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Photos capture the breathtaking scale of China's wind and solar buildout
311–320 of 612 posts
Re: Photos capture the breathtaking scale of China's wind and solar buildout
#312It 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…
Meanwhile in Italy, the whole renewables discussion is gaslighted by "we should actually consider nuclear" and "wind turbines ruin the panorama".
I'm not against nuclear per se, but it's like this part of italians don't realize that:
1. if you decide to make a power plant today, it won't be online before the 2050s, in the best case scenario. It's very difficult to bring nuclear plants online, especially in the west. Even the countries with the capital and know-how (US and France) see more projects cancelled than brought online. I think US has put online a single nuclear plant in 20 years, France not a single one.
2. Nuclear needs tons of water, we have less and less of it as it rains less and global warming doesn't accumulate enough snow in the alps (which generally melts in the summer), our rivers are literally dry stone most of the year.
3. Renewables can be attached to the grid (or close to where they are needed) in the span of few months and with very little know-how required.
4. Money isn't limitless, building a 20B+ nuclear plant (realistically 50 knowing these projects + Italy) means this budget won't be available for the next decade on projects that could bring benefits immediately.
I'm sure that Italy and Germany, which are manufacturing heavy countries that need lots of energy cannot rely renewables alone, of course nuclear should be considered, but hell, in my region (around Rome), 95% of our energy comes from imported natural gas, I'm sure we could invest some more in that.
Re: Photos capture the breathtaking scale of China's wind and solar buildout
#313All I see is missed opportunities to build a bunch less nuclear power plants and call it a day, without messing up with the landscape. Am I the only one? I believe if we Europeans and Americans start building nuclear power plants again we could finally compete. Renewable energy is not constant and has a storage problem
At least half of people I talk to are strongly opposed to nuclear energy. How many are opposed to the current sources of energy as well? I wonder.
Agree they oppose nuclear, perhaps because of the fear of the unknown radiation or whatever. Reality is all nuclear incidents combined are nothing compared to the health problems oil and gas created(not to mention political implications). To me filling a giant space with solar panels or installing giant bird killing turbines is such a moronic move when you can have unnoticeable small nuclear power plants
Re: Photos capture the breathtaking scale of China's wind and solar buildout
#314It 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 particularly sad, we've known about the greenhouse effect caused by CO2 since 19th century, and now its branded as radical pseudoscience
Re: Photos capture the breathtaking scale of China's wind and solar buildout
#315Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Canada fucking hates the US right now and are actively in discussions to deepen their relationship with China, and cut back on their relationship with the US. I don't blame them.
Canada is actively pursuing more pipeline capacity to the west coast, in order to sell more oil to China.
However, it's also true that if the US builds a new pipeline to the Canadian border, Canada will happily fill it with heavy crude.
Re: Photos capture the breathtaking scale of China's wind and solar buildout
#316Earlier quoted context omitted.
it seems us is fighting yesterday's war wars / empires etc are built on mastering an energy source the Brits on Coal the US rose on Oil China is rising on renewables my worry is can renewables be quickly brought online to power industry / power hungry Data Centers etc at a reasonable cost
China did most of its rising on fossil fuels. I think they are fairly pragmatic as to what to use.
But now their ascendance will be largely built on renewables which, due to our ineptitude here in the west, we've handed them the ball.
Good luck to them, because someone has to.
Re: Photos capture the breathtaking scale of China's wind and solar buildout
#317Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
"It has Texas, Canada and Venezuela", eh.. excuse me?
I thought the same thing, ... where is the "and Greenland!"?
The amount of hard, soft and economic power that are being burned for the bedtime stories of one person is unreal. As are all the cooperators and lobby harnessing conspirators whose actual dreams are getting implemented.
It isn't the fall of the USSR, but it is still a dramatic ceiling bounce.
Re: Photos capture the breathtaking scale of China's wind and solar buildout
#318It 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…
Meanwhile in Italy, the whole renewables discussion is gaslighted by "we should actually consider nuclear" and "wind turbines ruin the panorama". I'm not against nuclear per se, but it's like this part of italians don't realize that: 1. if you decide to make a power plant today, it won't be online before the 2050s, in the best case scenario. It's very difficult to bring nuclear plants online, especially in the west.…
I’m anti nuclear on cost reasons but that’s excessively pessimistic. Nuclear can use seawater for cooling, and being colder offsets the cost premium of using salt water.
Your 2050’s comment assumes a level of dysfunction that’s presumably exaggerated. Averaging 10 years puts you at 2036 and is itself somewhat pessimistic.
The cost of canceled nuclear projects is generally quite low compared to lifetime subsidies of nuclear. Nuclear may be an inefficient use of government resources, but it’s also offset a staggering amount of emissions and the subsidies tend to end back up in the local economy recuperating some of the expense. IMO, there’s probably dumber things your government is doing that are worth fighting instead.
Re: Photos capture the breathtaking scale of China's wind and solar buildout
#319Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Got any sources for this?
Re: Photos capture the breathtaking scale of China's wind and solar buildout
#320Earlier 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…
What's the hard part?
Demography. They're soon going to run out of "young" workers, which mean they have to invent the robotics of the 2100s to ensure the few remaining people will have machine to harvest crops and wage wars.
Also, they're soon going to run out of women, so they need to perfect artificial wombs.
The few remaining party elites will want to live practically forever, so biology will be on the programs once fusion and robots have been cracked.
And it doesnot even seem like china will make ussr-level mistakes.
Our only hope for beating China, at this point, would be to recreate an "opium wars" situation where the whole population becomes dumb and stop caring. (A bit like what tiktok and X are doing to use at the moment, but with much more social control.)