Slashdot Mirror
Walmart Goes Solar In California
tekgoblin writes "Walmart today has announced that it plans to install solar panels on more than 75 percent of its stores in the state. From the article: 'When completed, Walmart’s solar commitment in California is expected to generate up to 70 million kilowatt hours of clean, renewable energy per year, which is equal to powering more than 5,400 homes. It will also avoid producing more than 21,700 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year, which is equal to 4,100 cars off the road and provide 20 to 30 percent of each facility’s total electric needs.'"
Wal-Mart not supporting the local power generating economy? "Wal-Mart is stealing power from the sun! The old stores used to use power from the nuclear plant! What about the nuclear plant employes out of jobs?"
Some news that will help get solar taken seriously. I understand its not the end-all of our energy problems (not even close), but its nice to see it get to a price point where the largest of corporations begin to utilize it. I'm not sure if the state granted any subsidies, but I'd have to say if they are going to subsidize something, at least this can't cause radiation evacuations, black lung, acid rain, and the like.
Ok, I'm not going to come with the cliched "citation needed", but dude... do you have any evidence to back up any of this?
and provide 20 to 30 percent of each facility’s total electric needs.
The remainder of the store, as usual is powered by crushing up the hopes and dreams of it's employees and competitors.
Solar power to run the lighting inside? How about just using the light directly via skylights?
Say what you will about Walmart; but they deal hard. I wonder how much they are paying per watt for this installation.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Now give people 40 hours shifts, and better pay and working conditions.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
They might actually become the real competition and/or supplier for power companies, consumers and/or businesses, depending on how much money can be made. This is what capitalism is truly about.
Dude, it was vetted by a friend of his.. a FRIEND.What more do you need~
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
OP is correct. You only have to read recent news.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-china-solar-20110920,0,2015603.story
http://www.enn.com/pollution/article/32974
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_China
A citation would be nice, I guess.
They could buy from a US solar manufacturer that only exists to collect government loan money, siphon it off to well-connected investors/political contributors, and then go bankrupt.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
So this is implying that each big box uses the same electricity as up to 27,000 homes? Shocking.
In California, electrical rates are insanely high. Even with the relatively low efficiency of solar and the high associated costs, when subsidies are taken into account it may simply be the cheapest path forward.
None of this addresses why California's electrical rates are so high to begin with, of course.
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
As opposed to what? Buying them from a US manufacturer and being able to afford about half of the effect due to price difference? "Buy from us, we're more expensive" doesn't work, no matter which country you're from, sorry.
At least not when the "Buy from us, we're cheaper" types give nothing back to the communities they extract their billions from.
PV panels can store energy in batteries. Skylights cannot. But perhaps a mix of the two approaches might be best.
This would work only because then people would be forced to shop elsewhere, at higher prices, and thus able to buy less landfill-destined crap. Other than that, everything else will sadly stay the same.
>>Walmart probably already got a quote from this and already knows that if they generate excess power they will get a fair price for the extra electricity. So this may pay for itself and more in the long term.
In general, you target solar to reduce your electricity needs down to the baseline (cheap) tier of power, which is subsidized by the higher tier prices, which run up to 55c/kWh in the state.
PG&E used to not have to pay "net surplus customer-generators" for any extra power they produced, but one of Arnie's last acts as governor was to make PG&E pay the same rate for generation as customers would pay for consumption, with AB 920 (http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/09-10/bill/asm/ab_0901-0950/ab_920_bill_20091011_chaptered.html).
What this means in practice is that for any realistic small-scale installations, PG&E will pay you to generate power at the baseline rate, which is not especially profitable, and certainly not worth the cost of installation.
This would work only because then people would be forced to shop elsewhere, at higher prices, and thus able to buy less landfill-destined crap.
This assumes that whatever you pay, all you will get is landfill-destined crap. The alternative is that you will spend more to by fewer, but durable things. They might be more expensive because they require more highly skilled labor to build.
Of course, there is no money in durability if you are a manufacturer or retailer, and highly skilled workers are a liability. Thus, they flood the market with garbage and talk only about price, or at best, trendy features.
Sure it's the cheapest path forward for Walmart, they'll collect a bunch of subsidies paid for by us CA utility customers and taxpayers.
You know, if they just put in some windows (hey light tubes too!), they could save a whole lot more money on lighting too.
It always amazes me walking into these huge stores in the middle of the day, and they have hundreds of lights on to make it as bright inside as it already is outside. How hard is this to figure out?
:T:R:A:N:S:
Solyndra probably could've used some of that business, except that with the way Wally World works, they probably would insist Solyndra to relocate their factory to China...
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
At least not when the "Buy from us, we're cheaper" types give nothing back to the communities they extract their billions from.
By the definition of "cheaper", I think they actually gave more back.
DATABASE WOW WOW
Unionize and and watch Wally World close down stores.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
I hope the solar cells are made in the USA but at the very least a large number of people will be employed doing the installs on these bid stores. Good for Wall Mart .
Quiet you. It's not enough that you've sold them something material, they also want something intangible for doing business with you.
That something intangible is usually some form of rakeback. They want the money they just gave you, back.
Remember, when someone says they want someone else to do something for the community, it typically means they want someone else to do something for free. I.e. We want free services, that you pay for. A cash grab.
I am John Hurt.
I just Know this is going to spawn some kind of Zombie film story, where the characters all end up at a Walmart because the power stays on. Or perhaps the Walmarts become the centers of resistance, with strange consequences for the future reshaping of society.
This would work only because then people would be forced to shop elsewhere, at higher prices, and thus able to buy less landfill-destined crap.
This assumes that whatever you pay, all you will get is landfill-destined crap. The alternative is that you will spend more to by fewer, but durable things. They might be more expensive because they require more highly skilled labor to build.
Of course, there is no money in durability if you are a manufacturer or retailer, and highly skilled workers are a liability. Thus, they flood the market with garbage and talk only about price, or at best, trendy features.
I'm sorry, but a lawn chair is a lawn chair is a lawn chair. Just rubber dog shit is rubber dog shit and shower curtain rings are shower curtain rings! All this stuff is crap, and no matter how much quality you put into any of these crappy products, they last about the same amount of time and perform about the same as those that have little to no quality control. These are not automobiles or complex microprocessors. These products have two levels of quality; works and doesn't work. There is no middle ground. This is the type of stuff you find at Walmart. It's stuff that has no measure of quality that is produced so cheaply, it's actually cheaper to throw away 10% of the finished product than it is to improve quality to 95% or even the unobtainable 100%.
So, your American "union quality" shower curtain rings that I have to buy for $5.00 so someone I don't care about can get a paid vacation, health insurance for his "domestic partner" and four 15-minute breaks a day plus 1-hr lunch will perform the exact same function as the $2.00 shower curtain rings that were made by 8-yr-old Tibetan girl. As I'm standing in Walmart at 2:00am looking for something to hang my shower curtain in my new apartment so I can go to work tomorrow freshly showered, guess which one I'm gonna buy. If you really need help figuring that one out, remember, all I see are shower curtain rings and a price tag, and they both will perform the exact same function.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
TFS says it only generates 20-30% of a facility's power needs.
Well, more realistically, what is happening is that China is producing solar panels well in excess of demand (and doing a number on their environment in the process, but that's another story), and it's forced prices for panels down so much that all the other panel producers are dropping like flies. Has nothing whatsoever to do with U.S. regulations (unless you want U.S. creeks to run black with industrial chemicals too), or conspiracy theories about siphoning government money or anything like that.
Even worse, panel prices are now low enough to compete against large industrial-scale mirror/tower systems. So THOSE companies are also getting crushed as contracts get canceled and buyers go with panels. Think about that for a moment. It isn't that panels are less expensive than mirrors, it's that panels are now less expensive than mirrors + tower system + workforce required to keep it maintained.
-Matt
According to my calculations, this works out to about 8 Mwatts of generating capacity, approximately .045% of the total generating capacity in California...
If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
if you know anything bought walmart stores they are horrid over-sized stores that eat power. they need like 3 dedicated transformers to them i know this being are store blew one of them and most of the store was still running dispite being power starved lights and stuff where funky thow. trust me thers nothing green bought a walmart.and where probably under pressure from the states to do it, walmart does nothing without legal threats.
Solar panels on 75% of its stores will produce 20-30% (let's average at 25%) of those stores' electricity needs.This is 70m kWh, equal to the power for 5,400 homes and polution equal to 21,700 metric tons of CO2/4100 cars.
So, they currently produce 4x that across those 75% of their stores plus a third again of that total for their other 25%. So 5 1/3x that figure. Or over 100,000 metric tons of CO2, the equivalent of almost 22,000 cars and draw the power of almost 30,000 homes - over a third of a billion kilowatt hours and about 10% of the total energy a 500 megawatt coal power station can produce.
Even after the savings, they'll be producing 80,000 metric tons of CO2, 15,000 car equivalents and drawing the power of 25,000 homes - over 300,000,000 kilowatt hours.
And all of this excludes the CO2 their truck fleets produce.
It's a nice start but there's a long, long way to go.
As opposed to what? Buying them from a US manufacturer and being able to afford about half of the effect due to price difference? "Buy from us, we're more expensive" doesn't work, no matter which country you're from, sorry.
At least not when the "Buy from us, we're cheaper" types give nothing back to the communities they extract their billions from.
Because this general statement apply to all... what exactly are you referring to? And what do you mean by "extracting" from the community?
I wonder what the return would have been if they had installed skylights instead. Surely skylight provide more usable light then converting solar energy into usable AC. Sure, one could say that skylights don't allow you to store power, or return power to the grid and get something like a Feed in Terrif (Ontario, Canada). Even compared to solar on a overcast or rainy day, I would assume they would still be more efficient. Maybe I shouldn't assume.
In my current job I manage development at an environmental software provider. We have a couple dozen chemical and petrochemical customers who are using our software to calculate and report there GHG emissions to the EPA. We are actually in the middle of the first year of reporting for 2010 this month. The plants who are reporting make chemicals that are used directly or indirectly be each of us everyday including ethylene, glycols, nylon precursors...the list goes on. To the point, a single ethylene cracker I just ran calculations for has about 750,000 metric tons CO2 emissions per year . At one particular plant there are 8 of these crackers operating year round. This one plant represents less than 2% of the worldwide capacity of ethylene. I will not even go into the refinery calculations and the emissions generated by the products they make (which we all consume).
Simply put, the stated 21,700 tons of CO2 saved by this solar project is trivial. It is great if Wal-Mart can save money or be more efficient with this project, but to even try selling it as any sort of significant environmental project is ludicrous. I would venture to guess that Wal-Mart could make a much larger impact, from an environmental standpoint, by looking at their suppliers and demanding responsible operation at the manufacturing level.
China shut down a solar panel factory on Monday after hundreds of angry residents staged days of violent protests over pollution, the second such incident in as many months.
Guess what will happen when your employer decides that it's better to outsource your job than to keep paying you your large salar so you can sit all day and read Slashdot?
Alternatively, if you are self-employed imagine what would happen when all those union-employed napping-on-the-job hippies are fired and nobody has money to buy stupid shit you're producing?
somebody else will just take their place in line. its not the company but the people it caters to. convince them to not buy shit...and there wont be a need to sell shit.
Realistically, this is the age old practice of dumping. Sell stuff in an export market for less than cost which forces domestic producers to close up shop, then raise prices to profitable levels because your offshore company is the only game in town.
Thanks to a restrictive trade policy, China can sell stuff for pennies on the dollar to kill industries at home. However, a foreign firm working in China must hand over 51% control of their company to a domestic partner. Anyone who complains about this is jingoistic.
How is it when I buy something elsewhere it's OK, but when I buy the exact same thing at WalMart it's "cheap crap"? Duracell, Magnavox, Hillshire Farms, etc. do not suddenly lose their quality when WalMart is involved.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
To see the daily power generation for California's CAISO, including the contributions by wind and solar, here is the URL:
http://www.caiso.com/Pages/TodaysOutlook.aspx
For 2011-09-21, peak power was about 38,000MW, peak wind contribution was about 1100MW, peak solar contribution was about 450MW
Perhaps as more Walmart's, Ikea's, and residental grid-tied PV is added, the solar contributions will rise to what wind adds now.
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
Well, they had an order with Solyndra, but... well...
Cue the WalMart Hate Brigade in 3... 2... 1...
I really wish our culture had more interesting bogeymen.
Except that you didn't have to shop at the worst retailer possible to buy a cheap food processor.
So they'd get everything they sell from China, but their solar panels from the US?
Actually, yes, in some cases they do:
http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/NussbaumOnDesign/archives/2007/02/can_this_be_true_of_wal-mart.html
This is not the best article on the subject, but it is common for Walmart to contract for a cheaper version of an item with sometimes an identical model. Another mention would be here, in an article about the Snapper mower guy not wanting to sell to Walmart:
"The Wal-Mart vice president responded with strategy and argument. Snapper is the sort of high-quality nameplate, like Levi Strauss, that Wal-Mart hopes can ultimately make it more Target-like. He suggested that Snapper find a lower-cost contract manufacturer. He suggested producing a separate, lesser-quality line with the Snapper nameplate just for Wal-Mart. Just like Levi did."
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/102/open_snapper.html?page=0%2C3
Go watch this one: http://www.walmartmovie.com/ ... your opinion of their environmental track record will bounce back down in no time.
In the Western world? Get serious.
California has high electrical costs because it uses low-carbon sources (natural gas) that cost more than coal. Additionally, the prices for electricity were locked in at a time when Enron and other companies were artificially manipulating the price of it. Far from there being no protection, these manipulations were neither legal nor moral.
The electric company that maintains the infrastructure (PG&E for most of California) doesn't generate or sell electricity, so they don't get to decide the cost of it.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Solar power for Walmart seems like good plan.
Grid-tie solar systems aren't going to be counted in those numbers (PG&E only meters the net, they don't collect statistics on how large a chunk the solar takes out of it). Only solar power plants were counted in those statistics.
Still, grid-tie systems probably do not reduce total system demand by a whole lot. From my read we have ~252MW of residential solar installed and ~356MW non-residential, which comes to around ~600MW. It's unclear whether the non-residential is just counting commercial retain installations or whether it is also counting solar power stations but I think it's just commercial retail (the number would be too low if it counted both). And, of course, that's just peak generation.
http://californiasolarstatistics.ca.gov/reports/agency_stats/
The wind numbers are quite impressive. There are some excellent wind corridors in CA.
-Matt
Re the Torvalds quote in your signature: I think that is literally the first time I've heard anything from him that I agree with whole-heartedly.
Thank you for a genuinely new experience!
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
70 million kWh
Or they could just use the SI and say 70 GWh, instead of 70 thousand thousand thousand Wh.
Uh, that's pretty much all accepted dogma. What he's missing is that emissions are out of control here in the USA. I personally know someone who used to be paid to climb stacks to check for emissions... power plants, factories, refineries. Everything he checked was out of compliance. My landlord is also some kind of geological and ecological surveyor that works on government contracts, etc. His statement was that we can find stacks out of compliance literally as fast as we can pay people to climb them. Our EPA has no teeth — it cannot simply walk up to a plant and shut down production.
On the other hand, the advantage of solar panels is that they stop polluting once they're made. So given that SOMETHING is going to be made by burning all that coal, solar panels should be one of our favorite things to make. A crystalline panel lasts a typical 20 years and maybe twice that if you're lucky, and pays back the energy cost of its production in seven years. If you build a new coal plant, that takes a whole bunch of energy, and now it pollutes throughout its lifetime.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The problem is that people read on the bloggyblogs that it MIGHT happen in SOME cases and apply it to the entire store.
It would be easier if you'd walk around with an "I'm a dickhead" shirt on so people can steer clear of you without having to hear you talk.
Wow! That totally refuted all of my points. Well, except it really didn't.
I'm sorry if you don't like the facts, but that is no reason to insult the messenger. You are free to form your own opinions. You are not free to form your own facts.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Guess what will happen when your employer decides that it's better to outsource your job than to keep paying you your large salar so you can sit all day and read Slashdot?
Alternatively, if you are self-employed imagine what would happen when all those union-employed napping-on-the-job hippies are fired and nobody has money to buy stupid shit you're producing?
When Indians (people from India, not Native Americans) are able to do my job better and for less money, I fully expect my employer to lay me off and hire them. That's why I work hard to make sure that I am more valuable than the outsource.
The problem with unions is that they build protections in for themselves that inflate the cost of employment, but do nothing to increase the value of the employee. Eventually, union companies are unable to compete with ones that get more value* from their employees and the company fails once government bail-outs are exhausted. Once that happens, there are no more napping union hippies to buy my stupid shit anyway.
* I'm not saying that these non-union members are better than union workers. I'm saying that the company gets more per dollar out of them, making them a better value to the company. It sux, I know, but you can not change the laws of economics (to paraphrase Scotty).
Maybe an answer is to work through the UN or other International agencies to promote fair worker treatment world wide. This would increase the quality of life everywhere and would open up more markets full of people to buy our stupid shit. The problem with that is that there are countries whose population needs these crappy jobs. If you force them to increase worker salaries, jobs would move back here because our workers are better if salary and working conditions are the same, leaving them unemployed again and worse off. It's an ugly cycle. We need to increase the quality of our workers to produce stuff that requires an education to produce and leave the cheap, quality-doesn't-matter crap to the countries with low literacy rates until they can get their workers up to speed... and then the cycle repeats.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
"When completed, Walmart’s solar commitment in California is expected to generate up to 70 million kilowatt hours of clean, renewable energy per year, which is equal to powering more than 5,400 homes. It will also avoid producing more than 21,700 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year, which is equal to 4,100 cars off the road and provide 20 to 30 percent of each facility’s total electric needs." So, does that mean that a Walmart uses as much energy as 27,000 homes? That, even after the solar panels are installed, there are still 86,800 metric tons of CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere from each and every Walmart? Please, enlighten, if that's not the case, but it seems to me the greener choice would be to shut them down all together.
Vir prudens non contra ventum mingit.
The general consensus, as I read the current climate, is that Solar energy is not "economical". Walmart is the very epitome of "economical" with their dollars. So, what's wrong here? Walmart is doing something other than "generating clean cheap power" (i.e. it's a marketing stunt) or, Walmart see's it as economical (outside the realm of good marketing dollars)? If the later is true, does this mark the beginning of a new era in power generation (I doubt it).
It DOES happen in some cases, you'd be unable to tell which it does and which it doesn't, and it's only one of a very long laundry list of reasons to not do business with that company.
What are the facts? Let me quote you:
"So, your American "union quality" shower curtain rings that I have to buy for $5.00 so someone I don't care about can get a paid vacation, health insurance for his "domestic partner" and four 15-minute breaks a day plus 1-hr lunch will perform the exact same function as the $2.00 shower curtain rings that were made by 8-yr-old Tibetan girl. As I'm standing in Walmart at 2:00am looking for something to hang my shower curtain in my new apartment so I can go to work tomorrow freshly showered, guess which one I'm gonna buy. If you really need help figuring that one out, remember, all I see are shower curtain rings and a price tag, and they both will perform the exact same function."
What is to refute? This guy makes choices that indirectly hurt himself and everyone in the supply chain so he can save $3 on a nearly one-time purchase. Really no need to refute anything.
And you can thank the GOP for that great 'business' sense. They have consistently opposed any sort of 'green' technology here in the US.
Even if you don't believe in something, if the entire world is clamoring for a product, why not build it for them? Yet the GOP fought it on purely political grounds. The party of 'business' my ass....more like the party of 'currently entrenched monopoly businesses who give us money'...
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Ah good old China. Is there and problem in the US that they didn't cause?
Is 1563649 a prime number?
HaHa, thank you for the joke. You do realize that China was outed doing exactly this with several industries? The most recent one in the news was rare earths. Yes, this happens.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Politicians, we caused that one ourselves...
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Sorry, what does a factory shutdown by Chinese officials have to do with the above wild assertion of solar panel dumping by the Chinese?
Anti-Chinese sentiment is hitting disturbing levels. War is coming, and the comments I see around here are contributing. Thanks, guys.
Uhhh, I would hardly call posting a story about something totally unrelated (the only relation is the fact that the factory in question is in the nation of China) a "smack down". I would also call you immature for personalizing intellectual arguments.
I haven't seen the GOP forcing anyone out of business. Now, subsidizing and industry when the entire world is clamoring for it? Why bother, let them fund it themselves if it is so important for the world.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
The poster complained that the solar panels would be purchased from China. Why? Because we have not invested in a technology the entire world wants.
The GOP has prevented money that could have kick started the industry in this country, so yes they have forced people out of business. Just not the established entrenched monopolies that don't want to change.
Seriously, if people want something, you don't see the benefit in *you* building it for them? Or would you rather 'more' of our manufacturing jobs go overseas?
Waiting until it's 'profitable' just means somebody else will build up their industry first and then you have to both invest AND sell at lower prices because they can produce at scale prices but you are producing at high initial prices.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
I have 2 lawn chairs from the 60's made from strong aluminum with wooden arm rests, plus they rock. I bought them at a garage sale for $8. These things are over 50 years old and are the best damn lawn chairs I've ever sat it. Sometimes the "good enough" crap at Wally World just isn't good enough. By the way, the people that I bought them from had also bought them at a garage sale 20+ years ago.
--- If the bible proves the existence of God, then Superman comics prove the existence of Superman.
If there is such a great demand, the subsidies wouldn't be needed. There must not be this extraordinary demand if the business needs the subsidy to run.
Walmart is buying US panels anyways, so the statement was inaccurate from the start.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Demand doesn't magically create the infrastructure to build something. China is massively subsidizing their solar industry, partially because they need it internally, but also to meet this 'new' demand of that last decade or so.
So now the Chinese are positioned to be the leader in this market while we aren't even a player. Great economic future in that model...just not for us.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Wal-Mart could be 100% green, and it still will be just as aggrivating to be constantly asked if we want to get their damn rewards mastercard. -_-
IT Professional.
"When Indians (people from India, not Native Americans) are able to do my job better and for less money, I fully expect my employer to lay me off and hire them. That's why I work hard to make sure that I am more valuable than the outsource."
It doesn't need to take less money, it just needs to _appear_ to take less money.
"The problem with unions is that they build protections in for themselves that inflate the cost of employment, but do nothing to increase the value of the employee"
So? Employer is free to fire all union workers and hire new ones. That's a free market solution, why don't you like it? Ah, it's not feasible to do it? Tough luck, negotiate with unions then.
In reality, current form of unions are _probably_ a little bit over-powerful. I agree with that.
Probably, good labor laws can significantly diminish union power - there are much less unions in West European countries, thanks to much stricter labor laws.
"Buy from us, we're more expensive" doesn't work, no matter which country you're from, sorry.
Oh really? Apparently no one told these guys
Programmer: an ingenious device that converts caffeine into code.
Before that, it was VCRs.
There is already little room left for China to further slash sulfur emissions, said the ministry source. By the end of 2009, about 71 percent of coal-fired power plants had been equipped with sulfur scrubbers, compared to 12 percent back in 2005. "The next step is to take a closer look at whether these facilities are actually put into use," he said.
Read article and you will see a number of inconsistencies. SO2 goes down, but NOx goes up? Nope. Likewise, SO2 goes down, but more and more damage is occurring? Nope.
When my friends did the study, they agreed to not publish. So, not published. The problem is that the numbers that they came up with absolutely do NOT match what is claimed by the ministry. However, the Chinese ministry KNOWS that (which is why they forbid the publishing; they wanted the correct numbers and technology, but that was figured out at the end of the trip when all of their packed gear disappeared, though not personal luggage; the gear is used for monitoring much our national and state land). The issue is that turning this stuff on would actually drop their SO2 and NOx a great deal, BUT, it costs something like 10-20% efficiency. China is more than 80% coal based for electricity. Imagine if we lost 8-16% of our electricity. Anywhere in the west, it would be TIGHT. In china, they are already tight. It would be catastrophic to their ability to subsidize their energy and dump. So, China will continue to pollute. They absolutely have ZERO intention of turning on emissions control. NONE.
Likewise, they will continue to dump in the oceans. Their attitude is turning to one that other nations are buying their stuff so we can absorb the pollution as well.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Not relevant at all when the blocked projects you mentioned are a fraction of the size.
As for "billions of dollars", well there's nothing polite that can be said about such a deliberate exaggeration.
So those projects were blocked were they?
Why are you playing such a silly little game that requires stupidity and inattention on the part of the people you are lying to? Why do you think this is important enough to lie about anyway?
You provided a list of installations that exist and pretended that they don't because they were stopped and THEN tell ME to have some integrity? Class act. It appears the bit where you were pretending I was talking about killing children comes with a large pile of stinking baggage.
The bit that really gets me is you pretend success of a project after going through community hassles is some kind of weird indication that the community hassles stopped the demonstatively successful project. That indicates astonishing levels of contempt and poor judgement as well as extreme ineptitude in trying to fool people with incredibly fucking obvious lies.
What is really behind this? Is it some kind of class thing where the dreaded US middle class has to be feared in case it rises up in some sort of green commie conspiracy instead of the reality of mostly irrelevant apathy? OK, so that's a cheap shot and I don't have a clue if you are a crazed teabagger of the sort that gets laughed at internationally, but seriously, why do you think the US left has any power at all apart from picking up the crumbs? Why do you think the mostly disenfranchised can change anything important at all in a place with such batshit insane politics and crashing budgets as California? I really am curious as to why a grown adult will insult a perfect stranger that is pointing out something that really isn't contraversial.
In my dictionary "stop" has a specific meaning and is not able to be mutated into whatever is handy for pretending to win an agument against the easily bullied.
As for your other link about unions moving in, didn't you notice I used the phrase "batshit insane politics" to describe various factional bullshit in California? I think that describes the people involved fairly well and don't you dare argue that they are in it for purely environmental reasons instead of trying to squeeze others out - that would be an incredibly stupid lie that would do nothing but make us both laugh. They are political opportunists playing an angle and not the almost powerless smelly hippies you want to blame things on.