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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

#211
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.

Can you point at criticism from the left? I haven’t noticed it.

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

#212
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's incredibly how common it is these days to see valid criticism dismissed as "X talking points" or "Y dog whistle". I guess that's easier than providing an argument.

[flagged]

9 day old account talking about “the left”. Go back to Reddit.

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

#213

Meanwhile POTUS has his head stuck in the sand [0]: > “All you have to do is say to China, how many windmill areas do you have in China? So far, they are not able to find any. They use coal, and they use oil and gas and some nuclear, not much. But they don’t have windmills, they make them and sell them to suckers like Europe, and suckers like the United States before.” One of the most factually BS statements ever. [0…

And that's despite the breathtaking scale of BS from a single source!

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

#214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every generation thinks they're building a safer future for their kids, including the boomers. If you want to talk about safety then you need to take sustainability seriously.

In the US, "Boomers" made the environmental movement mainstream, created the EPA, started cleanup of superfund sites, and passed the clean water and clean air acts. There are waterways where I live that are swimmable for the first time in generations because of the Boomers. It's not an either/or proposition.

Boomers didn't create the EPA, that was the Greatest and Silent generations. Boomers were no more than 25 in 1970 and hardly in power. Some of them may have been in the activists pushing for change but they didn't actually pass the legislation.

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

#215
post #3

Meanwhile, in London, UK, local council doesn't allow you to put anything on your rooftop that doesn't gel with the Victorian look..

It's a big town. You might want to specify which of the 33 boroughs this stupid policy exists in. There's no problem with solar where I live.

[deleted]

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

#216
post #3

Meanwhile, in London, UK, local council doesn't allow you to put anything on your rooftop that doesn't gel with the Victorian look..

Is your building listed or something? In most cases it doesn't require planning permission even in a conservation area, and some councils are actively installing them on council houses.

[deleted]

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

#217
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> unlimited fusion power

This is pie-in-the-sky, by-and-by fantasy. Fusion's sole accomplishment is likely to be making fission look cheap in comparison.

Just because something became a science fiction trope doesn't mean it's actually going to be a part of the future.

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

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

There's words like "cloudy", and then there's proper simulation studies which demonstrate that these concerns are unfounded.

Okay... and? I'm not saying 'let's only do nuclear, and not bother about wind/solar/tidal'. I'm saying there is plenty of money to go around, and it doesn't hurt to spend some of that to diversify our power generation and have some reliable, non-polluting, highly power-dense, high-tech base load (nuclear) that can be quickly throttled to meet demand, and is generally resistant to most environmental conditions.

The Chinese, Indian, Indonesian, French, British, and even Singaporean[1] (of all places, one might expect a tiny equatorial city-state to be the last place to think about nuclear, but it is all the same, because nuclear is ridiculously power-dense) governments seem to agree with me.

[1]: https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/singapore-seriou...

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

#219
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…

Fossil fuel could be heading for a big cliff where most countries that currently import a lot of oil/gas will be year on year reducing their imports. China is ahead of the curve here and is already importing less oil year on year. That's likely going to spread. If you extrapolate growth curves trending up for EVs a few years you can draw similar curves for oil demand trending down. We can speculate about how quick/sl…

Your point about developing markets resonates for me in a different area. Instead of layering mobile phones on top of landlines, many developing markets went straight to mobile phones. Another thing to consider is that solar/wind is an incremental expansion of power capacity, versus the "big bang" expansion of nuclear capacity.

To your point about the fossil fuel cliff, I think it was either a Bloomberg or Forbes article that discussed how China's deep involvement in the EV/battery/solar/wind Expansion in dozens of countries around the world gives it a chance to put a serious dent in oil consumption as well as locking American interests out of developing markets.

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

#220
post #147

Earlier 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…

With China's huge resources both natural and human it's only expected that China will again reclaim its position as the leading country in science, technology, production and generally everything. If you assume that .5% of population are "einsteins" then China has 7.5m einsteins who are now able to access universities and advance sciences whether it's AI or solar power or self driving cars. There's no doubt about the…

China draws mainly on the talents of the best of its billion+ population. But America has had its pick of the best of the world's 8 billion people. We are taking a break now, but starting 2029 America will resume having its pick of the best.
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