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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

#261

Post by dalyons »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #192
noosphr wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even the people who understand the scale don't understand the purpose. The Chinese grid isn't renewable or non-renewable. It's built to keep the lights on for anything short of a thousand year catastrophe. Their 2060 plan has enough non intermittent base load that they can run the whole country off it for a decade. That half of your grid capacity is there 'just in case' is something no one in the west can wrap their…

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.

And thank god they have this incentive alignment! Chinas greentech buildout and export is the only thing with a chance of getting us out of this climate mess. Imagine how fucked we’d be if they had their own oil.

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

#262

Post by pfdietz »

wesleywt wrote: post #18
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?

Why can't you do both? Why does it always have to be either or?

Why can't (loser technology) coexist with (winner technology)?

Because that's not how technological competition works.

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

#263

Post by dalyons »

noosphr wrote: post #142
siscia wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the hard part?

Nuclear build out, wires and transformers. China has been building 5% extra nuclear capacity every year for the last 30 years. On target for making up 24% of their energy mix in 2060.

Everything I’ve read says their nuclear share is actually declining y/y, due to the crazy growth of renewables. I think that target is out of date?

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

#264

Post by pfdietz »

FpUser wrote: post #73
appointment wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it doesn't make sense. Every photon that hits the Earth is eventually either absorbed as heat, reflected back into space or both (eg. partially absorbed and partially re-emitted as lower energy photons.) There is no net global increase in heat from a wind turbine or solar panel. (There might be slight local shifts.) The only way this could change net heat if it significantly altered the reflectivity of the surface…

This is actually quite a sizeable chunk. If in the future needs grow 10 times the area needed might become big problem.

It would actually be much better than nuclear. Remember, for every kWh of electrical energy delivered from a nuclear plant, 2 kWh of waste heat goes up those cooling towers. This is not the case with solar, particularly if it were built on ground that was already fairly dark.

Direct thermal pollution like this is not yet globally significant, but if demand increased to the point that land constraints actually applied then it would become important.

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

#265

Post by pfdietz »

Dumblydorr wrote: post #62
lvl155 wrote: post #50

China is far more incentivized to champion renewable considering that they do not have the same access as the US. US is also on a path to quite literally invading other countries to extract crude and other resources. I don’t think China is in a position to do this, yet. If China invades Brunei or arrests Bolkiah, they will face irreversible repercussions. All that said, I don’t think wind and solar are the answers. G…

What is the question to which fusion and geothermal is the answer? From a climate perspective those will come too late to aid our planet much until decades of further change, if fusion even comes at all. Seems to me like wind solar batteries and nuclear are the answer, what’s actually being built now in a big way, not pie in the sky like fusion.

Fusion is the answer to "how can we extract R&D money for decades without ever actually delivering anything." There is little prospect it's going to be competitive, particularly DT fusion. The engineering/economic obstacles are profound even if all the plasma physics problems are solved. Most of the efforts being touted are obvious nonstarters.

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

#266

Post by dalyons »

clarionbell wrote: post #38
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?

China is has most of its population further south than either USA or Europe. Solar makes much more sense there than in those locations. Furthermore, by stimulating production of solar and wind related products with domestic consumption, the Chinese state has effectively captured absolute majority share of production across the entire supply chain. This is incredibly useful, when developed countries roll out subsidies…

The world is buying Chinese solar without subsidies. It’s the cheapest power option.

Chinas nuclear share is declining every year.

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

#267

Post by matthewdgreen »

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…

Nuclear isn't getting built at any significant scale in the US after Vogtle. We might get a couple of plants opened up (like 3MI) but large scale new buildouts aren't happening until SMRs are available at scale. Anything else is an Internet fantasy.

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

#268

Post by ceejayoz »

lateforwork wrote: post #230
samiv wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The American people did this twice in fairly quick succession.

Unless there's a serious reckoning afterwards, the rest of the world is gonna operate on the assumption that it can and probably will happen again soon.

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

#269

Post by ceejayoz »

api wrote: post #155
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.

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…

> If they're cheaper than nuclear, why is the AI crowd looking to nuclear for data centers?

They're looking for credulous investors in the nuclear startups they founded?

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

#270

Post by tzs »

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…

> Renewables are good, but it gets cloudy, it becomes night, it might not be windy

...which is why China has 40 000 km of UHV transmission lines forming a vast network to move the energy from where it is abundant to where it is needed. They have 8 new UHV projects that started in 2024 or 2025 that will add another 10 000 km.

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