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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

#321

Post by yndoendo »

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…

One point that gets very little coverage is that fossil fuels are a limited resource. Once they used they are gone.

The materials for renewable energy are still in a usable form.

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

#323

Post by natmaka »

L_gates wrote: post #311

[flagged]

Uranium requires mining and is recyclable at most once (solar panels components are way better).

Recyclable wind turbines blades are appearing (RecyclableBlade, ZEBRA, PECAN...) and even existing ones (today, decommissioned blades are burned in cement plants, thus providing energy) may become so (check the 'CETEC initiative')

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

#325

Post by maxglute »

AuthAuth wrote: post #289

All this praise around China's buildout is just encouraging others ignore a problem to sell the solution. When the major nations started coming together to reduce emissions it was agreed that they would all aim to reduce emissions. However China did the opposite and purposefully scaled coal at record rates for nearly a decade and implemented no environmental regulations so as to outcomplete the nations who were trans…

>it was agreed that they would all aim to reduce emissions

No, it was agreed during Kyoto that developed nations would reduce emissions, and developing nations (aka PRC, India) would not. Developing nations could keeping scaling fossil to industrialize until Paris where all countries had to submit climate plan (again not explicitly to reduce), and PRC's was to peak emissions by 2030s, which they're on trend to do early. PRC did what was legally permitted / agreed upon, and if developed nations want to cope / be butthurt and label following the agreement as dirty and not cooperate in the future global projects because they're not financial beneficiaries then that's on them. Also "some" solar and wind is ~ROW combined, which surely is very unimpressive.

> sell the solution

Selling solution to problems is solving problem, selling solutions to problems cheaply is solving said problem faster. As if developed economies did not decarbonize by selling clean tech solutions... which btw PRC bought. PRC simply doing globe a favor by selling real climate solutions at cost and scale that makes global difference, instead of scaling retarded paper solutions like carbon credits from countries that primarily scales spreadsheets.

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

#326

Post by AnotherGoodName »

epolanski wrote: post #312
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…

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.…

Australia fortunately has a political neutral research organisation (CSIRO) whose job is to estimate the net cost benefit for various government programs.

Detail and detail on cost benefit analysis https://www.csiro.au/en/news/All/Articles/2024/December/Nucl...

Needless to say not at all cost effective to go nuclear at this point. There's no reason that wouldn't hold similarly in other nations since the scale of the difference in costs are so huge too.

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

#327

Post by natmaka »

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…

NVIDIA wants to run on 100% renewable electricity and already does so: https://nvidia.com/en-us/sustainability/

OpenAI bets on SMRs (now an ectoplasm, check NuScale...) and solar arrays: https://cdn.openai.com/global-affairs/openai-doe-rfi-5-7-202... , and drives breakthroughs on renewable energy: https://openai.com/index/strengthening- americas-ai-leadership-with-the-us-national-laboratories/

Microsoft: https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/micros...

Alphabet (Google) buys 'Intersect' which "delivers ((...)) infrastructure for data centers and other energy-intensive industries by co-locating industrial demand with dedicated gas and renewable power generation". 4.75 billion USD. https://abc.xyz/investor/news/news-details/2025/Alphabet-Ann...

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

#328

Post by natmaka »

account42 wrote: post #131
comrade1234 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> animals and plants

Scientists are on the fence: https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/food-environmen...

> Fukushima is more of a political issue

A very, very expensive political caprice, if any: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_accident_cle...

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

#330

Post by AnotherGoodName »

balops wrote: post #298
hnmullany wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear capacity additions in 2025 were about 1% of solar additions - there is no comparison. Nuclear capacity: +2GW in 2025 ( https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profil... ) Solar capacity: ¬300GW capacity https://english.www.gov.cn/archive/statistics/202512/26/cont...

[flagged]

I don't understand this? A couple of people responded with clear charts showing nuclear way behind on solar/renewables with solar/renewables growing faster too.

It looks like you've been misled but are having trouble admitting that to yourself?

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