Skip to content

Last year China generated almost 3 times as much solar power as the EU did, and it's close to overtaking all OECD countries put together (whose combined population is 1.38 billion people)

Technology
149 54 27
  • The question is simple. If you have installed solar power of 40% your country peak use, how much nuclear power you need - assuming simplified you have only these two power sources.

    In a market or effincient economy, where peak occurs mid hot summer day, 100% solar dominated renewables makes sense. In Spring and fall, EVs can absorb daily oversupply and profit from trading back at night. Winter is when solar can fail to meet heating and electricity needs, and so either backup energy sources or having much more than 100% peak demand in order to make green H2 that can be exported to where it gets cold is needed.

    0 new nuclear is best amount of nuclear for any economy.

  • What batteries are you referring to? Do you realize the amount of energy those batteries would have to store? Perhaps somewhen in the not so near future, but today? Go ahead and show me a western city able to store a couple of days worth of energy. More realistically a week.

    OP sepcifically mentioned EVs. This sector is deflationary even in US, where better value/performance cars cost less every year. More dramatic deflation in less corrupt countries. Australia home solar costs under 1/3rd of US due to different politico-social corruption levels.

    EVs and home solar are a great match that permits going offgrid at substantially lower cost if an EV is parked at home during day. That same dynamic allows a society/community to power itself through solar+batteries, and EVs parked at work. It's not a question of look at our corrupt obstructionist oligarchical monopoly state of societies for examples of lack of economic success as proof that it will forever be impossible.

  • Yes, of course I've meant it in a positive way - a way to replace coal and gas. But solar is not just positive, they are problematic when you couple them with nuclear for the simple reasons that solar is not reliable and you can't throttle nuclear - they are like big ships, they require a lot of time to steer. Furthermore solar energy low price causes problems for nuclear higher prices. Which wouldn't be a problem if solar was reliable and continuous (long winter nights much?). But it's not, but you still need a reliable energy source. And so on.
    The pro solar panel crowd don't understand many of these implications and go with simple "idiotic" and downvotes.

    The idiot digs deeper, and shows his true colours. Asinine.

  • People talk about China's energy use like it's not* their* energy use. They used that power to produce the stupid shit that you bought, dumbass. You're responsible for that energy use, despite it being generated in China.

    So you're saying we should stop trading with China?

  • What batteries are you referring to? Do you realize the amount of energy those batteries would have to store? Perhaps somewhen in the not so near future, but today? Go ahead and show me a western city able to store a couple of days worth of energy. More realistically a week.

    Las Vegas has already achieved 97% storage supply for its needs - a city that barely sleeps at night.

    Again, where is your evidence that it is not going to improve across the board, and will all fail?

    "It's not all happening right now," is not even close to a convincing answer. If that was the reason to exclude any technology, there'd be none.

    And it's an especially ironic answer given that it takes up to 20 years to commission a nuclear power plant. And they are down for scheduled maintenance for up to a month a year, etc.

  • Last year, China generated 834 terawatt-hours of solar power.

    Which is more than the G7 countries generated, and more than the US and EU combined. In fact the only country group that generates more solar power than China is the OECD, all 38 countries of it.

    Data:
    @ember-energy.org

    Source: https://bsky.app/profile/nathanielbullard.com/post/3lsbbsg6ohk2j

    Amazing how fast you can build stuff when there's safety standards, no environmental regulations, no labour rights and the government can expropriate property without a time consuming legal process!

    Though I think a prefer living in a country where I have rights even if it takes a bit longer to build stuff.

  • Amazing how fast you can build stuff when there's safety standards, no environmental regulations, no labour rights and the government can expropriate property without a time consuming legal process!

    Though I think a prefer living in a country where I have rights even if it takes a bit longer to build stuff.

    We tried getting rid of environmental regulations, safety standards, labour rights, etc. in America and I'm still waiting for when stuff gets built faster... At least the government can't expropriate property! oh wait... Well at least we still have our rights? oh wait...

  • We tried getting rid of environmental regulations, safety standards, labour rights, etc. in America and I'm still waiting for when stuff gets built faster... At least the government can't expropriate property! oh wait... Well at least we still have our rights? oh wait...

    I think you call it eminent domain in the US. But I think it can still be challenged in court, but wait a couple months.

    Yes, the US is becoming China. You put a guy into power that admires Xi Jinping for the same reason China made Xi President for life: wanted a strongman to run the economy and protect you from evil foreigners. And now you're getting corporate socialism, just like China has.

  • What batteries are you referring to? Do you realize the amount of energy those batteries would have to store? Perhaps somewhen in the not so near future, but today? Go ahead and show me a western city able to store a couple of days worth of energy. More realistically a week.

    It's not perfect so it must be bad! Hot take. Fuck off with your green energy negging. You're a paid assassin or an idiot. Doesn't really matter which. Good day

  • They also expanded coal power, roads, and removed their population limiting policies, though. They produce about 3 times as much CO2 per person as India, Indonesia, and many South American nations, likely many nations in Africa as well but theres a lot of missing data.

    Pollution per GDP is a better measure.
    https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co2-intensity
    Pollution per GNP would be even better but I can’t find it.

    Individuals don’t pollution much, it’s mostly industry. Really poor countries often don’t pollution much because they can’t afford to. Sometimes they pollute prodigiously because the only thing they can afford to do is destructive resource extraction. Rich countries can often outsource their pollution to poorer countries.

    China has been making mind boggling investments in renewables. They have been expanding all their energy sources but their renewables have the lions share of the growth.

    They’ve been building roads and all kinds of infrastructure. That’s what the BRI is all about, even if they’re being a bit quieter about saying the phrase. They like to build their long haul roads on elevated columns; not only because it’s less disruptive to wildlife but because it lets them use giant road laying robots to place prefab highway segments.

    They dropped the one-child policy a while back but they’re having some trouble getting people to have more babies. That said, there’s some research that suggests that rural populations around the world are severely undercounted, so they may have a bunch more subsistence farmers than they, or anyone else, realizes.

  • Last year, China generated 834 terawatt-hours of solar power.

    Which is more than the G7 countries generated, and more than the US and EU combined. In fact the only country group that generates more solar power than China is the OECD, all 38 countries of it.

    Data:
    @ember-energy.org

    Source: https://bsky.app/profile/nathanielbullard.com/post/3lsbbsg6ohk2j

    This has been going on for years and will continue.

    China really really really needs a robust and diverse energy infrastructure.
    Industry needs huge amounts of energy. AI needs huge amounts of energy. The military needs huge amounts of energy.

    Coal is unreliable and dirty. Oil can be blocked at the Straight of Malacca and a few pipelines.

    China is also the world’s factory. They own the entire logistics chain for producing renewable generators; from raw materials to final assembly. They have all the infrastructure to not only build solar panels and wind turbines at scale, they’ve scaled up building the machines that build them.

  • Pollution per GDP is a better measure.
    https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co2-intensity
    Pollution per GNP would be even better but I can’t find it.

    Individuals don’t pollution much, it’s mostly industry. Really poor countries often don’t pollution much because they can’t afford to. Sometimes they pollute prodigiously because the only thing they can afford to do is destructive resource extraction. Rich countries can often outsource their pollution to poorer countries.

    China has been making mind boggling investments in renewables. They have been expanding all their energy sources but their renewables have the lions share of the growth.

    They’ve been building roads and all kinds of infrastructure. That’s what the BRI is all about, even if they’re being a bit quieter about saying the phrase. They like to build their long haul roads on elevated columns; not only because it’s less disruptive to wildlife but because it lets them use giant road laying robots to place prefab highway segments.

    They dropped the one-child policy a while back but they’re having some trouble getting people to have more babies. That said, there’s some research that suggests that rural populations around the world are severely undercounted, so they may have a bunch more subsistence farmers than they, or anyone else, realizes.

    Why is Polution per GDP a better measure? I don't care how much they export when they're killing the planet at a faster rate every year with no intentions to stop it. I will praise China and the rest of the world when they reimplement and follow through with plans to ethically lower the world population, such as investment in education especially for women and incentives or fines based on numbers of children.

  • This has been going on for years and will continue.

    China really really really needs a robust and diverse energy infrastructure.
    Industry needs huge amounts of energy. AI needs huge amounts of energy. The military needs huge amounts of energy.

    Coal is unreliable and dirty. Oil can be blocked at the Straight of Malacca and a few pipelines.

    China is also the world’s factory. They own the entire logistics chain for producing renewable generators; from raw materials to final assembly. They have all the infrastructure to not only build solar panels and wind turbines at scale, they’ve scaled up building the machines that build them.

    Coal is unreliable and dirty.

    China use absurd amounts of coal and they're not slowing down. They're the worlds largest producer and consumer of coal. They're increasing use of all power generation types - coal, solar, nuclear.

  • Good for China on that!

    To add some perspective, China is about 2 and a quarter times as large as the EU nations, and according to currentresults.com seems to get a bit more sunshine than the EU does. So the difference isn't quite as stark as this post makes it seem.

    But still, it's good that China is taking solar power seriously. I didn't realize they were doing that well.

    China are the worlds biggest coal producer and consumer, started building like 100GW of coal power plants last year alone, and are increasing their use of coal every single year.

    People getting excited about china's massive solar power generation are hilarious. Basically unless china stop using coal, the rest of the world being completely net-zero is irrelevant.

  • Amazing how fast you can build stuff when there's safety standards, no environmental regulations, no labour rights and the government can expropriate property without a time consuming legal process!

    Though I think a prefer living in a country where I have rights even if it takes a bit longer to build stuff.

    To give China credit the solar push was very capitalistic and very well executed. There are so many solar salesmen that will bother you to no end with one offering better deals than another. They come install everything and set up for you and guarantee returns in like 5 years plus mountains of other bonuses (obviously based on location etc.). The environment kinda make you feel stupid for not taking the deal too so you're really pressured which imo is a win. It's basically a free market under a dictatorship for a product in high natural demand.

    Though I can't comment on industrial solar panel fields but the consumer part is very well executed and the rest of Asia is like 10 years behind.

  • Las Vegas has already achieved 97% storage supply for its needs - a city that barely sleeps at night.

    Again, where is your evidence that it is not going to improve across the board, and will all fail?

    "It's not all happening right now," is not even close to a convincing answer. If that was the reason to exclude any technology, there'd be none.

    And it's an especially ironic answer given that it takes up to 20 years to commission a nuclear power plant. And they are down for scheduled maintenance for up to a month a year, etc.

    Las Vegas has already achieved 97% storage supply for its needs - a city that barely sleeps at night.

    Hard data is where? And I bet LV heavily relies on hydro and gas powerplants. Solar is a tiny fraction, even though, where is its energy stored?

    Again, where is your evidence that it is not going to improve across the board, and will all fail?

    Instead of trying to pick a fight, please read what I write: "Perhaps somewhen in the not so near future, but today?"

    And it’s an especially ironic answer given that it takes up to 20 years to commission a nuclear power plant. And they are down for scheduled maintenance for up to a month a year, etc.

    The difference with nuclear power plants is that we have the technology today. Can you say the same for batteries? Also you'd build a surplus of nuclear energy power plants (or have another backup plan) just for cases like you mention. The maintenance frequency varies, i.e. for a Slovene one is once per 18 months. But that's something you know in advance and one plans for.

  • OP sepcifically mentioned EVs. This sector is deflationary even in US, where better value/performance cars cost less every year. More dramatic deflation in less corrupt countries. Australia home solar costs under 1/3rd of US due to different politico-social corruption levels.

    EVs and home solar are a great match that permits going offgrid at substantially lower cost if an EV is parked at home during day. That same dynamic allows a society/community to power itself through solar+batteries, and EVs parked at work. It's not a question of look at our corrupt obstructionist oligarchical monopoly state of societies for examples of lack of economic success as proof that it will forever be impossible.

    EVs are rare (in the context of total energy consumption, even more so because not so many models offer this feature), limited to houses (what do you do when you live in a flat?) and not a reliable source - "honey, I need to drive fetch some groceries, you won't have energy in meantime". How many houses with only EVs as energy storage are disconnected from grid? I bet the number is next to 0.
    OTOH EVs as energy storage can provide buffering to energy grid when properly connected. This feature has its place, but they can't be used for reliable storage.

  • Last year, China generated 834 terawatt-hours of solar power.

    Which is more than the G7 countries generated, and more than the US and EU combined. In fact the only country group that generates more solar power than China is the OECD, all 38 countries of it.

    Data:
    @ember-energy.org

    Source: https://bsky.app/profile/nathanielbullard.com/post/3lsbbsg6ohk2j

    Ain't that neat! Do they just happen to be the biggest coalie bois too?

  • No. We get exactly what his comment is about.

    If he was in the renewables camp, there would be no point, in this discussion over solar, to bring up nuclear. It's absolutely unrelated.

    What he's doing is pushing the thought into people's heads that nuclear is a good solution, and that's why I'm calling him out for. For being a shill.

    And that's your reach apparently - insulting people without anything to contribute whatsoever.

  • Amazing how fast you can build stuff when there's safety standards, no environmental regulations, no labour rights and the government can expropriate property without a time consuming legal process!

    Though I think a prefer living in a country where I have rights even if it takes a bit longer to build stuff.

    Like america but more competent

  • EV tax credits might end even sooner than House bill proposed

    Technology technology
    7
    49 Stimmen
    7 Beiträge
    7 Aufrufe
    B
    It's not just tax credits for new cars, they are also getting rid of the Used EV Tax Credit which has helped to keep the prices of used EVs (relatively) lower.
  • PSA: Stop Using These Fire-Prone Anker Power Banks Right Now

    Technology technology
    56
    1
    357 Stimmen
    56 Beiträge
    10 Aufrufe
    Y
    Agreed here. Frequently people charge these near where they sleep and the failure mode is... sudden. Couches and beds tend to be really good kindling too. Urgency in this case is probably warranted.
  • Fatphobia Is Fueled by AI-Created Images, Study Finds

    Technology technology
    14
    1
    15 Stimmen
    14 Beiträge
    13 Aufrufe
    K
    I pretty much agree. The only thing I would add is that it's not our place to tell others to lose weight or to point out their weight; people already know they are overweight and that it's unhealthy. We shouldn't be policing other people's bodies. It's also possible to be overweight and have body positivity; being overweight doesn't equate to being unattractive.
  • time to switch to DeltaChat 😁

    Technology technology
    12
    1
    2 Stimmen
    12 Beiträge
    26 Aufrufe
    engywuck@lemm.eeE
    The point is... (almost) nobody is going to do that. Ask a layman what a SMTP is.
  • 0 Stimmen
    1 Beiträge
    5 Aufrufe
    Niemand hat geantwortet
  • Browser Alternatives to Chrome

    Technology technology
    14
    11 Stimmen
    14 Beiträge
    7 Aufrufe
    L
    I've been using Vivaldi as my logged in browser for years. I like the double tab bar groups, session management, email client, sidebar and tab bar on mobile. It is strange to me that tab bar isn't a thing on mobile on other browsers despite phones having way more vertical space than computers. Although for internet searches I use a seperate lighter weight browser that clears its data on close. Ecosia also been using for years. For a while it was geniunely better than the other search engines I had tried but nowadays it's worse since it started to return google translate webpage translation links based on search region instead of the webpages themselves. Also not sure what to think about the counter they readded after removing it to reduce the emphasis on quantity over quality like a year ago. I don't use duckduckgo as its name and the way privacy communities used to obsess about it made me distrust it for some reason
  • Founder of 23andMe buys back company out of bankruptcy auction

    Technology technology
    60
    1
    348 Stimmen
    60 Beiträge
    30 Aufrufe
    A
    Come on up to Canada, we still got that garlic bomb. I can still taste the one from last week
  • Russian Lawmakers Authorize Creation Of National Messaging Service

    Technology technology
    13
    1
    34 Stimmen
    13 Beiträge
    24 Aufrufe
    C
    Are there substantial numbers of Russians who seriously wouldn't be wise to this?