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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

#351

Post by chrysoprace »

DavidPiper wrote: post #345

I would love to see photos like these from Australia too one day. We have so much inhospitable land that would be perfect for solar and wind farms. Suncable is trying to do this on a small(er than China) scale. We are just too politically confused and too deep in the belief that mining is the only thing we can do here.

I was just saying this to my colleagues after seeing these. Decades of political sabotage has done significant damage to our transition to renewables. I'm hopeful (perhaps a bit too wishful) that we'll see more of a push for renewables in the coming election cycles, but I'm staying realistic as the last 20 years of climate debate has been frankly shameful. At least rooftop solar is so ubiquitous.

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

#352

Post by senordevnyc »

MaxHoppersGhost wrote: post #284
senordevnyc wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was curious, so I did a 30 second search: "The US Geological Survey estimates that onshore northeast Greenland (including ice-covered areas) contains around 31 billion barrels of oil-equivalent in hydrocarbons – similar to the US’s entire volume of proven crude oil reserves." Source: https://theconversation.com/greenland-is-rich-in-natural-res...

Another 30 second search would show you that their oil is not readily available and is unproven. Otherwise Denmark would already be an even wealthier petrostate like Norway.

OK, so...there is oil in Greenland, and your snarky response was actually completely incorrect. Got it.

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

#353

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

Retric wrote: post #347
epolanski wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Averaging 10 years puts you at 2036 and is itself somewhat pessimistic. The average time globally is 14 years. The latest point of reference in the west, Vogtle was announced in 2006 and came online in 2025, 19 years later. It took 7 years alone just to start building it. There's no chance this would take less time in Italy, where you need to also find a suitable place, you don't have the know-how and there's an an…

Depends on what you consider the start date. Practically speaking there’s some investigation into building nuclear in Italy that already occurred but using that as a start date isn’t meaningful here. Similarly the announcement you point to was a long way from having everything required to actually build a power plant. Until there’s actual funding talking about nuclear doesn’t really mean anything. Vogal was a boondog…

> Vogal was a boondoggle but it didn’t get construction approval until 2012 and like many projects ran into COVID delays on top of everything else.

Well there you are, then: projects experience delays in construction approval and run into other unexpected delays, which extends a ~10yr estimate.

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

#354

Post by tzs »

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…

Up to the 2008 election the Republican party platform called for reducing fossil fuel use, establishing a Climate Prize for scientists who solve the challenges of climate change, a long term tax credit for renewable energy (with specific mentions of solar and wind), more recycling, and making consumer products more energy efficient.

They wanted to aggressively support technological advances to reduce the dependence of transportation on petroleum, giving examples of making cars more efficient (they mention doubling gas mileage) and developing more flex-fuel and electric vehicles. They talked about honoraria of many millions of dollars for technological developments that could eliminate the need for gas powered cars.

They also mentioned promoting wireless communication to increase telecommuting options and reduce business travel.

All that was gone by 2012. I'm not sure what caused the change.

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

#355

Post by nandomrumber »

diego_moita wrote: post #164
gruez wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. What makes this more valid than something like "it's incredible how many YIMBY talking points there are" in a thread about housing, aside from you agreeing with the…

> Is "talking points" just a roundabout way to summarily dismiss the opposition's arguments and imply they're dumb/misguided? For me, yes it is. It wouldn't if policy discussions were purely technical and well informed. In the arena of public discourse they aren't. The majority of the population (including HN) is tribal, ideologically biased, emotionally driven and badly informed. Public discourse, particularly in Am…

You don’t consider

that oil & coal are doomed and destroying the world

to be green-agenda talking points?

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

#356

Post by Retric »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #353
Retric wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on what you consider the start date. Practically speaking there’s some investigation into building nuclear in Italy that already occurred but using that as a start date isn’t meaningful here. Similarly the announcement you point to was a long way from having everything required to actually build a power plant. Until there’s actual funding talking about nuclear doesn’t really mean anything. Vogal was a boondog…

> Vogal was a boondoggle but it didn’t get construction approval until 2012 and like many projects ran into COVID delays on top of everything else. Well there you are, then: projects experience delays in construction approval and run into other unexpected delays, which extends a ~10yr estimate.

The 10 year estimate comes from a range of projects including some that go very badly and others that didn't.

You can always pick worse numbers by using a smaller sample of projects, but it isn’t necessarily meaningful to do so. California’s high speed rail has gone far worse than Italy’s projects, America is currently comically bad at large construction projects.

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

#357

Post by platinumrad »

socalgal2 wrote: post #337
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…

Those are nice pictures but I can take the same pictures in the USA. Note: I'm not suggesting China is not doing better here. Rather, I'm going off the title "Photos capture the breathtaking scale of China's wind and solar buildout" and I'm not seeing anything in those photos I haven't seen in the USA. Driving down the 580 from SF to Tracy you pass several hundred windmills. Driving through Mojave the same. Also sola…

The current administration is actively shutting down in-progress wind projects.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/11/how-the-wind-indust...

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/22/trump-leaves-wind-i...

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c15l3knp4xyo

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

#358

Post by mosura »

yndoendo wrote: post #321
yeureka wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> One point that gets very little coverage is that fossil fuels are a limited resource

Every time someone uses the term “renewable” they are providing coverage to this notion.

It is deeply bizarre you can think otherwise.

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

#359

Post by OkayPhysicist »

mlmonkey wrote: post #342
socalgal2 wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are nice pictures but I can take the same pictures in the USA. Note: I'm not suggesting China is not doing better here. Rather, I'm going off the title "Photos capture the breathtaking scale of China's wind and solar buildout" and I'm not seeing anything in those photos I haven't seen in the USA. Driving down the 580 from SF to Tracy you pass several hundred windmills. Driving through Mojave the same. Also sola…

Those windmills in the East Bay are decades old. And the Mojave solar concentrator is being shut down, from what I've heard. The article here starts with: Last year China installed more than half of all wind and solar added globally. In May alone, it added enough renewable energy to power Poland, installing solar panels at a rate of roughly 100 every second. Is the US anywhere in this ballpark?

The concentrated solar plant is getting shut down because it's failing to compete with the massive rollout of photovoltaic panels. We've made solar so cheap that the old ways of gathering it are becoming redundant, which, no matter how incredibly cool it was to see a second sun rise over the horizon on the way to Vegas, is a good sign.

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

#360

Post by its_ethan »

danw1979 wrote: post #56
globular-toast wrote: post #53

> Heidu Mountain Scenic Area Not so scenic any more... I get it, electricity good, but man are we destroying places just to get this stuff. In the UK I reckon within my lifetime it won't be possible to go to the sea any more. I mean, the sea how it used to be, without wind turbines in it. Fossil fuels gave us too much. If only we could figure out how to want less.

My local beaches on the Yorkshire coast have some of the biggest wind farms in the world. We’re never going to reduce energy consumption. It’s a balance between gas and wind here, just pick how many wind turbines you want, and burn gas to fill in the gaps. Your ruined horizon is my safer future for my kids. I like seeing them there. I wish there were more.

I think there is reason to think that we will reduce energy consumption.

US energy consumption per capita peaked in 1975 and has trended down even as population has increased. There's going to be a peak in global population, likely before 2100 (and it keeps getting revised sooner, not later).

So it stands to reason that as we become more energy efficient (already happening) and we start to have fewer people on earth (likely to happen in your/ your children's lifetime) that overall consumption will in fact go down.

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