by NedF »

delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #87
zipy124 wrote: post #74

It 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…

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…

[dead]

Re: Photos capture the breathtaking scale of China's wind and solar buildout

#135

Post by raverbashing »

fuzzfactor wrote: post #86
raverbashing wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

In case you haven't noticed, it's the non-thinkers of all generations who willingly bury their head in the sand. Most people don't normally think it's the boomers in particular unless their powers of observation are somewhat limited. Which is understandable, you don't reach maturity overnight. Edit: not my downvote btw

I'm not disagreeing with you so much but

> Most people don't normally think it's the boomers in particular

Interesting because most of the critiques, especially to electric cars come from boomers. Also to Solar and Wind, the kind of silly criticism like "Why are we filling our barely-arable lands with Solar?!"

Now we'll watch how the European car manufacturers get swallowed by Chinese electrical manufacturers.

Re: Photos capture the breathtaking scale of China's wind and solar buildout

#136

Post by raducu »

delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #103
spiderfarmer wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU is moving towards 50% sustainable with lots of countries that at 60-75%, while the USA is at 25%. Europe is also at least a decade ahead. And since renewable + batteries is now cheaper than nuclear, we should spend our money and time wisely.

> And since renewable + batteries is now cheaper than nuclear, we should spend our money and time wisely. Eggs in one basket. Renewables are good, but it gets cloudy, it becomes night, it might not be windy. Nuclear will output power come rain or shine, and like I said, it's not like China isn't investing in advanced fission. They're throwing money at everything to see what sticks. They're working on SMRs, molten sal…

> Eggs in one basket. Renewables are good, but it gets cloudy, night is a thing, it might not be windy

Also, we can't survive an asteroid crash/extinction event with solar.

Nuclear is transcedental. If we had practically unlimited fusion power, we could build underground, grow plants in aquaponics and aeroponics and ride it out in underground cities and farms.

Re: Photos capture the breathtaking scale of China's wind and solar buildout

#138

Post by top_sigrid »

globular-toast wrote: post #115
zipy124 wrote: post #74

It 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…

[flagged]

Do you have ANY datapoints or arguments to underpin that renewables "destroy all wilderness". Or even more that they are worse than fossil fuels? This claim - especially in your harsh tone - could need at least some reason.

Re: Photos capture the breathtaking scale of China's wind and solar buildout

#139

Post by Rover222 »

zipy124 wrote: post #74

It 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…

It's kind of bizarre to see the far right and far left circle to the same misguided big oil conclusions, although for different reasons. The right doesn't want their traditional oil/coal industries threatened. The left is kind of... just against the continued growth of technology/industry/humanity.

Re: Photos capture the breathtaking scale of China's wind and solar buildout

#140

Post by alias_neo »

madeofpalk wrote: post #76
realo wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe his "we" is more USA-centric than your "we". It happens all the time...

My "We" is Australia and UK-centric. People have home solar, but it's hardly widespread. It's still a "fancy" thing to have.

In the UK, it's expensive, and it's not the technology, it's everything else. I don't see how that can improve unless the installation costs come down, and I don't know how that could/would happen.

I had solar installed last year, at the end of the summer, it cost roughly £14,000 for a system that can produce 6.51kWp and with 12kWh of battery storage (about 10kWh usable).

The 465W all-black panels (14 of them) I had installed are a little under £100 each to buy off-the-shelf, that accounts for 10% (£1400) of the cost of my system.

The batteries and inverter together another roughly £3.5k, so, about £9k of that cost was not for "solar and battery tech", a good chunk of it, somewhere around 40% of the total was labour, and the rest in scaffolding. Even if we allocate say another £1k to "hardware"; rails, wire, switchgear etc, that's still £8k easily.

Even if the hardware was free, £8-10k installation costs seems prohibitively expensive for the average UK household, unless you were totally wiping out your monthly bills and could pay it off over the lifetime of the system.

I suspect part of the issue in Australia is the same; I believe (perhaps incorrectly) you have a lot more sun down there so I'd expect the scale of (number of) installations to be higher.

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