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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

#491

Post by jtbaker »

casey2 wrote: post #471
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with fracking we realized we are actually sitting on huge available oil reserves, and peak oil quickly became a quaint outdated concept.

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.

Isn't LNG a byproduct of the fracking process - and natural gas has taken over a good chunk of coal's role in our electricity generation?

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

#492

Post by maxglute »

mattmaroon wrote: post #468
mlmonkey wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

We’re doing better than they are. Our new power generation is about 90% renewable, theirs is 70. The difference is just scale, China has 3x our population but very many of them had little or even no electricity available so they’re playing catch up. Americans are functionally all served by the power grid already. So of course they’re building more of it as an absolute number. But I’d also bet they built more coal pla…

Last year, PRC new generation is functionally >100% renewable (as in over 100%), new advanced coal plants serve as cleaner coal peakers not base load. New renewables now displaces existing coal (new trend last year) - nameplate coal is up due to new plants, but actual utilization of coal down in absolute terms.

Meanwhile what doesn't get captured in accounting is US increasing fossil exports (crude, lng etc), and PRC exporting renewables. Assuming 25 year lifecycle, PRC exports solar last year displaces ~5 years worth of US fossil exports in barrels of crude equivalent (400 GW of solar = 14000TWh electricity, or 8B barrels of oil, i.e. 22m barrels per day). TLDR PRC is reducing absolute fossil use, MASSIVELY increasing global renewable use. US is simply increasing net fossil use, much of it hidden from domestic balance sheets because it's exported globally.

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

#493

Post by kneelesh48 »

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.

[dead]

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

#494

Post by raziel2p »

ninkendo wrote: post #402
V__ wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president. I remember that day vividly. It was the middle of the Great Recession, it was the worst our economy was doing in a long time. Millions were out of work. People were looking to the government to see what the plan was to get the country back on track. A reporter asks McConnell what the senate’s number one priority wa…

have democrats not made similar statements about Trump, him being a danger to democracy and such?

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

#495

Post by defrost »

raziel2p wrote: post #494
ninkendo wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president. I remember that day vividly. It was the middle of the Great Recession, it was the worst our economy was doing in a long time. Millions were out of work. People were looking to the government to see what the plan was to get the country back on track. A reporter asks McConnell what the senate’s number one priority wa…

have democrats not made similar statements about Trump, him being a danger to democracy and such?

Sure. And Republicans, and many world leaders.

Trump is well outside the norms of POTUS's through history.

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

#496

Post by zingar »

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.

Not that it changes your point, but the other day I met a republican who said he doesn’t think climate change is a thing but peak oil, now that’s something to worry about.

The longevity of this plus the “no anthropogenic climate change” nonsense is astounding. Armchair climate sceptics are happy to seriously stick to talking points that are so out of date that even the oil industry doesn’t use them anymore.

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

#497

Post by happosai »

master_crab wrote: post #43

One of the solar farms is in a tidal flat. Are those solar panels meant to be waterproof? I’d imagine they may not last as long from sea salt exposure too.

Solar panels are waterproof (how else would they survive rain) as are insulated electric wires. The only challenge is connectors, and there are ways to make connectors submersible-safe.

This is how floating solar is a thing.

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

#498

Post by reeredfdfdf »

One can only admire China's progress in this area. These days, if I got to choose between American and Chinese product, I always choose the latter for ethical reasons. I don't want to support anything American as long as its regime remains a puppet to fossil fuel companies.

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

#499

Post by defrost »

jtbaker wrote: post #491
casey2 wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Isn't LNG a byproduct of the fracking process - and natural gas has taken over a good chunk of coal's role in our electricity generation?

Extracting LNG may or may not be via fracking, and may come from conventional or unconvential fields.

The largest LNG gas fields currently producing are not being "fracked", eg:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Pars/North_Dome_Gas-Cond...

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

#500

Post by reeredfdfdf »

chaostheory wrote: post #224
dahart wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trend is clear that if we keep using fossil up, then soon nobody will have a good source for it. And it’s clear that for geopolitical reasons in addition to environmental reasons, energy independence will be a core necessity everywhere on earth. It’s handy that the sun is sending us enough energy, directly (solar) and indirectly (wind, hydro), that nobody has a good reason not to be “green focused” and phase out…

Who is going to pay for it? Even when it was cheap, solar uptake was low except in Texas. EV adoption is still poor outside of California. Then there’s the issue of a K Shaped economy. Outside of our bubble in Silicon Valley, a lot of people can barely afford necessities let alone go green.

Solar panels are being built like crazy in really poor developing countries like Pakistan, simply because it's cheaper than the alternatives. If they can afford it, average American surely should too.
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