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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)

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  • 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

  • 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.

    If you trade too much EV energy during night, then you can't drive during the day. And again, EVs capacity is not reliable at all. As per green H2, please show me a production and a storage capable of providing energy to a city. Or at least a real project that's building it. Storing H2 is a big problem, like a huge one. If nothing else, Hindenburg tells a story. The fact that energy loss is at more than 50% when producing green H2 is a minor problem compared to 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

    to be fair, they have about 3x the population too. but nonetheless good to see that they are moving fast. dictatorship works faster when it comes to regulation ¯_(ツ)_/¯ 🙂

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    wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.comW
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    Active ISA would be a disaster. My fairly modern car is unable to reliably detect posted or implied speed limits. Sometimes it overshoots by more than double and sometimes it mandates more than 3/4 slower. The problem is the way it is and will have to be done is by means of optical detection. GPS speed measurement can also be surprisingly unreliable. Especially in underground settings like long pass-unders and tunnels. If the system would be based on something reliable like local wireless communications between speed limit postings it would be a different issue - would also come with a significant risc of abuse though. Also the passive ISA was the first thing I disabled. And I abide by posted speed limits.
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    communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyzC
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    Just for the record, even in Italy the winter tires are required for the season (but we can just have chains on board and we are good). Double checking and it doesn’t seem like it? Then again I don’t live in Italy. Here in Sweden you’ll face a fine of ~2000kr (roughly 200€) per tire on your vehicle that is out of spec. https://www.europe-consommateurs.eu/en/travelling-motor-vehicles/motor-vehicles/winter-tyres-in-europe.html Well, I live in Italy and they are required at least in all the northern regions and over a certain altitude in all the others from 15th November to 15th April. Then in some regions these limits are differents as you have seen. So we in Italy already have a law that consider a different situation for the same rule. Granted that you need to write a more complex law, but in the end it is nothing impossible. …and thus it is much simpler to handle these kinds of regulations at a lower level. No need for everyone everywhere to agree, people can have rules that work for them where they live, folks are happier and don’t have to struggle against a system run by bureaucrats so far away they have no idea what reality on the ground is (and they can’t, it’s impossible to account for every scenario centrally). Even on a municipal level certain regulations differ, and that’s completely ok! So it is not that difficult, just write a directive that say: "All the member states should make laws that require winter tires in every place it is deemed necessary". I don't really think that making EU more integrated is impossibile
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    There may be several reasons for this. If I had to guess, they found a critical flaw and had to shut it down for security reasons.
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    IMO stuff like that is why a good trainer is important. IMO it's stronger evidence that proper user-centered design should be done and a usable and intuitive UX and set of APIs developed. But because the buyer of this heap of shit is some C-level, there is no incentive to actually make it usable for the unfortunate peons who are forced to interact with it. See also SFDC and every ERP solution in existence.