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…
It’s about incentives. We are “energy independent” compared to China and the EU. With China, if its relations with Russia sour and if they get cut off in Djiboutis by any number of powers, they will be a world of hurt.
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.
If they're cheaper than nuclear, why is the AI crowd looking to nuclear for data centers? I can think of two possible reasons: (1) it's America, and it's very hard to build anything, and nuclear is smaller and fits on site, and (2) we have an administration openly hostile to solar and wind energy for political "vibes" reasons. Vibes are dumb. I think looking back this is going to be seen as an age of people deciding…
See if they've actually committed money in a serious way, not in a "if you can actually achieve this absurdly low price point we'll buy it" way.
If you look at the growth rate of renewables it should be pretty clear that coal will not play a major role in the foreseeable future. Why is it not saying 18% of the needs are being met by renewables? That's exactly what it does
This is not energy output (production, usage), it is that plus an adjustment for the in->out energy efficiency. It would only == production if all energy sources in the mix has the same factor. Because fossil fuels have higher in/out losses this is number is larger than usage. This metric is generally used to track decarbonization. Using the IEA number you can see the hydro+solar+wind production is about 9.5% of the…
The adjusted graph is a better reflection of "meeting their needs" than raw primary energy, since more than half of fossil primary energy is lost as waste heat.
People worship China for being "green focused". The reality is that they don't have a good source of fossil fuels, and energy independence is a core necessity.
The trend is clear that if we keep using fossil up, then soon nobody will have a good source for it. And it’s clear that for geopolitical reasons in addition to environmental reasons, energy independence will be a core necessity everywhere on earth. It’s handy that the sun is sending us enough energy, directly (solar) and indirectly (wind, hydro), that nobody has a good reason not to be “green focused” and phase out…
Who is going to pay for it? Even when it was cheap, solar uptake was low except in Texas. EV adoption is still poor outside of California. Then there’s the issue of a K Shaped economy. Outside of our bubble in Silicon Valley, a lot of people can barely afford necessities let alone go green.
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.
The US does not have Venezuela.
It does. It may be illegal, immoral etc., but it does as of now.
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.
> but starting 2029 America will resume having its pick of the best
Your current government seems determined to make sure this won't happen.
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.
US is a crumbling democracy with crumbling infrastructure and society. I just hope while it goes down it doesn't take the rest of the planet with it.
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…
Solar panels etc. will last decades and can and will be recycled afterwards. Further, most materials needed for renewable energy infrastructure (iron, lithium) are highly abundant on earth. Most of the suppliers work to use cheaper (=more abundant) materials in their products, replacing lithium with sodium in batteries and silver with copper in solar panels. Wind turbine blades are produced now using re-solvable resi…
And iron (steel) is the most recyclable material we have.
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.
And in 2032 everyone just crosses their fingers this doesn't happen again? Unless 2029 includes a structural overhaul of the entire government I really don't see how the US regains it's status as the capital of the world. We are doing everything in our power to permenantly isolate ourselves from the rest of the world at the moment. Attacking a nato state, even threatening to attack a nato state really, is not something everyone will overlook in a years time. The wheels are turning now to divest from the us.
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.
US is a crumbling democracy with crumbling infrastructure and society. I just hope while it goes down it doesn't take the rest of the planet with it.
Yes that's true... but only for the next 3 more years. We return in 2029.