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

Post by gamblor956 » Wed, Jan 21, 2026, 4:46 PM UTC

contrarian1234 wrote: post #442

gamblor956 wrote: post #427

It's very easy to do things like this when pesky things like property rights or environmental laws or labor protections don't get in the way. In the U.S. and EU, if the government takes your land, they have to reimburse you for it, and you can fight them every step of the way. In China, the government can take your land and if you complain, you can spend the rest of your life in a labor camp.

That's simply not true. People are compensated generously for land that is seized. I have friends that have had it happen, and you get a lot more money than if you were to sell the property - so it's a bit like winning the lottery. The amount of room for appeal is dictated by the nature of the seizure and the government "level". (ie if it's a national interest project you have little recourse, but if it's the city go…

Your friends must have good connections. Their experience was the exception, not the rule.

https://oxfordpoliticalreview.com/2025/04/17/protected-land-...

Post by natmaka » Fri, Jan 23, 2026, 12:13 PM UTC

gregbot wrote: post #416

natmaka wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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')

Uranium actually does not require mining. Most uranium is extracted using underground wells where water is pumped underground and the Uranium is extracted from the water. Also extracting Uranium from sea water (which would be basically unlimited) is close to being commercially viable and has received a lot of lab-scale research. Also, Uranium is only recyclable once with light water reactors. With breeder reactors (w…

Sea water: "it is clear that it would be very risky today, to have a long-term industrial strategy based on significant production of uranium from seawater with an affordable cost" ( https://www.epj-n.org/articles/epjn/full_html/2016/01/epjn15... )

> With breeder reactors

After decades of expensive R&D... there is no model of industrial breeder reactor ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor#Notable_reacto... ). Can you name one?

Russia is by far the most advanced. However, its "BN-800" reactor, which began operating in 2014, is so uninspiring that they abstain from deploying any of them, preferring the classic "VVER" (non-breeder) models, and its planned successor, named "BN-1200M," has been postponed to 2035.

This doesn't represent an abandonment of breeder reactors, as this nation is actively exploring another avenue: the "BREST" architecture (lead coolant rather than sodium), with a small demonstration reactor (300 MW) whose construction began in 2021, essentially "back to square one."

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

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