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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

#471

Post by casey2 »

bertjk wrote: post #369
tzs wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

Fracking. Before fracking people were worried about "peak oil", and being dependent on unfriendly governments for our basic energy needs. Then with fracking we realized we are actually sitting on huge available oil reserves, and peak oil quickly became a quaint outdated concept.

Fracking has nothing to do with energy. When you look at EROI oil from a gusher is around ~100:1. For solar 10-25:1, wind 20-50:1, Fracking is 10:1 and most of that doesn't end up as diesel

It's useful for the plastics and petrochemical industry, but it's not going to make the country energy independent, even including battery costs wind still trounces.

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

#472

Post by jacquesm »

lateforwork wrote: post #242
thatguy0900 wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 somethi…

My optimistic take is that we will learn from the mistakes we are making now to make sure it does not get repeated ever again. Trump will be gone and will be too old to have any influence. But Elon Musk and people like Marc Andreessen will continue to be a problem we need to find a solution for.

And what do you expect the rest of the world to do? Pretend it never happened? They were willing to give another chance after Trump I, I highly doubt that it will be the same this time around.

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

#473

Post by giwook »

tzs wrote: post #354
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 o…

Big coal got involved. Undoubtedly one or more billionaires in the dirty energy industry would have seen their substantial wealth dwindle to the mere single-digit billions and started paying politicians a lot of money. There's simply no other explanation because to actively kill clean energy projects that are 90% complete and is not only cleaner than coal but also now cheaper is simply illogical and irrational.

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

#474

Post by CGMthrowaway »

bertjk wrote: post #369
tzs wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

Fracking. Before fracking people were worried about "peak oil", and being dependent on unfriendly governments for our basic energy needs. Then with fracking we realized we are actually sitting on huge available oil reserves, and peak oil quickly became a quaint outdated concept.

Speaking to the grandparent comment, fracking is precisely what earned US "energy independence" for the first time ever, in 2011.

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

#475

Post by CGMthrowaway »

V__ wrote: post #376
tzs wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

Obama was elected, which made some people very angry: > Here’s John Boehner, the likely speaker if Republicans take the House, offering his plans for Obama’s agenda: “We’re going to do everything — and I mean everything we can do — to kill it, stop it, slow it down, whatever we can.” > Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell summed up his plan to National Journal: “The single most important thing we want to achieve is…

History rhymes.

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

#476

Post by maest »

CGMthrowaway wrote: post #474
bertjk wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fracking. Before fracking people were worried about "peak oil", and being dependent on unfriendly governments for our basic energy needs. Then with fracking we realized we are actually sitting on huge available oil reserves, and peak oil quickly became a quaint outdated concept.

Speaking to the grandparent comment, fracking is precisely what earned US "energy independence" for the first time ever, in 2011.

> earned US "energy independence"

In a very myopic way.

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

#477

Post by jancsika »

tzs wrote: post #422
x0b4dc0d3 wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re not sure? In a word: Greed. In two words: Crony Capitalism. The spend on “non-renewable“ energy is significant to the domestic economy. In 2023 (most recent year I could find), consumer spend on energy in the US was $1.6T ( https://css.umich.edu/publications/factsheets/energy/us-ener... ) with at least 82% of that being fossil fuels - the remainder being “renewables” and nuclear energy ( https://www.eia.gov/to…

That was all true long before 2008 so doesn't explain why the Republican platform changed nearly 180 degrees on this between 2008 and 2012.

Oh, I thought you were being sarcastic. It was clearly Citizens United (2008) and the explosive growth of Super PACs that followed.

Unlimited spending from the fossil fuel industry basically standardized Republican candidates on climate denial talking points. Plus whatever bizarre fetishes random Republican billionaires had, like Adelson keeping Gingrich's primary campaign on life support for months. That fucked up Romney's pivot to the general election for no perceivable gain to any of them. According to Wikipedia Adelson spent over $90 million on losing candidates in 2012!

All of that was through Super PACs.

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

#478

Post by thorncorona »

pfdietz wrote: post #265
Dumblydorr wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That is what they say about self driving cars, and there are services which are commercially available right now.

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

#479

Post by jmyeet »

tzs wrote: post #354
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 o…

So John McCann did run on reducing fossil fuel usage and promoting a greater mix of energy technologies but I wouldn't say that changed by 2012 per se. McCain himself was the anomaly that didn't match earlier or later candidates. For example, Bush did open up ANWR to drilling, even though that was purely symbolic and nobody is going up there to drill or has done in the 20 intervening years (apart from some minor exploratory drilling by Chevron).

Also, I'd say McCain's policy was more based on a national security argument than a climate argument. As others have pointed out, fracking changed everything. In 2008 we were a huge net importer of oil. Now we're a huge net exporter.

Mines (including oil wells) are huge wealth concentrators. A handful of very wealthy people benefit hugely from resource extraction. And the US government, as a whole regardless of party, represents the interests of large corporations both domestically and overseas.

Anyway, Bush (either one) didn't run on renewable energy. Neither did the candidates that came after. 2012 was just a reversion to mean.

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

#480

Post by protocolture »

dalyons wrote: post #261
Workaccount2 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>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.

IIRC that list of companies that polluted the most on the planet, 1 and 2 were Chinese state owned entities. China Coal and China Petroleum from memory.

OFC they are dwarfed IIRC by the US Military.

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