[HN Gopher] Photos capture the breathtaking scale of China's win...
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Photos capture the breathtaking scale of China's wind and solar
buildout
Author : mrtksn
Score : 406 points
Date : 2026-01-15 09:54 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (e360.yale.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (e360.yale.edu)
| greggsy wrote:
| Also worth checking out some of the mega projects on Open
| Infrastructure Maps like this one in central China.
|
| https://openinframap.org/#9.12/36.0832/100.4215/A,B,L,P,S
| hbarka wrote:
| This planet-scale map of the global electricity network is
| incredible.
| aembleton wrote:
| OpenStreetMap (the DB behind this map) is incredible. It has
| so much useful information inside it.
| forgotTheLast wrote:
| I expect to see it on the front page of HN by the end of the
| day
| croisillon wrote:
| 4 years ago, 47 comments
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29948473
|
| 7 days ago, 93 comments
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46536866
| c-flow wrote:
| Meanwhile, in London, UK, local council doesn't allow you to put
| anything on your rooftop that doesn't gel with the Victorian
| look..
| raphaelj wrote:
| The UK is actually world leading in wind electricity generation
| (especially offshore). So it's not all bad.
| sdoering wrote:
| Not quite accurate anymore. The UK was indeed the world
| leader from 2008 until around 2021, but has since fallen to
| second place behind China. China now has over 41 GW installed
| (>50% of global capacity), while the UK sits at ~15 GW
| (~22%). [1][2]
|
| Still impressive for a country of that size, but "world
| leading" is technically no longer correct.
|
| [1] https://www.renewableuk.com/energypulse/blog/uk-wind-and-
| glo... [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1489147/uk-
| offshore-wind...
|
| ps.: Per capita it's also not #1 -- Denmark and the
| Netherlands both have higher offshore wind capacity per
| person.
| gehsty wrote:
| I guess we are. But who are the plants owned by, who built
| the and where did the components come from, are we also
| switching them off because our grid cannot handle transmit
| huge volumes of renewable energy from Scotland to London, and
| turning on gas power plants to make up for it.
|
| You also have situations, like today, where a German
| developer has handed back a seabed lease for 3GW of offshore
| power because they didn't get a contract for power from
| government (CFD) and their lease fees are approx PS400m/yr if
| they want to continue developing the windfarm. This is after
| spending PS1B already on lease fees with nothing to show for
| it.
| omnicognate wrote:
| Is your building listed or something? In most cases it doesn't
| require planning permission even in a conservation area, and
| some councils are actively installing them on council houses.
| walthamstow wrote:
| It's a big town. You might want to specify which of the 33
| boroughs this stupid policy exists in. There's no problem with
| solar where I live.
| CalRobert wrote:
| For more amusement, look to Limerick, in Ireland, whose council
| tried to mandate all new homes have chimney stacks.
| tim333 wrote:
| In Ireland all the rooms came with a substantial hole in the
| wall, mandated in case you decided to put something like a
| kerosene heater in your room, although the heating was
| electical. I generally had to block them off to stop the wind
| whistling through.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Right - I think it was to handle Carbon monoxide (and
| general ventilation). If you look at part F here I think
| current regs are 6500 square mm for most rooms https://www.
| seai.ie/sites/default/files/publications/Domesti...
|
| (TBF Irish standards have gotten much better for
| airtightness)
| rsynnott wrote:
| That's more for ventilation to prevent damp etc (Ireland
| has humidity issues). Modern houses typically have MVHR
| instead.
| ranguna wrote:
| Technological, manufacturing and energy advancements aside
| (congrats China on those), the pictures look beautiful. Amazing
| work from the photographer.
| etra0 wrote:
| Came here to appreciate the same. Not only it _truly_ captures
| the scale, but does it in a great way.
| btbuildem wrote:
| Same sentiment! The one photo from Mongolia is going as my
| desktop background
| Lucasoato wrote:
| Why aren't we doing it in the rest of the world as well?
| ben_w wrote:
| The rest of the world is, in fact, doing it as well.
| estimator7292 wrote:
| Basically everyone is except the USA
| otikik wrote:
| Wow, pictures look great, well done Mr Weimin Chu
| margorczynski wrote:
| Wouldn't it be better to just go with nuclear? Isn't this a
| gigantic waste of space and overhead to maintain it? And how
| "renewable" are the materials used to produce these?
| vachina wrote:
| Nuclear still have to deal with nuclear waste.
|
| > gigantic waste of space
|
| Good thing China isn't running out of space
| uncletoxa wrote:
| The latest generation of Nuclear power plants are full cycle,
| produce close to nothing amount of waste
| thatsit wrote:
| And you can buy them and use them right now, as i can go
| and shop some solar panels, inverters, batteries, some
| cables put them about anywhere and just have free
| electricity after the initial expense?
| micw wrote:
| Sources?
| sethops1 wrote:
| The world of information is literally at your fingertips.
| Maybe try researching yourself for two minutes? This
| isn't breaking news.
| pfdietz wrote:
| The person he was responding to is wrong, as you might
| have discovered had you actually tried to provide
| information.
| pfdietz wrote:
| Plants being built these days are thermal burner reactors.
| They are no more "full cycle" than any other nuclear power
| reactors that have been built. And (like earlier reactors)
| reprocessing their spent fuel has no economic case.
| eunos wrote:
| Take too long time and cost. I honestly perplexed by the
| fethism towards Nuclear Power Plants. Have you seen the delay
| and bloating cost of Olkiluoto, Flamanville and Vogtle?
|
| Nuclear Power Plants are only good too spread the cost of
| maintaining strategic nuclear jobs and industry and some hope
| that nuclear space propulsion could be available later.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| They'll just blame those delays and cost overruns on greens
| or liberals.
|
| Better to point out that in China the nuclear targets are
| many years behind and continually lowered while the renewable
| targets are met years early and raised.
| comrade1234 wrote:
| There's two big parts of the earth that are uninhabitable
| because of nuclear.
|
| Anyway, they are going with nuclear too.
| account42 wrote:
| 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.
| natmaka wrote:
| > 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://e
| n.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_accident_cle...
| abrookewood wrote:
| I don't think the characterisation of this as waste of space is
| correct. There's a growing body of research suggesting that
| solar panels are compatible with grazing animals and farming,
| and the wind farms don't really stop usage of the space unless
| you are planning to go ballooning.
| Someone wrote:
| https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/Power-Play-The-
| Economics-...:
|
| _"According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the
| LCOE for advanced nuclear power was estimated at $110 /MWh in
| 2023 and forecasted to remain the same up to 2050, while solar
| PV estimated to be $55/MWh in 2023 and expected to decline to
| $25/MWh in 2050. Onshore wind was $40/MWh in 2023 and expected
| to decline to $35/MWh in 2050 making renewables significantly
| cheaper in many cases. Similar trends were observed in the
| report for EU, China and India."_
|
| I think the only thing that may be able to beat this is nuclear
| fusion, and that's hypothetical at the moment.
|
| And even that may be undesirable. If fusion requires huge
| plants, it may put power (literally and figuratively) into only
| a few hands.
|
| Recycling of solar panels and glass-fiber wings is an issue,
| though.
| hnmullany wrote:
| The cheapest solar auction to date was $13 per MWh (middle
| east) - so utility solar in the best regions is already very
| very cheap. When you add 4hr batteries, it's still
| competitive with CCG gas - in the $50 range.
|
| The cost models for first generation fusion plants show !$400
| per MWh - it will take a while for them to get to reasonable
| cost levels.
|
| Recycling of mono-crystalline solar (the dominant tech today)
| and modern turbine blades are solved problems.
| pfdietz wrote:
| There is good reason to think fusion (particularly DT fusion)
| would be even more expensive than fission.
| IanCal wrote:
| They've got a huge amount of space, solar has a low cost and
| provides an additional consumer to build out yet more capacity
| for supplying the world.
|
| > Wouldn't it be better to just go with nuclear
|
| If this is legit : https://world-nuclear.org/information-
| library/country-profil... then they have 59 reactors right now
| with 37 currently in production. Wikipedia lists 62 reactors
| being built in the world in total, and 28 of them being in
| China. The amount of power those additional plants will
| generate will take them from third in the world to second this
| year (wikipedia) and in total would pass the US when built.
|
| They're not slouching on nuclear, they're ramping up energy
| production at an incredible pace on a lot of fronts.
| ViewTrick1002 wrote:
| Which leads to a shrinking nuclear share in their grid. It
| peaked at 4.6% in 2021, now down to 4.3%.
|
| Compared to their renewable buildout the nuclear scheme is a
| token gesture to keep a nuclear industry alive if it would
| somehow end up delivering cheap electricity. And of course to
| enable their military ambitions.
| throwaway7679 wrote:
| This construction of wind and solar has nothing to do with
| renewable, and everything to do with China's desire to get as
| much electricity generation as possible, which involves
| increasing nuclear, coal, hydro, and everything else.[1]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_China
| hnmullany wrote:
| That wikipedia article needs to be updated for the last few
| years.
|
| 2025 was the first year where coal generation declined YoY.
| Nuclear capacity additions in 2025 were about 1% of solar
| additions - there is no comparison. Primarily solar and
| secondarily wind is the core generation strategy.
| ben_w wrote:
| > Wouldn't it be better to just go with nuclear?
|
| Only if you want the spicy radioisotopes. For some people
| that's a benefit, for others that's a problem.
|
| Who controls the spice, controls the ~~universe~~ nuclear
| deterrent.
|
| If all you care about is price, the combination of PV and
| batteries is already cheaper, and builds out faster.
|
| > Isn't this a gigantic waste of space and overhead to maintain
| it?
|
| No. Have you seen how big the planet is? There's enough land
| for about 10,000 times current global power use.
|
| If your nation has a really small land area, e.g. Singapore,
| then you do actually get to care about the land use; China is
| not small, they don't need to care.
|
| > And how "renewable" are the materials used to produce these?
|
| Worst case scenario? Even if they catch fire, that turns them
| into metal oxides which are easier to turn back into new PV
| than the original rocks the same materials came out of in the
| first place.
|
| Unlike coal, where the correct usage is to set them on fire and
| the resulting gas is really hard to capture, and nuclear, where
| the correct usage is to emit a lot of neutrons that make other
| things radioactive.
| wesleywt wrote:
| Why can't you do both? Why does it always have to be either or?
| pfdietz wrote:
| Why can't (loser technology) coexist with (winner
| technology)?
|
| Because that's not how technological competition works.
| aeonfox wrote:
| > Wouldn't it be better to just go with nuclear?
|
| But for economics. Renewables are simply the cheapest option
| for generation.
|
| For reduced land use, and hence reduced impacts (overall) on
| the environment and agriculture, nuclear wins hands down. But
| decades-long lead times, radioactive waste disposal,
| encumbering safety regulations, water supply etc. etc. etc. are
| problems you don't have with renewables.
| maxglute wrote:
| PRC Solar is cheaper (LCOE) than nuclear, more distributed,
| faster to build. Western PRC with good solar is mostly
| empty/depopulated (2/3 of PRC with 80% of solar/wind potential
| has like 5% of population, it's empty). Easy to install, lots
| of transferrable skills from general construction (vs nuclear
| workforce). Real estate crack down = lots of lower skilled blue
| collar installing solar as jobs program. Serendipitous synergy.
| PRC installed renewable capacity exceeds energy required to
| manufacture same equipment on GW basis, functionally makes
| production of entire sector carbon neutral/sink, as in will
| displace more fossil than used in production and sink after.
| Obviously manufacture works off grid mix, including coal, but
| broad point is every panel going to save more emissions vs
| embodied carbon payback through life cycle. There's also plans
| for recycling / recover materials for circular economy.
| pbasista wrote:
| > how "renewable" are the materials used to produce these
|
| Very renewable. Solar panels are mostly glass, silicon and a
| little bit of metal. And they last ~30 years. Wind turbine
| blades are made out of fiberglass or similar materials. They
| may need replacing every ~30 years as well.
|
| Other infrastructure would not need any significant maintenance
| for even longer.
|
| These kind of power plants, apart from being renewable, have
| _very_ low running costs. And that is the point.
|
| Of course their production is very variable and therefore they
| cannot be used as the only power source. So e.g. nuclear power
| plants are still needed to back them up.
|
| I think it is very rational to build as much power plants that
| are cheap to run. And back it up with nuclear or other power
| plants that are expensive to run but which can cover for time
| when the production of renewables is low.
| hnmullany wrote:
| Mono-crystalline silicon - which is now the dominant
| technology - is a pretty clean, but thin film PV - which is
| on the wane - had high heavy metal content. Good news.
| clarionbell wrote:
| China is has most of its population further south than either
| USA or Europe. Solar makes much more sense there than in those
| locations.
|
| Furthermore, by stimulating production of solar and wind
| related products with domestic consumption, the Chinese state
| has effectively captured absolute majority share of production
| across the entire supply chain. This is incredibly useful, when
| developed countries roll out subsidies for clean power.
|
| Since there are no manufacturers that can match those in China
| in both price and volume. The bulk of subsidies is used to buy
| Chinese produced equipment.
|
| At the same time, China is also investing in nuclear
| technology, and deploying far faster than anywhere in the
| world.
| dalyons wrote:
| The world is buying Chinese solar without subsidies. It's the
| cheapest power option.
|
| Chinas nuclear share is declining every year.
| energy123 wrote:
| If it was 2.5-3x cheaper, sure. But alas.
| ViewTrick1002 wrote:
| The problem is that it is extremely expensive and takes a very
| long time to build.
|
| The supply chain for nuclear power, including fuel from mining
| to waste storage, is not tiny either.
| immibis wrote:
| How renewable is uranium?
| pfdietz wrote:
| Only if you have a fetish for wasting money.
| ollybee wrote:
| China has also just launched a megawatt scale wind generator a
| the helium-lifted balloon, the S2000 , they have active thorium
| rector the TMSR-LF1 and GW/h Vandium flow battery. The scale ,
| speed and breadth of what they are doing is incredible and I
| think missed my people
| noosphr wrote:
| Even the people who understand the scale don't understand the
| purpose.
|
| The Chinese grid isn't renewable or non-renewable. It's built
| to keep the lights on for anything short of a thousand year
| catastrophe.
|
| Their 2060 plan has enough non intermittent base load that they
| can run the whole country off it for a decade.
|
| That half of your grid capacity is there 'just in case' is
| something no one in the west can wrap their head around. China
| building out massive solar and wind farms isn't because wind
| and solar are the future. It's because they can tick off their
| 30 year plan 25 years ahead of schedule and focus on the hard
| parts next.
| movedx wrote:
| I feel like energy is the most critical aspect to any economy
| and military. It's the beginning of anything and everything
| you want to achieve.
| siscia wrote:
| What's the hard part?
| noosphr wrote:
| Nuclear build out, wires and transformers.
|
| China has been building 5% extra nuclear capacity every
| year for the last 30 years. On target for making up 24% of
| their energy mix in 2060.
| dalyons wrote:
| Everything I've read says their nuclear share is actually
| declining y/y, due to the crazy growth of renewables. I
| think that target is out of date?
| subroutine wrote:
| If they build out wind and solar first then yes, the
| nuclear _share_ will have declined year over year.
| bobson381 wrote:
| Weathering the knock-on effects of ecological overshoot,
| probably. It's going to be interesting.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Climate change, and having an abundance of energy allows a
| country to offset some of those challenges.
| phtrivier wrote:
| Demography. They're soon going to run out of "young"
| workers, which mean they have to invent the robotics of the
| 2100s to ensure the few remaining people will have machine
| to harvest crops and wage wars.
|
| Also, they're soon going to run out of women, so they need
| to perfect artificial wombs.
|
| The few remaining party elites will want to live
| practically forever, so biology will be on the programs
| once fusion and robots have been cracked.
|
| And it doesnot even seem like china will make ussr-level
| mistakes.
|
| Our only hope for beating China, at this point, would be to
| recreate an "opium wars" situation where the whole
| population becomes dumb and stop caring. (A bit like what
| tiktok and X are doing to use at the moment, but with much
| more social control.)
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| 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.
| dahart wrote:
| 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 fossil fuels for energy. Any country
| that leads and shows the rest of the world that it can be
| done deserves applause.
| chaostheory wrote:
| 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.
| triceratops wrote:
| China isn't "going green" to go green. They're doing it
| because it's cheaper.
|
| The elites are pinning us to fossil fuels and driving up
| the cost of necessities.
| dahart wrote:
| You might be confusing consumer purchasing choices with
| the national energy policy and infrastructure we were
| talking about. Going green personally is only more
| expensive to consumers in places where our country isn't
| building and offering green power by default. EVs are a
| bit of a different topic. But what difference does it
| make when fossil fuels run out? Left unchecked, sooner or
| later market forces will make oil much more expensive as
| it becomes scarce, and eventually there is no choice. Yes
| we might be decades or even hundreds of years away from
| that, but in the big picture that's not far away, and it
| doesn't matter because the eventuality is obvious.
| Eventually there will be no such thing as non-renewable
| energy. Might as well start now.
| ahartmetz wrote:
| They have a large coal mining industry.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| And consume 50% of global coal production.
|
| But coal is the worst fossil fuel from a practical
| stance. It's really only good for energy generation. You
| can't really power tanks or warships with it.
| ahartmetz wrote:
| Oh, you can convert coal to liquid fuels if you have to.
| Germany produced low single digit millions of tons per
| year during World War 2.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergius_process
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2%80%93Tropsch_pro
| ces...
| dalyons wrote:
| 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.
| mkl wrote:
| That's GWh and vanadium flow.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanadium_redox_battery
| roxolotl wrote:
| 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 for the minerals
| required to build these, nor the land use concerns. But it's
| difficult to compare localized damage to war and globalized
| damage.
| raincole wrote:
| In 2025, > 90% of new energy capacity built in the US is from
| renewable [0]. So the US isn't building that much solar not
| because they're not building solar, but that the US has been
| generating and consuming so much energy per capita that there
| isn't that much incentive to increase energy capacity
| dramatically.
|
| [0]: https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/clean-energy/us-new-
| win...
| rozab wrote:
| These are new electric power plants. The US is still ramping
| up oil and gas production, and is now producing more than
| ever before. No signs of transitioning away from fossil fuels
| for transport, industry, export.
|
| https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/fossil-fuels/chart-
| the-...
| timeon wrote:
| > The US is still ramping up oil and gas production
|
| This also happens in China. With better ratio for
| renewables but still. Globally there was more energy from
| coal than before. Much more was from renewables but in
| context of climate change absolute numbers of CO2 are what
| matters.
|
| EU is also reverting it's green targets because of this new
| situation. So near future does not look good.
| appointment wrote:
| That's production, not consumption. The US exports huge
| amounts of oil and gas now. The EU/Russia sanctions and the
| Red Sea blockade are a huge gravy train for American oil
| and gas companies.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| The US has done well historically, roughly on par with China
| on per capita renewable rollout, slightly ahead of China
| between 2019-2023 but probably falling behind now.
|
| China being so big and populous makes it hard to make simple
| comparisons.
|
| edit: looked it up, US is still ahead of China as of 2024:
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/renewable-electricity-
| per...
|
| Bear in mind that pre 2000 is likely hydro, in the early
| years of solar and wind that confused matters if lumped in
| together but I think it's now obvious when the new tech kicks
| in.
| raincole wrote:
| Not only that, but Chian actually also built quite a lot of
| coal capacity in the past five years [0]:
| https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-
| energy/chinas... while the US has been retiring coal.
|
| But no one talks about it because it doesn't provoke the
| only important narrative: "It's a shame that the US isn't
| doing that!"
| ben_w wrote:
| > no one talks about it
|
| People regularly talk about how much new coal capacity
| China has been building.
|
| Quite often this is followed by "capacity, sure; they're
| not using all that capacity, those plants exist and are
| mostly not running", or some variation thereof. I've
| never bothered fact-checking the responses, but this
| conversation happens is most of the Chinese renewables
| discussions I've seen in the last few years.
| hnmullany wrote:
| Coal generation production in China did decline in 2025
| vs 2024 - but that was the first year for it to happen.
| balops wrote:
| Nuclear on the other hand is outpacing any renewable in
| China. With many plants being built or plans to be built
| between now and 2050.
| triceratops wrote:
| Got any sources for this?
| hnmullany wrote:
| 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/c
| ont...
| balops wrote:
| Looks like math and construction isn't your strength.
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| 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?
| dekhn wrote:
| Please show your numbers; if you just make a claim and
| then insult people who disagree, you automatically lost
| internet arguments.
| natmaka wrote:
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-fossil-
| renewa...
| pfdietz wrote:
| That's utterly wrong. Renewable installs in China are
| vastly outpacing nuclear installs.
| dalyons wrote:
| You are wrong by a factor of at least 10x
| appointment wrote:
| > That's not to exclude the harsh reality of mining for the
| minerals required to build these, nor the land use concerns.
|
| This is Big Oil propaganda. The impact from this is massively
| less than the horrific damage caused by every part of the
| fossil fuel industry.
| mrpopo wrote:
| Yep. It's not just oil rigs in the desert. Chevron in Ecuador
| destroyed the Amazonian rainforest. Oil pipelines and open
| pit mines destroying Canadian primordial forests. Probably
| tons of untold stories.
| newyankee wrote:
| especially when the most important total cost of ownership
| over life is considered
| Rover222 wrote:
| Similar to the idea that electric cars are net worse for the
| environment because some of the materials used to make them.
| Worse than 20 years of burning gasoline in an ICE car? It's
| so ridiculous.
| roxolotl wrote:
| It's so interesting seeing some of the comments about this.
| The sentence I wrote after that blames war and global
| devastation on fossil fuels. I was expecting to get flak for
| being too harsh to fossil fuels but somehow it swung the
| other direction. Which, as someone who shouts at the radio
| when the greenwashing oil ads play on NPR, is heartening.
| yeureka wrote:
| 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 renewable energy will last
| decades whereas the fossil fuels are burned and need to be dug
| up constantly, for ever.
| thatsit wrote:
| Solar panels etc. will last decades and can and will be
| recycled afterwards. Further, most materials needed for
| renewable energy infrastructure (iron, lithium) are highly
| abundant on earth. Most of the suppliers work to use cheaper
| (=more abundant) materials in their products, replacing
| lithium with sodium in batteries and silver with copper in
| solar panels. Wind turbine blades are produced now using re-
| solvable resins.
| pfdietz wrote:
| And iron (steel) is the most recyclable material we have.
| aaronmoodie wrote:
| Not only are older solar panels recyclable, but efficiency
| gains in panel construction mean that multiple newer panels
| can be created with the resources from older panels.
| addhochohoc wrote:
| But it creates enough cash to redirect all ire away to weakly
| lobbying industries, like aggrarian-sector or other weakly
| lobbied sectors like nuclear.
| jbl0ndie wrote:
| Only there is no forever when you're talking about a finite
| resource, like fossil fuels.
| specialist wrote:
| They're talking about our nascent circular economy.
|
| Recycling now recovers >95% of raw minerals (and will
| continue to improve).
|
| The learning curves for battery and solar tech will more
| than make up the for the shortfall.
|
| Meaning at some point in the near future (2050 IIRC),
| humanity will have mined all the lithium it'll ever need.
|
| Also, in the same time frame, it'll be economical to mine
| our garbage dumps. Further reducing the need to extract raw
| materials.
| yndoendo wrote:
| 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.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| CO2 can be converted to methane. It just isn't profitable
| to do so yet. After the fossil fuels are depleted, it will
| be a viable niche for storable energy where renewables
| aren't practical.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Its crazy that in 1999 "home solar" was a fancy, new millennium
| idea, and now we're still barely any closer.
|
| Honestly, I think building regulations should mandate solar
| energy for homes.
| danw1979 wrote:
| Sorry to disagree, but we are not just closer, we've been
| there for a while.
|
| You can go out and buy solar panels to cover your roof for a
| few thousand dollars/pounds/euros. You could definitely not
| do that in 1999.
| geraltofrivia wrote:
| My 65yo parents installed Solar panels on the roof of their
| house in a Tier 2 city in the poor parts of India. So did
| pretty much most of their neighbours.
|
| So i would have to disagree. We are significantly far ahead
| from the initial "idea".
| realo wrote:
| Maybe his "we" is more USA-centric than your "we".
|
| It happens all the time...
| madeofpalk wrote:
| My "We" is Australia and UK-centric.
|
| People have home solar, but it's hardly widespread. It's
| still a "fancy" thing to have.
| geraltofrivia wrote:
| I guess at some level it is a matter of incentives. In
| their city, we have electricity 20-22 hours per day (used
| to be 12-18 when i was growing up) and we can't rely on
| the state to provide us electricity consistently.
|
| But also, due to infrastructure. Everyone who could
| afford it has had a battery and inverter in our homes
| since forever. Hooking up some solar panels to it is
| relatively straightforward.
|
| I think there are also some state sponsored subsidies
| involved although I couldn't tell you how much.
| aembleton wrote:
| I would say 10% of the homes in my estate in Derbyshire
| have rooftop solar. We haven't gone for it yet because I
| still think the cost is too high. It might work out when
| electricity gets even more expensive.
| alias_neo wrote:
| In the UK, it's expensive, and it's not the technology,
| it's everything else. I don't see how that can improve
| unless the installation costs come down, and I don't know
| how that could/would happen.
|
| I had solar installed last year, at the end of the
| summer, it cost roughly PS14,000 for a system that can
| produce 6.51kWp and with 12kWh of battery storage (about
| 10kWh usable).
|
| The 465W all-black panels (14 of them) I had installed
| are a little under PS100 each to buy off-the-shelf, that
| accounts for 10% (PS1400) of the cost of my system.
|
| The batteries and inverter together another roughly
| PS3.5k, so, about PS9k of that cost was not for "solar
| and battery tech", a good chunk of it, somewhere around
| 40% of the total was labour, and the rest in scaffolding.
| Even if we allocate say another PS1k to "hardware";
| rails, wire, switchgear etc, that's still PS8k easily.
|
| Even if the hardware was free, PS8-10k installation costs
| seems prohibitively expensive for the average UK
| household, unless you were totally wiping out your
| monthly bills and could pay it off over the lifetime of
| the system.
|
| I suspect part of the issue in Australia is the same; I
| believe (perhaps incorrectly) you have a lot more sun
| down there so I'd expect the scale of (number of)
| installations to be higher.
| jacquesm wrote:
| You were ripped off.
| homebessguy wrote:
| Absolutely. A local company is currently advertising 12
| 470w panels, 10kwh storage for PS7695 fully installed
| with additional pannels fully installed for PS200 each.
| /r/uksolar is a great resource for comparing quotes.
| dalyons wrote:
| ~39% of Australian homes have solar as of 2025. Seems
| pretty widespread
| MandieD wrote:
| Seeing fewer rooftop solar installations when I visit my home
| state (Texas) than I see in the one I live in (Bavaria) is a
| trip. Yes, I know that electricity is far cheaper there than
| here, but as much electricity as air conditioning eats, and
| as big as those roofs are (panels are cheap; it's the system
| that's expensive), it should balance out.
|
| Anecdotally, a ton of solar has gone up in the last four
| years here in Germany, both rooftop and, increasingly, in
| what were likely canola fields for biodiesel along highways -
| at first driven by Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the need
| to reduce natural gas consumption, but now by how absolutely
| cheap those panels are. Too bad they're not being made
| here...
|
| My favorite installation so far: a large field in SW Germany,
| with the panels high enough for cattle to wander and grass to
| grow under them. The cattle were almost all under those
| panels, munching away - it was a hot day.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Grid level renewables are more economical than rooftop
| solar by a significant stretch, and Texas has a lot of
| that, especially wind. The lifetime cost of rooftop solar
| just doesn't work out very well when you also have cheap
| electricity.
| laurencerowe wrote:
| Something is deeply wrong with the home solar market in the
| US. It comes out about 3x more expensive than Australia
| despite similar labour costs.
| timeon wrote:
| Barely any closer? I can see it on every fourth roof in
| western Slovak village.
| dzonga wrote:
| it seems us is fighting yesterday's war
|
| wars / empires etc are built on mastering an energy source
|
| the Brits on Coal
|
| the US rose on Oil
|
| China is rising on renewables
|
| my worry is can renewables be quickly brought online to power
| industry / power hungry Data Centers etc at a reasonable cost
| margalabargala wrote:
| > my worry is can renewables be quickly brought online to
| power industry / power hungry Data Centers etc at a
| reasonable cost
|
| I mean, clearly the answer is yes. The problem is political,
| not economic.
| kiba wrote:
| Everyone's rising on renewables. Renewable energy is just a
| victim of a heavily polarizing political atmosphere.
| tim333 wrote:
| China did most of its rising on fossil fuels. I think they
| are fairly pragmatic as to what to use.
| detritus wrote:
| But now their ascendance will be largely built on
| renewables which, due to our ineptitude here in the west,
| we've handed them the ball.
|
| Good luck to them, because someone has to.
| MarceliusK wrote:
| The rhetoric around "energy independence" always sounded like
| it was pointing exactly toward renewables, and it's hard not to
| see the missed opportunity in hindsight
| specialist wrote:
| I vividly recall an episode of Dallas where Bobby was
| rationalizing to his brother JR about investing in
| renewables.
|
| For a brief window of time our consensus for decarbonization
| extended all the way to (the most) popular media.
| expedition32 wrote:
| The US invented fracking.
|
| Arguably the US is energy independent. It has Texas, Canada and
| Venezuela.
|
| They never did discover any large oilfields in China despite
| decades of frantically searching for it.
| RobertoG wrote:
| "It has Texas, Canada and Venezuela", eh.. excuse me?
| Nevermark wrote:
| I thought the same thing, ... where is the "and
| Greenland!"?
|
| The amount of hard, soft and economic power that are being
| burned for the bedtime stories of one person is unreal. As
| are all the cooperators and lobby harnessing conspirators
| whose actual dreams are getting implemented.
|
| It isn't the fall of the USSR, but it is still a dramatic
| ceiling bounce.
| jacquesm wrote:
| The US does not have Venezuela.
| lateforwork wrote:
| It does. It may be illegal, immoral etc., but it does as of
| now.
| tehjoker wrote:
| The Bolivarian revolution kicked us out before, they can
| do it again.
| esseph wrote:
| Alaska
| NickC25 wrote:
| Canada fucking hates the US right now and are actively in
| discussions to deepen their relationship with China, and cut
| back on their relationship with the US.
|
| I don't blame them.
| badc0ffee wrote:
| Canada is actively pursuing more pipeline capacity to the
| west coast, in order to sell more oil to China.
|
| However, it's also true that if the US builds a new
| pipeline to the Canadian border, Canada will happily fill
| it with heavy crude.
| m4ck_ wrote:
| We're only energy independent in the sense that we export
| more oil than we import. We're still reliant on foreign oil
| because we haven't retooled (or built enough new) refineries
| for a lot of the oil we produce. Allowing the Saudis to own
| refineries is probably a strong factor there. If the middle
| east and Canada cut us off, we're SOL. Venezuela barely
| produces anything right now.
| chaostheory wrote:
| It's about incentives. We are "energy independent" compared to
| China and the EU. With China, if its relations with Russia sour
| and if they get cut off in Djiboutis by any number of powers,
| they will be a world of hurt.
| MaxHoppersGhost wrote:
| Have you driven around anywhere rural lately? The US is doing a
| ton of renewables development.
|
| China is also building unfathomable amount of coal plants as
| well.
| tehjoker wrote:
| We chose this path because the U.S. dollar is underpinned by
| fossil fuel markets. Also, batteries do not have the energy
| density to mobilize a mechanized military.
|
| Our elites refuse to concede dominance of the affairs of the
| world, so they will never allow the fossil fuel infrastructure
| to decline unless forced.
|
| By contrast, China has every incentive to do the right thing.
| epolanski wrote:
| 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. Even the countries with the capital and know-how (US and
| France) see more projects cancelled than brought online. I
| think US has put online a single nuclear plant in 20 years,
| France not a single one.
|
| 2. Nuclear needs tons of water, we have less and less of it as
| it rains less and global warming doesn't accumulate enough snow
| in the alps (which generally melts in the summer), our rivers
| are literally dry stone most of the year.
|
| 3. Renewables can be attached to the grid (or close to where
| they are needed) in the span of few months and with very little
| know-how required.
|
| 4. Money isn't limitless, building a 20B+ nuclear plant
| (realistically 50 knowing these projects + Italy) means this
| budget won't be available for the next decade on projects that
| could bring benefits immediately.
|
| I'm sure that Italy and Germany, which are manufacturing heavy
| countries that need lots of energy cannot rely renewables
| alone, of course nuclear should be considered, but hell, in my
| region (around Rome), 95% of our energy comes from imported
| natural gas, I'm sure we could invest some more in that.
| Retric wrote:
| I'm anti nuclear on cost reasons but that's excessively
| pessimistic. Nuclear can use seawater for cooling, and being
| colder offsets the cost premium of using salt water.
|
| Your 2050's comment assumes a level of dysfunction that's
| presumably exaggerated. Averaging 10 years puts you at 2036
| and is itself somewhat pessimistic.
|
| The cost of canceled nuclear projects is generally quite low
| compared to lifetime subsidies of nuclear. Nuclear may be an
| inefficient use of government resources, but it's also offset
| a staggering amount of emissions and the subsidies tend to
| end back up in the local economy recuperating some of the
| expense. IMO, there's probably dumber things your government
| is doing that are worth fighting instead.
| epolanski wrote:
| > 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 anti-nuclear referendum
| that's been voted 3 decades ago. So there is a lot that
| needs to be changed, starting from having a public voting.
|
| Hinkley Point C, in UK, has ballooned it's cost from the
| planned 18B pounds to a 43B pounds in the span of a decade.
| These projects always go overbudget, badly.
| Retric wrote:
| 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 boondoggle but
| it didn't get construction approval until 2012 and like
| many projects ran into COVID delays on top of everything
| else.
|
| > These projects always go overbudget, badly.
|
| Using the worst example means there's something very
| wrong with each of them.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| Well there you are, then: projects experience delays in
| construction approval and run into unexpected delays,
| both of which extend a ~10yr estimate.
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| 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.
| softwaredoug wrote:
| It's particularly sad, we've known about the greenhouse effect
| caused by CO2 since 19th century, and now its branded as
| radical pseudoscience
| socalgal2 wrote:
| 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 solar. Driving
| toward Vegas as well. And those are just the ones I've seen
| with my own eyes. There's many others.
|
| https://www.google.com/search?udm=2&q=altamont+pass+windmill...
|
| https://www.google.com/search?udm=2&q=mojave+windmills&sa=X&...
|
| https://www.google.com/search?udm=2&q=palmdale+solar+farm&sa...
|
| https://www.google.com/search?udm=2&q=desert+stateline+solar...
|
| https://www.google.com/search?udm=2&q=barstow+solar+plant&sa...
| mlmonkey wrote:
| 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?
| michaelteter wrote:
| The current US "leadership" is working as hard as it can to
| prevent any progress and to even dismantle some of the gains
| we have made.
|
| Meanwhile, China has made the obvious realization that
| independence from oil and gas is economically,
| geopolitically, and environmentally beneficial.
| carabiner wrote:
| If it is not in the interest of people over the age of 60, it
| _will not happen_ in the US.
| tzs wrote:
| 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.
| SPICLK2 wrote:
| I find the idea of blanketing mountainous wilderness in
| relatively short-lived e-waste just awful. Surely there are much
| better terrains for solar panels?
| ehhthing wrote:
| Modern solar panels last around 30 years, so I wouldn't exactly
| call it "short-lived".
|
| Economically, I'm sure the locations chosen were optimal. You'd
| imagine that actual mountainous wilderness would be a much more
| expensive terrain to blanket with solar panels, compared to
| flat areas. If there were other choices, economically they'd
| better options.
| SPICLK2 wrote:
| Given the vast amount of flat, well-lit terrain within the
| borders of China, it should be clear that the pictured
| projects (and the other "blanket a mountain in solar panels"
| projects that are easily discoverable) are not about the
| economics of power generation.
| cyp0633 wrote:
| At least it's better than sending peasants into the
| mountains and building solar panels on the flat field that
| has been growing crops for thousands of years.
| zemvpferreira wrote:
| Yes let us wait for an optimal aesthetic solution for another
| 50 years while we choke on our own fumes. Plenty of time to
| rearrange the deck chairs.
| SPICLK2 wrote:
| China already has one (if we're insisting on solar power
| generation) - 700,000 sq. mi of desert.
|
| It's also not just aesthetic - flat terrain is just so much
| more practical.
| lm28469 wrote:
| > flat terrain is just so much more practical.
|
| Outside of peak summer it's much more optimal to have a
| south facing slope actually.
| Koffiepoeder wrote:
| Additionally, solar panels can become too hot and that
| reduces their efficiency. Also, deserts are famously
| known for dust. Since it rarely rains, you get a dust
| buildup, further compromising solar efficiency in
| deserts.
|
| I'm not saying that deserts are a bad place for solar.
| What I'm trying to say is - it's often worse than people
| think and it requires special infrastructure.
| barbazoo wrote:
| I love how they're just building and building, adding more
| and more capacity and people here are arguing whether it's
| in the right location. It's laughable.
| blitzar wrote:
| Bring back those big beautiful chimeys, burning their beautiful
| coal and blanketing us in the warm glorious embrace of soot and
| fly ash.
| budgefrankly wrote:
| In this particular case I believe the mountain is largely karst
| (limestone) and the panels substantially reduced erosion --
| particularly of soil -- leading to an increase in fauna that
| thrive in the shade.
|
| As others have said, it's hardly waste, it's an installation
| with a 30-year lifespan.
| lm28469 wrote:
| Still much better and lower impact than whatever the fuck we'd
| been doing for the past 200 years
| soundworlds wrote:
| Beautiful!
| motbus3 wrote:
| I know nothing about the topic. Although it seems a better
| alternative than coal or petrol, is it free of side effects for
| the nature? I wonder if the heat that would be spread around the
| atmosphere and back to space can actually gradually serve as a
| trap for heat?
|
| Does this question make any sense at all?
| spiderfarmer wrote:
| Sure, everything has downsides. Even breathing. But none of the
| alternatives have downsides that are as big as taking carbon
| from the soil and pumping it in an already stressed ecosystem.
| appointment wrote:
| No it doesn't make sense. Every photon that hits the Earth is
| eventually either absorbed as heat, reflected back into space
| or both (eg. partially absorbed and partially re-emitted as
| lower energy photons.) There is no net global increase in heat
| from a wind turbine or solar panel. (There might be slight
| local shifts.)
|
| The only way this could change net heat if it significantly
| altered the reflectivity of the surface, and in practice the
| affected area is too small to matter. As an exaggerated
| example, I found an article [1] that calculated the area that
| would need to be covered by solar panels to generate power
| equal the total global electricity consumption to be 115,625
| square miles, approximately equal to the state of New Mexico.
|
| [1] https://www.axionpower.com/knowledge/power-world-with-
| solar/
| FpUser wrote:
| This is actually quite a sizeable chunk. If in the future
| needs grow 10 times the area needed might become big problem.
| barbazoo wrote:
| Might.
| pfdietz wrote:
| It would actually be much better than nuclear. Remember,
| for every kWh of electrical energy delivered from a nuclear
| plant, 2 kWh of waste heat goes up those cooling towers.
| This is not the case with solar, particularly if it were
| built on ground that was already fairly dark.
|
| Direct thermal pollution like this is not yet globally
| significant, but if demand increased to the point that land
| constraints actually applied then it would become
| important.
| lm28469 wrote:
| > is it free of side effects for the nature?
|
| What is free of side effects for "nature" ?
| master_crab wrote:
| 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.
| vages wrote:
| I would suspect they are floating on pontoons.
| Y-bar wrote:
| You can see the pillars they are built on in for example
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-13/china-
| s-s...
|
| (direct link to image: https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iq
| jWHBFdfxIU/iy93Jvbye2e...)
|
| Solar panels are meant to be water proof, after all they are
| meant to survive rain storms and melting snow and coastal
| weather.
| gs17 wrote:
| "meant to survive rain storms" doesn't really mean the same
| as "meant to survive flooding", especially not "meant to
| survive flooding with salt water". For example, a car
| survives outdoor weather year-round, but you probably
| wouldn't want to buy one that was submerged in a flood
| zone. This plant seems to be floating, though, so they stay
| above water regardless.
| Y-bar wrote:
| Do you have any specifics about the implementation that
| makes you say that the engineers have not considered
| this?
| anon84873628 wrote:
| Putting aside the salt water, you'll also just have lots
| of crud and debris on the panels if they get over topped,
| which then requires cleaning. Unless the rain in that
| area is strong and consistent enough.
|
| Seems like a weird location to me, but what do I know.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| China has has Megawatt-scale floating PV at sea too.
| lvl155 wrote:
| China is far more incentivized to champion renewable considering
| that they do not have the same access as the US. US is also on a
| path to quite literally invading other countries to extract crude
| and other resources. I don't think China is in a position to do
| this, yet. If China invades Brunei or arrests Bolkiah, they will
| face irreversible repercussions.
|
| All that said, I don't think wind and solar are the answers.
| Geothermal and fusion will need to be the solution.
| Dumblydorr wrote:
| 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.
| pfdietz wrote:
| 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.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| You can get a lot of stationary batteries for a couple of
| trillion dollars.
| Mashimo wrote:
| > Geothermal and fusion will need to be the solution.
|
| China needs power NOW though.
| tim333 wrote:
| I think China is incentivised due to health effects of coal.
| "China's reliance on coal reduces life expectancy by 5.5 years"
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jul/08/northern...
| etc.
|
| I think it's a bit better now. I don't think invasions change
| that much.
| NickC25 wrote:
| >All that said, I don't think wind and solar are the answers
|
| Found the Oil & Gas lobbyist / apologist.
|
| China might not have oil, but at least they are trying to
| figure something else out. Credit to them. Say what you want
| about The Party (I certainly have) but gotta give credit where
| and when its due. They have an interest in pushing alternative
| fuels, and by god they are doing it.
| xerp2914 wrote:
| Meanwhile POTUS has his head stuck in the sand [0]:
|
| > "All you have to do is say to China, how many windmill areas do
| you have in China? So far, they are not able to find any. They
| use coal, and they use oil and gas and some nuclear, not much.
| But they don't have windmills, they make them and sell them to
| suckers like Europe, and suckers like the United States before."
|
| One of the most factually BS statements ever.
|
| [0]
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattrandolph/2026/01/12/china-d...
| neogodless wrote:
| And that's despite the breathtaking scale of BS from a single
| source!
| triceratops wrote:
| Enough biomass to power half the country sustainably.
| globular-toast wrote:
| > 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.
| danw1979 wrote:
| 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.
| globular-toast wrote:
| Every generation thinks they're building a safer future for
| their kids, including the boomers. If you want to talk about
| safety then you need to take sustainability seriously.
| carefulfungi wrote:
| In the US, "Boomers" made the environmental movement
| mainstream, created the EPA, started cleanup of superfund
| sites, and passed the clean water and clean air acts. There
| are waterways where I live that are swimmable for the first
| time in generations because of the Boomers. It's not an
| either/or proposition.
| jshier wrote:
| Boomers didn't create the EPA, that was the Greatest and
| Silent generations. Boomers were no more than 25 in 1970
| and hardly in power. Some of them may have been in the
| activists pushing for change but they didn't actually
| pass the legislation.
| Y-bar wrote:
| Less scenic, sure. But still beautiful.
|
| I would rather they not have to be built in the first place.
| Yet, this is unfortunately the price we must pay today for not
| reducing our carbon emissions yesterday.
|
| Had we taken a serious effort to do something in, say the mid
| nineties when the scientific community reached a large
| consensus regarding the major contributors of climate change it
| had been less urgent to do something now thirty years later and
| we would have had a much longer time for the academies and
| industry to research and improve performance of non-fossil
| energy production and do the same for energy using
| applications.
|
| It's not the renewables which are to blame, because if we
| continue to burn fossil fuels the way we do then these places
| will either soon be destroyed, or nobody can appreciate them
| due to civilisational collapse.
| zipy124 wrote:
| Fossil fuels have destroyed far more places than renewable
| energy's land coverage ever will.
| triceratops wrote:
| > 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
|
| I didn't know they were so big that you can't fit in the sea
| anymore. /s
| zipy124 wrote:
| 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.
| That is not to say that these projects should be free of
| criticism, but anyone who believes these negatives are remotely
| close to the damage that fossil fuels are doing needs to re-
| evaluate their world view.
| delta_p_delta_x wrote:
| I was just about to make precisely the same comment. The fear,
| uncertainty, and doubt about renewables here is ridiculous, and
| I expected better. I suppose everyone watched too much
| _Landman_.
|
| China is rocketing ahead in every domain possible, from
| resource and financial independence, to infrastructure in terms
| of high-speed rail, bridges, roads, advanced fission reactors
| and bleeding-edge fusion research. Heavy industry like mining
| and processing, chemicals, ship-building.
|
| Let's not even get into semiconductors. I fully expect them to
| achieve parity with TSMC before 2030 and surpass them shortly
| after.
|
| Meanwhile, Western countries will say 'clean coal' or have a
| million different stakeholders squabble about where and how to
| build nuke power plants.
| spiderfarmer wrote:
| 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.
| delta_p_delta_x wrote:
| > And since renewable + batteries is now cheaper than
| nuclear, we should spend our money and time wisely.
|
| Eggs in one basket. Renewables are good, but it gets
| cloudy, it becomes night, it might not be windy. Nuclear
| will output power come rain or shine, and like I said, it's
| not like China _isn 't_ investing in advanced fission.
| They're throwing money at _everything_ to see what sticks.
| They 're working on SMRs, molten salt, thorium, and more.
| raducu wrote:
| > Eggs in one basket. Renewables are good, but it gets
| cloudy, night is a thing, it might not be windy
|
| Also, we can't survive an asteroid crash/extinction event
| with solar.
|
| Nuclear is transcedental. If we had practically unlimited
| fusion power, we could build underground, grow plants in
| aquaponics and aeroponics and ride it out in underground
| cities and farms.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > Also, we can't survive an asteroid crash/extinction
| event with solar.
|
| Maybe tell the Chinese they have it wrong and are risking
| extinction.
| lolc wrote:
| Fusion will be its own extinction event as things go. At
| our development level, if we develop fusion, we'll have
| to live underground after boiling the oceans to generate
| crypto tokens and undress videos.
|
| The asteroid is just science unlikely fiction.
| pfdietz wrote:
| > unlimited fusion power
|
| This is pie-in-the-sky, by-and-by fantasy. Fusion's sole
| accomplishment is likely to be making fission look cheap
| in comparison.
|
| Just because something became a science fiction trope
| doesn't mean it's actually going to be a part of the
| future.
| soundwave106 wrote:
| One of the problems with nuclear is, um, it's ability
| _to_ cause an "extinction event". Sort of.
|
| In that:
|
| * Nuclear power plant failures can be very, very nasty.
| As in, "producing uninhabitable land for eons" nasty.
| Yes, dam failures are spectacularly nasty, too (but don't
| create unlivable land as much). Yes, fossil fuel power
| plants also are quite bad in a "more silent way" via
| pollution (plus the occasional centuries-burning coal
| mine fires etc.). All power sources have problems. But
| this is a pretty big negative.
|
| * What this means is that big centralized nuclear is also
| a big target for rogue actors... similar to dams, but
| _not_ similar to more distributed energy sources like
| solar or wind. Blowing up a single solar farm or windmill
| doesn 't have a huge impact, relatively speaking,
| compared to blowing up a nuclear plant. Nuclear plants
| thus have to spend extra expense protecting themselves
| against this sort of thing. (And, in the United States at
| least, classify much of the process of doing so.)
|
| * Nuclear power plants can also be used to produce
| nuclear weapons. Now this is where the _really_ fun
| politics begins. Many countries would be really unhappy
| if their adversary countries start making nuclear weapons
| from their nuclear power plants. A lot of military stuff
| has been spent over the last decades trying to prevent
| such.
|
| This last point is where China's solar panel play
| actually makes more sense compared to nuclear. Think of
| the politics involved if China builds a big nuclear point
| in (insert adversary of some other country here). Could
| be very, very tricky in many cases. Whereas, there is
| very little if any politics involved with shipping a
| solar panel somewhere.
|
| The distributed, small scale nature of solar panels also
| means that customers in countries with poor centralized
| power grids (common in developing countries) are able to
| use them to bypass the current system. This happened
| previously in many of these countries with mobile phones,
| where customers were able to bypass poor centralized
| phone networks. In this aspect, I think the
| "decentralized" aspect is far more important than the
| "renewable" aspect... but still.
|
| (There are positives to nuclear, of course; I'm mainly
| countering the "transcendental" word here. All power
| sources have plusses and minuses.)
|
| (Note: I have heard of work on smaller scale nuclear
| systems, but I am not certain if even a small nuclear
| power device completely resolves political or security
| concerns.)
| ponector wrote:
| >> As in, "producing uninhabitable land for eons" nasty.
|
| Chernobyl is pretty much habitable now in most places.
| People live there, work at the power plant.
| hnmullany wrote:
| It's two orders of magnitude difference between
| renewables and nuclear though. China commissioned about
| 3GW of nuclear and almost 300GW of solar last year.
| jacquesm wrote:
| > it becomes night, it might not be windy.
|
| That's where long distance interconnects come into play.
| stuaxo wrote:
| > Eggs in one basket. Renewables are good, but it gets
| cloudy, it becomes night, it might not be windy.
|
| That's two baskets right there.
| energy123 wrote:
| There's words like "cloudy", and then there's proper
| simulation studies which demonstrate that these concerns
| are unfounded.
| delta_p_delta_x wrote:
| Okay... and? I'm not saying 'let's only do nuclear, and
| not bother about wind/solar/tidal'. I'm saying there is
| plenty of money to go around, and it doesn't hurt to
| spend some of that to diversify our power generation and
| have some reliable, non-polluting, highly power-dense,
| high-tech base load (nuclear) that can be quickly
| throttled to meet demand, and is generally resistant to
| most environmental conditions.
|
| The Chinese, Indian, Indonesian, French, British, and
| even Singaporean[1] (of all places, one might expect a
| tiny equatorial city-state to be the _last_ place to
| think about nuclear, but it is all the same, because
| nuclear is _ridiculously_ power-dense) governments seem
| to agree with me.
|
| [1]: https://www.world-nuclear-
| news.org/articles/singapore-seriou...
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| Nuclear isn't getting built at any significant scale in
| the US after Vogtle. We might get a couple of plants
| opened up (like 3MI) but large scale new buildouts aren't
| happening until SMRs are available at scale. Anything
| else is an Internet fantasy.
| tzs wrote:
| > Renewables are good, but it gets cloudy, it becomes
| night, it might not be windy
|
| ...which is why China has 40 000 km of UHV transmission
| lines forming a vast network to move the energy from
| where it is abundant to where it is needed. They have 8
| new UHV projects that started in 2024 or 2025 that will
| add another 10 000 km.
| api wrote:
| 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 based more on vibes,
| which ultimately comes down to tribal dog whistles, than
| reason.
| pfdietz wrote:
| See if they've actually committed money in a serious way,
| not in a "if you can actually achieve this absurdly low
| price point we'll buy it" way.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > If they're cheaper than nuclear, why is the AI crowd
| looking to nuclear for data centers?
|
| They're looking for credulous investors in the nuclear
| startups they founded?
| natmaka wrote:
| 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...
| kiba wrote:
| I expect China to overbuild and the west to underbuild.
| jgalt212 wrote:
| You say that and OpenAI is signing compute deals in excess
| of 20X current revenues.
| kiba wrote:
| Good point. Reality is more nuanced than simple
| overbuilding and underbuilding. Still, we aren't really
| still building enough housing and mass transit
| infrastructure.
|
| That may hamper us more than anything else. If AI proves
| to be as beneficial as its proponents hyped, the economic
| gains will just mostly get soaked up by landowners. Even
| UBI won't save us, because it will just get absorbed by
| landowners. Ditto for renewable energy.
| sneak wrote:
| I know which error I'd prefer to be making.
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| Overbuilding energy doesn't seem like a problem, if Jevon's
| paradox applies to ANYTHING, it applies to energy.
| andrewinardeer wrote:
| Whoa boy. I caught Landman for the first time today because
| my partner was watching it.
|
| Oil, cigarettes and alcohol were all clearly being pushed and
| promoted. Pretty sure it was episode four where a women
| rather matter-of-factly stated that one alcoholic beverage
| when pregnant was perfectly fine - inso much that it was good
| because it helped her body generate breast milk. Such a weird
| statement to shoe-horn into this soap opera.
|
| Coupled with BBT chain smoking the coffin nails, the rampant
| shit-canning of renewables and incessant self promotion of
| how large and wonderful the fossil fuel industry is the money
| behind the show was as subtle as a sledgehammer.
|
| Plus the sexual objectification of women in this show is
| ludicrous.
|
| It's 2026. It seems everything old is new again.
|
| Oh, and the
| zzzeek wrote:
| never heard of this show, I wonder who produces it
|
| oh Paramount
|
| the ones that just decimated CBS News, put talentless
| propagandist Bari Weiss in charge, and censored a critical
| report on human rights abuses ordered by POTUS
|
| all running on Oracle (tm)
| 3D30497420 wrote:
| I haven't seen Landman, but I have heard of it. My
| understanding is that all the characters are pretty
| miserable, but that it nonetheless weirdly glorifies their
| lifestyles.
|
| I guess it is a bit like Francois Truffaut's statement that
| there are no "anti-war films". I imagine if some population
| segment has chosen to identify with a particular lifestyle
| (oilman, soldier, gangster, etc.) then it doesn't really
| matter quite how that lifestyle is portrayed so long as the
| viewer can make a connection with it.
| samiv wrote:
| With China's huge resources both natural and human it's only
| expected that China will again reclaim its position as the
| leading country in science, technology, production and
| generally everything.
|
| If you assume that .5% of population are "einsteins" then
| China has 7.5m einsteins who are now able to access
| universities and advance sciences whether it's AI or solar
| power or self driving cars.
|
| There's no doubt about the fact that the future belongs to
| China.
|
| There's just no way to deny this. The economical and
| political power will shift to China.
| ebruchez wrote:
| > There's just no way to deny this.
|
| Of course there is "way".
|
| All the above above in itself sounds like propaganda. You
| forget other political (authoritarian system making massive
| mistakes), demographic (1.0, probably less in reality,
| birth per woman), psychological (disillusioned young
| population), and geographic (food and other imports)
| aspects, among other things.
| ragazzina wrote:
| > authoritarian system making massive mistakes
|
| Compared to the US democracy?
| ebruchez wrote:
| Yes - so far.
| lateforwork wrote:
| China draws mainly on the talents of the best of its
| billion+ population. But America has had its pick of the
| best of the world's 8 billion people. We are taking a break
| now, but starting 2029 America will resume having its pick
| of the best.
| delta_p_delta_x wrote:
| > but starting 2029 America will resume having its pick
| of the best
|
| Your current government seems determined to make sure
| this won't happen.
| pfdietz wrote:
| This is the GOP devouring itself. Ditto the christian
| right that's been behind it. Religiosity is decaying away
| in the US.
| samiv wrote:
| US is a crumbling democracy with crumbling infrastructure
| and society. I just hope while it goes down it doesn't
| take the rest of the planet with it.
| lateforwork wrote:
| Yes that's true... but only for the next 3 more years. We
| return in 2029.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| The American people did this twice in fairly quick
| succession.
|
| Unless there's a _serious_ reckoning afterwards, the rest
| of the world is gonna operate on the assumption that it
| can and probably will happen again soon.
| dvfjsdhgfv wrote:
| I really hope so but honestly, what lessons have
| Democrats learned so far that will allow them to take the
| votes of those who are not right-wing radicals? Because
| there was a lot of unnecessary stuff that was going on
| that pissed off those who don't lean too far either side.
| Trump exploits this by, say, "Keeping Men Out of Women's
| Sports" and scores high not just on the right. This theme
| will be very difficult to deal with by the Democrats.
|
| And on the foreign front, well, the trust has been broken
| and I don't think it can be repaired easily. The
| remaining NATO allies are very stable, they understand
| mutual respect and collaboration is the foundation of
| their survival, whereas attacking each other breaks trust
| completely. Even if a new fantastic president is chosen
| that understands his huge responsibility both for
| Americans and the world, other countries learned their
| lesson hard and understand there is no guarantee in a few
| years the USA become their enemy again.
| lateforwork wrote:
| Yes, Democrats have to move towards the center. But
| that's not enough. You can't have one good party and one
| evil party. Both parties have to be basically good, even
| if they disagree on policy. You can't have the country
| decline each time Republicans gain power.
| deathanatos wrote:
| I wouldn't count these chickens before they hatch.
|
| I keep wondering where the line in the sand is for the
| wider GOP base. We keep crossing what I think "this is
| the line ... right?" and nope, that wasn't it, either.
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| 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 something everyone
| will overlook in a years time. The wheels are turning now
| to divest from the us.
| lateforwork wrote:
| 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.
| illuminator83 wrote:
| Especially since the US is not going to have any allies
| anymore soon.
| api wrote:
| America is stuck in its past, specifically the 1950s-1960s.
| jacquesm wrote:
| And it's aiming to go further back.
| pphysch wrote:
| That would be nice. It looks more like the early 1900s with
| naked imperialism and crony capitalism right now. Possibly
| staring down the barrel of a 1930s economic collapse.
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| > I suppose everyone watched too much Landman.
|
| No, too much Fox "News".
| nullocator wrote:
| Landman is fascinating because it goes out of its way to
| bring up valid claims about renewables or criticisms of
| oil/gas but then spits an insane amount of propaganda and
| lies at you in quick succession to falsely "debunk" these
| criticisms or sweep them under the rug. This is definitely
| not being done for the character's benefit in the show, so
| its quite impressive how effectively and frequently its
| tossed in there.
| globular-toast wrote:
| Oh, what a weak argument: "you've just fallen for the
| propaganda".
|
| You might notice comments simply arguing for less energy usage
| are buried at the bottom too. Have you considered whether you
| may have fallen for the "green" propaganda? It's so predictable
| after all.
|
| Two wrongs don't make a right. We look back and curse our
| ancestors for their unbridled use of fossil fuels. Who is to
| say future generations won't look back and curse us for
| destroying all wilderness?
| xipho wrote:
| Ok, I'll bite. What if solar panels turn into breeding
| grounds with perfect environmental temperatures to create
| viruses that kill us all? Who is to say the sun won't blow up
| tomorrow? Why not enumerate all the things that might happen
| to distract? There is a nice quote going around re a weather
| scientists who gets asked annually what's it going to be like
| this year? He's tired, and notes "this year, and every year
| for the rest of your life is going to be the hottest ever."
| That's in large part to oil, full stop.
| top_sigrid wrote:
| Do you have ANY datapoints or arguments to underpin that
| renewables "destroy all wilderness". Or even more that they
| are worse than fossil fuels? This claim - especially in your
| harsh tone - could need at least some reason.
| triceratops wrote:
| > We look back and curse our ancestors for their unbridled
| use of fossil fuels. Who is to say future generations won't
| look back and curse us for destroying all wilderness?
|
| I curse my ancestors for destroying all wilderness to get at
| fossil fuels.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| Yes fracking wells are _famously_ harmless to the
| environment.
|
| Right.
| account42 wrote:
| It's incredibly how common it is these days to see valid
| criticism dismissed as "X talking points" or "Y dog whistle". I
| guess that's easier than providing an argument.
| throw10920 wrote:
| It's super common, and it's also sneering and extremely anti-
| intellectual. It's against the HN guidelines (and reasonable
| discourse) and can and should be flagged and downvoted.
| MarceliusK wrote:
| Criticism is healthy. False equivalence isn't.
| Rover222 wrote:
| It's kind of bizarre to see the far right and far left circle
| to the same misguided big oil conclusions, although for
| different reasons. The right doesn't want their traditional
| oil/coal industries threatened. The left is kind of... just
| against the continued growth of technology/industry/humanity.
| lostlogin wrote:
| Can you point at criticism from the left? I haven't noticed
| it.
| Rover222 wrote:
| Mostly just saying the sentiment I've seen on reddit
| comments or X posts, stuff like this:
|
| https://x.com/duncancampbell/status/1647109450438955008
|
| I'm not saying the idea is institutionalized by the
| democrats, but I think musk/tesla hatred is kinda driving
| it
| lostlogin wrote:
| That would be a weird way to get at Musk, as there's
| plenty out there that avoids his toxic touch.
| gruez wrote:
| >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 YIMBYs? Is "talking
| points" just a roundabout way to summarily dismiss the
| opposition's arguments and imply they're dumb/misguided?
| whatisthiseven wrote:
| Oil and gas have used, between drilling and refining, over 7
| million acres of land in just the US. Yes, it provides more
| electricity, but at the cost of destroying the entire
| planet's biosphere, global warming, etc.
|
| Current US estimates for solar land usage are 500,000 acres.
|
| The land use arguments are bunk. Anyone who complains is
| repeating oil and gas propaganda.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Around me, conservatives started a grassroots "save the
| whales" campaign to block wind.
|
| Conservatives, protesting on the street to save the whales.
| Talk about a sight to see.
| snaking0776 wrote:
| Faux environmentalism is the new climate denialism.
| https://www.desmog.com/2025/08/27/ai-slop-websites-are-
| publi...
| triceratops wrote:
| I call them True Bird Lovers. You only see them in
| numbers when windmills come up. They've never seen any
| pictures of oil-covered birds from the _Exxon Valdez_ or
| _Deepwater Horizon_ disasters.
| diego_moita wrote:
| > 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
| America, is contaminated by propaganda of established
| economic powers (i.e.: Big Oil, Big Pharma, Tech companies).
| They can easily advance their talking points because they
| have much more economic resources for propaganda and
| lobbying.
|
| I agree that, eventually, most people will discover that oil
| & coal are doomed and destroying the world. Reality has a way
| to force itself into ideologies.
|
| But that will take a long time. I need truth and certainty
| now.
| balops wrote:
| At the moment most who are chasing the green agenda are
| learning that it's not reliable. Germany for I instance
| can't even figure out where their power comes from and
| their grid is an absolute mess. They are busy destroying
| their nuclear power plants and coal plants while prices are
| skyrocketing and reliability is disappearing and systems
| are failing. The propaganda of the green is winning at the
| cost of people's lives.
| wasabi991011 wrote:
| Why is that a failure of the green agenda as opposed to a
| failure of Germany?
|
| Edit: I don't have the facts about reliability of green
| energy (though you didn't provide any evidence against it
| either), but it's clear the "not knowing where your
| energy comes from", "having messy grid" and "not
| investing in nuclear" are unrelated to renewable energy.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Germany's grid is an absolute mess because their nat gas
| pipelines have been cut off. Renewables are preventing a
| worse disaster, saving their limited LNG storage capacity
| to cover for dankelflautes.
| throw10920 wrote:
| > Is "talking points" just a roundabout way to summarily
| dismiss the opposition's arguments and imply they're
| dumb/misguided?
|
| It is. I've read _dozens_ of comments like this on HN, and
| repeatedly see the "it's incredible that...", "talking
| points"/"propaganda", and "wow look at how much bad stuff
| there is in this thread"/"I'm so disappointed in HN" memes,
| and _every single time_ it 's because the author is trying to
| dismiss the opposition's arguments without responding to them
| individually and actually addressing their points.
|
| This kind of thing clearly fits into the "sneering" category
| of things that aren't allowed on HN and so is valid for
| flagging. I do it and I highly encourage anyone else to do it
| who wants to preserve the culture of HN.
| tokai wrote:
| Those big oil comments are in your head. The comments here, not
| cheering, are nowhere near parroting any Big Oil talking point.
| God forbid that we have an actual conversation.
| balops wrote:
| The first couple of comments look like they are from China
| bots here to spread propaganda. They don't contribute
| anything of value.
| pphysch wrote:
| "China bots everywhere" or generally making renewable
| energy seem like a nefarious foreign plot is itself a big
| oil talking point. When your argument can't stand on the
| facts, deploy the Big Bad Bogeyman.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| Fossil fuel could be heading for a big cliff where most
| countries that currently import a lot of oil/gas will be year
| on year reducing their imports. China is ahead of the curve
| here and is already importing less oil year on year. That's
| likely going to spread. If you extrapolate growth curves
| trending up for EVs a few years you can draw similar curves for
| oil demand trending down.
|
| We can speculate about how quick/slow all this will progress.
| But it's worth pointing out that e.g. IEA, EIA and similar
| institutes have been repeatedly wrong and overly pessimistic
| with their predictions for things like adoption and cost of
| renewables. People are still basing policy and important
| decisions on their reports. So this matters. The "What if they
| are wrong, again?" question might have some uncomfortable
| answers if you are betting on them not being wrong.
|
| A lot of developing markets are skipping oil/gas/coal
| completely and are going straight to renewables. They are not
| first building a grid using coal/gas plants but working around
| what little they have in terms of unreliable grid by going
| straight for solar/batteries and microgrids. That's a pattern
| you see all over parts of Africa with historically very
| little/flaky power infrastructure and countries like Pakistan.
| These are growth economies showing much quicker economical
| growth than the world average. That's going to spread.
|
| Lots of countries are going to be decimating their oil/gas
| imports over the next 20 years. That includes transport and
| power generation. They'll be installing wind/solar/batteries
| and buying lots of EVs. Fossil fuel usage won't go all the way
| to zero. But it won't stay at current levels or anywhere close
| to that. Some countries will be faster some will be slower.
| Being slower isn't necessarily good for economies.
|
| Good advice here is to take an economic point of view and be
| aware of things like growth trends, cost curves, learning
| effects, technological changes, etc. You don't have to be an
| early adopter or believer. But there's a lot of data out there
| that supports an optimistic view. And a lot of pessimistic
| wishful thinkers that are not really looking at data or just
| cherry picking reports that support their believes. The fossil
| fuel industry sponsors a lot of reports research. And they are
| about as trust worthy as the Tobacco industry is when it comes
| to the pros/cons of smoking. That's why the IEA and EIA keeps
| getting it wrong. It helps to understand who pays for their
| reports (hint: fossil fuel companies and countries that depend
| on those).
|
| A healthy personal perspective is maybe considering what
| happens if your pension fund bets on fossil fuel and that cliff
| I mentioned turns out to be very real in about 10-20 years.
| Because if you bet wrong, that affects the value of that.
| Before you knee jerk to an answer, take a close look at what
| institutional investors have actually been doing for a while.
| Hint: coal plants were written off as good investments ages ago
| and gas plants aren't looking much better at this point. I
| think you'll see them move on oil funds next.
| rickydroll wrote:
| Your point about developing markets resonates for me in a
| different area. Instead of layering mobile phones on top of
| landlines, many developing markets went straight to mobile
| phones. Another thing to consider is that solar/wind is an
| incremental expansion of power capacity, versus the "big
| bang" expansion of nuclear capacity.
|
| To your point about the fossil fuel cliff, I think it was
| either a Bloomberg or Forbes article that discussed how
| China's deep involvement in the EV/battery/solar/wind
| Expansion in dozens of countries around the world gives it a
| chance to put a serious dent in oil consumption as well as
| locking American interests out of developing markets.
| hackeraccount wrote:
| Really? I don't think I have a dog in this hunt but my
| judgement of comments is that it's maybe 70/30 (with the 30
| being critical in one way or the other) and anyone critical is
| getting down voted to oblivion.
|
| That said "you're just repeating what you're told" is a
| comforting argument but doesn't go all that far.
| avsteele wrote:
| Beautiful pictures. To be clear: China runs on coal and will for
| the foreseeable future.
|
| https://www.iea.org/countries/china
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/coal-consumption-by-count...
| JensKnipper wrote:
| By showing only your provided data it seems. But when looking
| at the share of primary energy consumption from renewable
| sources it looks totally different!
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy?tab=line&facet=n...
| avsteele wrote:
| That metric doesn't answer the same question. It isn't saying
| 18% of their needs are being met by renewables.
| JensKnipper wrote:
| If you look at the growth rate of renewables it should be
| pretty clear that coal will not play a major role in the
| foreseeable future. Why is it not saying 18% of the needs
| are being met by renewables? That's exactly what it does
| avsteele wrote:
| This is not energy output (production, usage), it is that
| plus an adjustment for the in->out energy efficiency. It
| would only == production if all energy sources in the mix
| has the same factor.
|
| Because fossil fuels have higher in/out losses this is
| number is larger than usage. This metric is generally
| used to track decarbonization.
|
| Using the IEA number you can see the hydro+solar+wind
| production is about 9.5% of the total, not 18%.
|
| ChatGPT or you favorite LLM can explain in greater
| detail, just send it the plot image and ask.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| The adjusted graph is a better reflection of "meeting
| their needs" than raw primary energy, since more than
| half of fossil primary energy is lost as waste heat.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| When you're not trying to act like the "richest" country in the
| world, the sensibility of asource of energy is a complete no-
| brainer.
|
| Even though associated costs exist, a free source is the lowest
| of its kind you can find.
| joejohnson wrote:
| Meanwhile the US is using its remaining carbon budget to bomb and
| burn in one last effort to expand its dying empire. Eventually
| this system will fall, and the west will realize they wasted all
| their energy (literally) on non-civilian hardware that needs
| massive amounts of cheap oil.
| hotz wrote:
| Depressing to look at.
| Steve16384 wrote:
| Not as depressing as if it was coal power stations and
| coalmines blighting the landscape.
| MaxHoppersGhost wrote:
| China is building more coal plants right now than the entire
| world combined so don't worry they have those too.
| goodpoint wrote:
| No, they are beautiful.
| btbuildem wrote:
| You mean in context of a complete regression in the West,
| right?
| lambdaone wrote:
| Power is quite literally power, in both the physical and
| political senses. The Chinese know this, and Europe is catching
| up fast. American private enterprise knows it too.
|
| Battery storage isn't quite where it needs to be, yet, so there's
| still some need for fossil and nuclear power, but when it is,
| decommissioning the remaining fossil power system is a no-
| brainer, and those with the biggest existing solar and wind
| estates will benefit most, and fastest.
| MarceliusK wrote:
| On the one hand, the geometry is beautiful and almost serene; on
| the other, it's a reminder that decarbonization at this scale is
| still an industrial transformation of landscapes
| expedition32 wrote:
| If the US ever blocks Chinese ports the lights will be kept on.
| Although I'm sure that situation will end with a mushroom cloud.
| carefulfungi wrote:
| Or massive industrial hacking that destroys enough
| transportation, farming, and supply chain integration that
| there is mass starvation when food delivery and production
| stalls - and it all comes crumbling down.
| overfeed wrote:
| It would be interesting to see how Carrier Strike groups fare
| against hypersonic weapons, as well as witnessing what the
| modern fighting doctrine is when there is no absolute air
| superiority.
| jbl0ndie wrote:
| That looks significantly more like a long-term energy strategy
| than grabbing oil from Venezuela and Greenland.
| MaxHoppersGhost wrote:
| If you think there is oil in Greenland I think you should not
| contribute to these types of discussion for lack of knowledge
| on the topic.
| senordevnyc wrote:
| 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...
| MaxHoppersGhost wrote:
| 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.
| senordevnyc wrote:
| OK, so...there is oil in Greenland, and your snarky
| response was actually completely incorrect. Got it.
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| One neat thing is that solar/wind farms can be multi-use. You can
| position panels to provide shade and wind-break to provide micro-
| climates for plants and animals.
| btbuildem wrote:
| The fact that parking lots in the south of US aren't just
| covered in those makes no sense at all. Vast expanses of mostly
| empty pavement, bathed in sun all day? Shaded parking? No?
| nomadpenguin wrote:
| The Cincinnati Zoo covered all their parking lots with solar
| panels last year. Your car stays cool in the summer, and
| there's motion activated lighting under the panels after
| dark. It's awesome.
| tim333 wrote:
| They've got some impressive power cables too
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/future/article/20241113-will-chinas-ul...
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| This is more or less what we thought the 21st century
| infrastructure would look like in the 20th century. The only
| minor detail is it was supposed to happen in this country first.
| neko_ranger wrote:
| Country of facades and shortcuts. None of those are plugged in to
| anything, just a propaganda piece. They paint rocks green
| DontchaKnowit wrote:
| What makes you say that? This sounds like denialism to me
| gehsty wrote:
| Chinas policy around energy works and it has allowed them to
| become the world's engine for renewable power. They get the
| benefit of energy efficiency and being a critical trade partner
| for every country in the world.
|
| My experience is that the UK (for example) doesn't really know
| why it is building offshore wind. Is it to reduce bills to
| consumers (OFGEMS remit), is it to create local jobs in
| manufacturing (Clean Industry Bonus Scheme), is it to stimulate
| national wealth by ownership of projects (British Energy). It's a
| mess unclear picture for me.
|
| It would be nice if politicians could spend some time trying to
| work together, cross parties a come up with some sensible
| resolutions and long term plans instead of trying to score points
| for soundbites and clips.
| raffael_de wrote:
| For a German none of those photos are particularly remarkable or
| impressive.
|
| Especially wind mills - they are all over the place. Outside of
| cities and forests it would be difficult to not see at least one
| ... and they like to flock.
|
| For example:
|
| - https://www.google.com/maps/place/Energiepark+Witznitz+MOVE+...
|
| - https://www.erneuerbareenergien.de/energieversorger/stadtwer...
|
| - https://www.erneuerbareenergien.de/energieversorger/stadtwer...
| AuthAuth wrote:
| 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 transitioning and to be
| the ones to sell the solution. So now that its 2025 and they are
| finally starting to deploy some solar and wind im just not
| impressed. Its a dirty move and going forward I doubt we will see
| global trust in tackling these kind of problems again.
| maxglute wrote:
| >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.
| chairmansteve wrote:
| They are going for energy security. Not relying on middle eastern
| oil.
|
| A lesson Europe could learn.
| seydor wrote:
| Americans keep drilling baby drilling for oil that is becoming
| less and less necessary
| hollowturtle wrote:
| All I see is missed opportunities to build a bunch less nuclear
| power plants and call it a day, without messing up with the
| landscape. Am I the only one? I believe if we Europeans and
| Americans start building nuclear power plants again we could
| finally compete. Renewable energy is not constant and has a
| storage problem
| Computer0 wrote:
| At least half of people I talk to are strongly opposed to
| nuclear energy. How many are opposed to the current sources of
| energy as well? I wonder.
| hollowturtle wrote:
| Agree they oppose nuclear, perhaps because of the fear of the
| unknown radiation or whatever. Reality is all nuclear
| incidents combined are nothing compared to the health
| problems oil and gas created(not to mention political
| implications). To me filling a giant space with solar panels
| or installing giant bird killing turbines is such a moronic
| move when you can have unnoticeable small nuclear power
| plants
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| If nuclear plants were as inexpensive as renewables, that would
| make a ton of sense.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| I also lament the landscapes covered by solar panels. Even
| deserts are not dead barren ecosystems. Some of these installs
| are only slightly better than paving the whole area.
|
| But I get it, and tradeoffs are necessary.
|
| Another reason China may prefer this to more concentrated
| nuclear power is that is is much more distributed and resilient
| to targeted attacks.
| snow_mac wrote:
| I love this. I recently found a few solar panels dumpster diving
| that put out a good load. Just basic scratches and that is all. I
| am building out my own system to power my house and in the next 2
| years will be energy off grid in the city.
| L_gates wrote:
| So they ruined and polluted the natural landscape for "green
| energy" that is falsely sustainable and creates a ton of waste.
|
| I'd prefer the nuclear route.
|
| Solar panels require mining.
|
| Wind turbine blades aren't recyclable because they're made of
| epoxy resin and fibreglass.
| luoc wrote:
| Your uranium grows on trees, mh?
| natmaka wrote:
| 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')
| PilotJeff wrote:
| We are so done, and are going to be forced to instead fight the
| rest of the world for the remaining oil left if we don't wake up.
| It may even be too late.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Worry not, you can't change the US but you can leave for a
| developed country.
| DavidPiper wrote:
| 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.
| chrysoprace wrote:
| I was just saying this 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.
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