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China Cancels Over 100 Coal-Fired Power Plants (reuters.com)

In an effort to improve air quality, the Chinese government has canceled over 100 coal-fired power plants in 11 provinces -- totaling a combined installed capacity of more than 100 gigawatts. Reuters reports: In a document issued on Jan. 14, financial media group Caixin reported, the National Energy Administration (NEA) suspended the coal projects, some of which were already under construction. The projects worth some 430 billion yuan ($62 billion) were to have been spread across provinces and autonomous regions including Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, Gansu, Ningxia, Qinghai, Shaanxi and other northwestern areas. Putting the power projects on hold is a major step towards the government's effort to produce power from renewable sources such as solar and wind, and wean the country off coal, which accounts for the majority of the nation's power supply. To put it in perspective, some 130 GW of additional solar and wind power will be installed by 2020, equal to France's total renewable power generation capacity, said Frank Yu, principal consultant at Wood Mackenzie. "This shows the government is keeping its promise in curbing supplies of coal power," Yu said. Some of the projects will still go ahead, but not until 2025 and will likely replace outdated technology, he said.

278 comments

  1. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    More like China-made global warming.

  2. Pleasant surprise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I never believed China would be up to this. Great!

    1. Re:Pleasant surprise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's nice to see a positive comment on Slashdot. For a change.

    2. Re:Pleasant surprise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yay!

    3. Re:Pleasant surprise by cytg.net · · Score: 2

      I agree, props where props is due. Go China.

    4. Re:Pleasant surprise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, well .. . Trump.

    5. Re:Pleasant surprise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's pronounced "Jina"

    6. Re:Pleasant surprise by Maritz · · Score: 1

      China actually have fairly intelligent leadership. They're still laughing their asses off at how Brexit reinforces their governance model.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    7. Re:Pleasant surprise by l0n3s0m3phr34k · · Score: 1

      I think their pretty happy with the US's issues with TPP too. Personally, I have some huge issues with TPP of course...but it is a policy to restrict China trade-wise and even rumors of the US abandoning it has allowed China to do various maneuvering.

    8. Re:Pleasant surprise by dbIII · · Score: 1

      I never believed China would be up to this. Great!

      They are also into recycling.
      This announcement was made before. That way they can get double the credit for each single cancellation.

      That sort of political trick is used just about everywhere though.

    9. Re:Pleasant surprise by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 2

      Yeah, well .. . Trump.

      Gonna make it harder to put all the coal miners back to work though.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    10. Re:Pleasant surprise by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      I think their pretty happy with the US's issues with TPP too. Personally, I have some huge issues with TPP of course...but it is a policy to restrict China trade-wise and even rumors of the US abandoning it has allowed China to do various maneuvering.

      And if someone gets a little too frisky with China, and pulls some really dumb move, China owns something like a third of the total foreign held US debt. (don't hold me to that exact amount, suffice to say it is a Yuge amount)

      Although China needs the US as badly as the US needs China, if we try to bluster our way into something stupid, just calling the debt will make for a rather unpleasant time as the world economy topples.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    11. Re:Pleasant surprise by fnj · · Score: 1

      And if someone gets a little too frisky with China, and pulls some really dumb move, China owns something like a third of the total foreign held US debt.

      And what the fuck are you afraid they are going to do? Threaten not to collect their repayment? Stamp their feet? Think, man. Debt is furnishing cash money in exchange for a paper promise. We've ALREADY been paid; they are left hoping we don't go tits up and they lose all their investment.

      Now, if you wanted to observe that we have also sold off all our real estate and corporations to them, at least that would be a valid concern.

    12. Re:Pleasant surprise by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 1

      I think their pretty happy

      Well, and what about MY pretty happ? That's what I want to know.

      Or...perhaps you can't spell "they're"? Never mind....

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    13. Re:Pleasant surprise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just to add to your point - the US controls it's own dollar value through the Fed. Anybody who owns US dollar denominated debt loses value when the Fed devalues the dollar. So all it takes to screw over the Chinese is for the Fed to print more money (which, hint, they've been doing).

      No, owing debt to somebody doesn't give you much leverage over them at all, in fact, just the opposite - especially when the debt you own is denominated in a currency which your creditor prints!

    14. Re:Pleasant surprise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Joke is on them. I know of several transactions where they way over paid for what they got.

      Real estate is more concerning though because at some point the US will have to decide if the rule of law is more important or if our sovereignty is more important. If foreign interests own all the land then we are only a quasi-sovereign nation at the whim of what the foreign interests want to charge us to operate in our own country. At that point we can take it back under threat of military action or live as serfs.

      Since real estate in all but the largest cities is a heavily relationship based game - I have high hopes that the foreign interests can only win in the biggest cities and that only increases the attractiveness of the small cities and mid-west.

    15. Re:Pleasant surprise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can make more of your own. It's not that hard to do.

    16. Re:Pleasant surprise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why is this great? This seems like an underhanded trick. Let me explain.

      State Power Manager: "We have plans for ten coal fired power plants. These Paris talks will make us eliminate all of them. What should we do?"
      Chinese Treaty Negotiator: "Do not worry so. There is a simple fix. Le me see your orders."
      State Power Manager: "Ok, but I don't see how that will help." ...TIME PASSES...
      Chinese Treaty Negotiator: "I have saved your power plants. You may begin construction whenever you wish."
      State Power Manager: "Thank you sir. How did you do it?"
      Chinese Treaty Negotiator: "I simply showed the other countries the paperwork we had for the power plants."
      State Power Manager: "But there are ten times the orders here."
      Chinese Treaty Negotiator: "Are there? Silly me. I must have brought along all the extra copies the chairman requires us to file. I hope I didn't mislead the other countries and make them think we had that many plants to build."

    17. Re:Pleasant surprise by MightyMartian · · Score: 2

      I think there's more at work here than simply China wanting to mitigate climate change. A long with signalling that Beijing intends to champion free trade, it's my view that China is basically saying "America is about to abrogate its role as a world leader, so we're going to step into the breach." I'm not criticizing China's stances on global warming and international trade, quite the opposite in fact, but I'm not too sure I like the idea of the autocrats in Beijing replacing Washington DC as the focal point of international relations, but then again, maybe some are right and the 21st century is China's century. Not so great for democracy, that's what I'm most concerned about.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    18. Re:Pleasant surprise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      China is going to crush the USA.

    19. Re:Pleasant surprise by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      I never believed China would be up to this. Great!

      Would be up to what? They are basically at the tipping point having pushed their own pollution to a point where their most populated cities are choking on their own soot. China still wants to be the low cost world manufacturing leader, but you can't do that if you kill off the wealthy factory owners through lung cancer.

    20. Re:Pleasant surprise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Coal mining jobs have been declining since the 1970s. It's time to stop pretending like it's worth saving them.

    21. Re:Pleasant surprise by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      And if someone gets a little too frisky with China, and pulls some really dumb move, China owns something like a third of the total foreign held US debt.

      And what the fuck are you afraid they are going to do?

      That dear sir, depend on what New America does. Now that we are set to reclaim our space at teh top of the heap, we might just need to show China who exactly is boss in this world.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    22. Re:Pleasant surprise by l0n3s0m3phr34k · · Score: 1

      Wow, what an amazingly insightful comment on what I posted. The depth of your comprehension is truly astounding, and your ability to add a meaningful retort is legendary.

    23. Re:Pleasant surprise by vandamme · · Score: 1

      It was either that or choke to death.

  3. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by autonomouse · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Turns out the climate is quite big and complicated and trapping more energy in the system doesn't lead to perfectly distributed warming all over the planet, at all times.

  4. Incoming... by _xanthus_47 · · Score: 2

    First world skeptics ready with hard data to prove how miniscule this effort is compared to what developing countries need to do.

    1. Re:Incoming... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This effort isn't miniscule. It's China. They put out the US CO2 annual output in a day. Any effort by the worst offender is fucking amazing.

    2. Re: Incoming... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are wrong. Shut up.

    3. Re:Incoming... by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      According to this, while China was the largest single emitter in 2014 (at 29.55%), the United States was still the second largest at 14.95%. So, to put a pretty blunt point on it, you're either a liar or an idiot.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    4. Re:Incoming... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      According to this, while China was the largest single emitter in 2014 (at 29.55%), the United States was still the second largest at 14.95%. So, to put a pretty blunt point on it, you're either a liar or an idiot.

      More likely the AC is both.

    5. Re:Incoming... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Stupid troll, Make you lies a tiny bit believable.
      China has 4x the population, but only recently passed America in CO2 emissions. Per person the US is about 3 times as bad. And thats with China making most of Americas stuff.

  5. In other news .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Chinese government officials announced that they are getting really pissed off with the smog.

    1. Re:In other news .... by sheramil · · Score: 1

      Chinese government officials announced that they are getting really pissed off with the smog.

      Then they should arrest it.

      In both senses of the word.

    2. Re:In other news .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      +1 Insightful

  6. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by peragrin · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Go talk to northern Canadians and Alaskans. The frozen sea. Ice which should show up in October didn't show up until December and January.

    In the US our winter is currently 20 degrees above normal.

    And always. https://xkcd.com/1732/

    --
    i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
  7. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    I live in Europe near the arctic circle and the drastic changes in climate are very much visible here too. The winters are warm and summers are very cold. 20 years ago there was consistency in weather and now that consistency is somehow gone. It can be literally -25C one day and +5 the next.

  8. solar/wind talk is spin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    While China is meeting multiple goals with this move, China already has three times as much coal-fired capacity as the US, and that is currently running at about half-capacity. This is mostly to do with curbing speculative investment in the industry that is likely to lead to problems later.

    GIven the nuclear and hydroelectric projects under advanced stages of construction, and current and predicted energy use, they simply don't need this coal capacity.
    Wind/solar will also add to capacity, but it's not replacing the coal generation capacity these stations would have provided like the article implies.

  9. Authoritarian regimes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's one of the advantages of authoritarian regimes. Seeing the nuclear industry over here bickering about indemnizations to carry through something which was decided in a democratic manner (and pocketing lots of tax payer money for that), how much nicer would it have been to watch those overpaid C*Os be put in jail?

    That said, I still prefer our not-so effective, more democratic regimes.

    1. Re:Authoritarian regimes by Tranzistors · · Score: 2

      You seem to take issue with corruption in particular. Authoritarian regimes are rather prone to this and China is no exception.

    2. Re:Authoritarian regimes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > You seem to take issue with corruption in particular. Authoritarian regimes are rather prone to this and China is no exception.

      Didn't I say that I prefer non-authoritarian? I do, and not only because of (probably) less corruption, but for much more fundamental reasons.

      Still, corruption in my neck of the woods annoys me more than that in your neck of the woods. Why? Because democracy, and thus, because I am supposed to do something about it.

      So yes, I take issue with corruption. And no, I won't take less issue because "others have more of it". I'd still like to see those C*Os in jail.

    3. Re: Authoritarian regimes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're assuming the local governments in these regions won't ignore this directive like they have for others

  10. Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by Eunuchswear · · Score: 5, Informative

    To put it in perspective, some 130 GW of additional solar and wind power will be installed by 2020, equal to France's total renewable power generation capacity, said Frank Yu, principal consultant at Wood Mackenzie.

    France has nowhere near 130 GW of installed renewable power generation.

    Currently we're running near peak demand at 92 GW due to the horrible cold, we've got about 55 GW of nukes running flat out (5 reactors are off line for maintenance) and about 15 GW of fossils, 13 GW of hydro, 2.6 GW of solar and 2.6 GW of wind.

    How many of the other figures in this article are bullshit?

    --
    Watch this Heartland Institute video
    1. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      To put it in perspective, some 130 GW of additional solar and wind power will be installed by 2020, equal to France's total renewable power generation capacity, said Frank Yu, principal consultant at Wood Mackenzie.

      France has nowhere near 130 GW of installed renewable power generation.

      Currently we're running near peak demand at 92 GW due to the horrible cold, we've got about 55 GW of nukes running flat out (5 reactors are off line for maintenance) and about 15 GW of fossils, 13 GW of hydro, 2.6 GW of solar and 2.6 GW of wind.

      How many of the other figures in this article are bullshit?

      Indeed. Total generation capacity is 110GW. http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/france/
      You could maybe argue nuclear is renewable, making renewables 90GW, but 130 is an outright lie.

    2. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by lazy+genes · · Score: 0

      France is moving away from nuclear power . They want to eventually replace it solar and wind.

    3. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by scsirob · · Score: 2, Insightful

      And I want to become a Billionaire. I have saved up 25 Euro's already..
      Replacing their nucleair power with wind/solar is naïve and unrealistic at best. They can 'want', but they can't 'do'.

      --
      To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
    4. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I'm certain they will sooner or later. Economics speak louder than any activist group or mining conglomerate, so until some organisation dominates orbital space so completely that they can start charging for weather, renewables are pretty much our bread and butter.

    5. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      25 years ago there was in practice no personal computer and no internet, now half of all humans carry one in their pockets. You really think it's unrealistic to replace 60 year old nuclear technology with something as simple an elegant as a windmill or a sheet of semiconductor with no moving parts?

    6. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by lazy+genes · · Score: 2

      They realize that they need to. The costs of waste storage and risks associated with generation outweigh the few greedy psychopaths that profit from nuclear power.

    7. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by scsirob · · Score: 0, Troll

      The sheets of silicon need to be produced and replaced regularly with huge environmental impact. Those 'elegant' windmills ruin the sight, are very noisy, very expensive to operate and maintain, and generate flicker vertigo. Here's a small exampe of what thos 'elegant' windmills look like, from a pro-wind site: http://www.milieubewust.net/du...

      You really call this elegant? And remember that the country must be plastered with these things to get even close to the energy output of a single modern nuclear plant.

      --
      To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
    8. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, because one *was* possible due to physics and the other *isn't* due to physics.

    9. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And I want to become a Billionaire. I have saved up 25 Euro's already...

      Move to Zimbabwe. Those 25 Euros will make you a trillionaire.

    10. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by blindseer · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You really think it's unrealistic to replace 60 year old nuclear technology with something as simple an elegant as a windmill or a sheet of semiconductor with no moving parts?

      Yes, I do believe it unrealistic to replace 60 year old nuclear technology with wind and solar power. There's two big reasons I believe this.

      First, it's a matter of resources. Wind power takes ten times as much steel and concrete to produce the same power as coal or nuclear. I don't have the numbers for solar in front of me but I do recall it being similar. Those windmills sit atop large steel poles anchored to large concrete pads. We can choose to put those resources into wind power or we can use those same resources, put it into nuclear power, and get ten times more energy in return.

      Second, it's a matter of reliability. Wind power only works when the wind blows. Solar power only works when the sun shines. Nuclear power doesn't care what the weather is or the time of day. Wind and solar have a capacity factor of about 30%, nuclear power has a capacity factor of about 90%. I don't know if that 10 times number from Morgan Stanley I gave above includes the capacity factor issue or not but this still makes nuclear look real good.

      This is using numbers from "60 year old" nuclear technology. We got better stuff in development now. There's nothing inherently wrong with how we've been doing nuclear considering how safe it has been but we do know how to make it safer and therefore cheaper. By doing away with the large pools of water for moderator and cooling, and therefore the threat of a flash boil in a loss of cooling event, the large containment domes are unnecessary. By using liquid metal or liquid salt for cooling, and graphite moderator, the containment can be much smaller. That alone saves a lot on material costs.

      What I foresee as replacing these 60 year old nuclear reactors are new nuclear reactors. With a four decade span where the USA has not built a new nuclear power plant we are going to see a lot of nuclear reactors being in operation for twice their intended lifespan. When those reactors were designed they were intended to run for 30 to 50 years before being replaced, many of them are now expected to run for 80 years. While this is impressive engineering it is also pushing the limits of safety. If you don't want to see another Fukushima style disaster then you are going to want to see many more new nuclear power plants built.

      Without nuclear power we have the option of smog or the lights going out. Wind and solar are not a solution. "Smart grids" and utility scale batteries will not make wind and solar viable and they certainly will not make them affordable.

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    11. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by CanadianMacFan · · Score: 2

      Windmills look a heck of a lot nicer than a coal fired electricity plant.

    12. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      France is moving away from nuclear power . They want to eventually replace it solar and wind.

      No, France has not planned to move away, they have slowed their plans.

      China has figured out quite some time ago that renewables by themselves are not the solution, which is why they are also embarking on a massive nuclear power buildup. Very critical when replacing coal plants, something the article didn't want to mention.

    13. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by dbIII · · Score: 2

      Replacing their nucleair power with wind/solar is naïve and unrealistic at best

      You have that backwards, for whether you like nukes or not the current economic reality there is that replacing the old nukes with new news is unrealistic due to the huge capital outlays and long lead times. Small stuff can be financed a bit of at a time (and comes online in less than a year to start paying it's way) even if it adds up to costing far more in the end.
      It's only where someone can tell the accountants to shut up or go to the Gulag, instead of saying "yes boss" like we do in most of the west currently, where you can build things with huge capital costs such as nukes.
      If you like nukes look to the east. Nobody has the stomach for them where short term profits trump everything else.

    14. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by dbIII · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Second, it's a matter of reliability. Wind power only works when the wind blows. Solar power only works when the sun shines.

      Consider a grid and you'll be taken a bit more seriously.

    15. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      By doing away with the large pools of water for moderator and cooling, and therefore the threat of a flash boil in a loss of cooling event, the large containment domes are unnecessary. By using liquid metal or liquid salt for cooling, and graphite moderator, the containment can be much smaller. That alone saves a lot on material costs.

      Superheated liquid metal is very reactive with water or moisture and creates hydrogen gas. Liquid salt is corrosive. Graphite moderator burns in atmosphere and made Chernobyl accident worse. No matter what clever materials you use, no fission reactor is inherently safe, unless it is some sort of subcritical reactor, so that you don't act upon it to keep its chain reaction stable, but instead continuously supply energy to it to produce more energy.

    16. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You may be able to cover France in windmills; coast to coast, north to south. There is a maximum density, and then the windmills just shadow each other. But will you get enough power this way?

    17. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's amazing how worked up people can get about this. You're wrong and markets and economics will solve it for us (although far too late for many of the world's poorest).

    18. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The sheets of silicon need to be produced and replaced regularly with huge environmental impact. Those 'elegant' windmills ruin the sight, are very noisy, very expensive to operate and maintain, and generate flicker vertigo. Here's a small exampe of what thos 'elegant' windmills look like, from a pro-wind site: http://www.milieubewust.net/du...

      You really call this elegant? And remember that the country must be plastered with these things to get even close to the energy output of a single modern nuclear plant.

      The argument that they have to be manufactured is hardly unique to solar panels. They last about as long as any power generation equipment.
      If you insist on having a nice piece of industrial farmland to look at, save up, buy one and be ready to maintain it with pesticides, herbicides and heavy machinery. You seem to have odd priorities.

    19. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by dwillden · · Score: 1

      25 years ago= 1992. The year before during the Gulf War I was helping families of my father's Guard Unit send emails to their soldiers in Kuwait via a 286 and modem dial-in. Check your facts. The internet was not as widely used because it was mostly still used by academia at that point, and the www had not yet been released on the world, but the internet was there. And Personal computers (Macs and PC's) were widely used and had been for years.

      You are right about the change in technology, just your baseline is off.

      --
      I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
    20. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by GuB-42 · · Score: 1

      Germany planning to move away from nuclear power and replace it with wind/solar, not France.
      France do plan to increase investments in wind/solar but there is no plan to reduce nuclear capacity. Shortly after the Fukushima disaster, french president Nicolas Sarkosy said quite clearly that nuclear power is here to stay. And there is no sign of a change of plan.
      There are organizations that militate against nuclear of course. There are also significant delays and cost overruns regarding the EPR but none of these seem to affect France's global nuclear policy.

    21. Re: Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This might mean more if they could actually get such a grid to work like they promised. Unfortunately wind patterns over relatively large areas are surpringly uniform, and no amount of solar continues to work at night. You can try to solve this with overcapacity and energy storage schemes, but this gets prohibitively expensive fast.

    22. Re: Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The sodium isn't superheated, just hot, it has been used in non-nuclear industrial processes for decades.

      The graphite was superheated, which is why it burnt so strongly in atmosphere.

      Luckily the gas coolant designs have neither of these problems.

    23. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      The outcome doesn't follow the premise. Having costs for fuel storage and risks using current technology does not naturally lead to: Shut it all down we're moving to wind.

      If it did you would have bought a bicycle instead of a car with seatbelts.

    24. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by blindseer · · Score: 2

      Superheated liquid metal is very reactive with water or moisture and creates hydrogen gas.

      Which is why they take great care in keeping water from it. Seriously though, there are concerns about water getting to the liquified metal and it could be quite a problem if it got out of hand. I do recall that in an experimental reactor in Japan they had pools of liquid metal that were open to the air without much concern, the metal would form a "crust" that prevented further oxidation. This is much like a tarnish on a solid metal forming. This worked well in that Japanese reactor until a crane fell into one of the liquid metal pools. That was pretty much the end of that reactor.

      Liquid salt is corrosive.

      Largely a myth. Tests show that use of fairly common alloys will hold up to the salts used in these planned reactors for decades. Of course we won't know for sure if it will hold up for decades until it is actually tested for decades but this is a largely solved problem.

      Graphite moderator burns in atmosphere and made Chernobyl accident worse.

      Also largely a myth. Graphite is pure carbon, much like coal. Unlike coal the graphite used as a moderator is in a metallic state. As a metal is it highly conductive, making it difficult to get hot enough to ignite. As a metal it's not "rough" like coal and does not give much surface area to oxidize. If hot enough, long enough, with enough air, it will start on fire. However, at that point the reactor will already have been destroyed from whatever made it that hot to begin with. Also, there just isn't a lot of graphite in these reactors. The heat from burning graphite is a rounding error if there is ever a problem of something burning.

      No matter what clever materials you use, no fission reactor is inherently safe, unless it is some sort of subcritical reactor, so that you don't act upon it to keep its chain reaction stable, but instead continuously supply energy to it to produce more energy.

      When it comes to molten salt reactors a common safety element is the "freeze plug". This is a section of pipe at the bottom of the reactor vessel that is kept cool to plug the pipe. This pipe drains to a tank which is in a shape that prevents fission, removed from the moderator, and kept cool with passive systems. If power is lost the plug thaws, the reactor drains, and fission stops. If the reactor gets too hot the cooling system that freezes the plug is overwhelmed, the plug thaws, the reactor drains, and fission stops.

      Some designs go an extra mile and allow for the unlikely event the freeze plug fails. This is done by having the moderator rods getting inserted from the bottom of the reactor and held up by electric motors. If power is lost then gravity lowers the moderator from the reactor and fission stops. Another fail safe which is rarely mentioned is that the alloy that the reactor vessel is made of has a melting point lower than the boiling point of the salt it holds. If for some reason the reactor got really hot the vessel would melt away and release the salt into the drain pan below it, which drains to the same drain tank that the freeze plug would open into.

      I've seen a few sub-critical reactor designs and a common feature on them are scram rods. Why would a sub-critical reactor need to have scram rods? At least I asked myself this question. The reason is that these reactors are held so close to critical that it is possible for it to go super-critical in a split second. If this is not accounted for with a means to scram beyond just shutting down the accelerator then it would never get licensed. If built so that it was further from critical mass so scram rods are not needed then the accelerators need to be so large as to become impractical. Which means, in short, sub-critical reactors are impractical.

      Molten salt reactors are much like accelerator driven reactors in that if power is lost the reaction stops. The difference is in the power required to keep the reactor going. In an accelerator driven system it takes a large fraction of the power produced, in a molten salt reactor the power required is in the noise.

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    25. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by whoever57 · · Score: 1
      And removing the tops of mountains through strip mining? That looks attractive does it?

      The sheets of silicon need to be produced and replaced regularly with huge environmental impact.

      Where by "regularly" you mean every 30-40 years? Or perhaps even longer.

      --
      The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
    26. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Consider a grid and you'll be taken a bit more seriously.

      From my observations, people that tend to immediately shout "grid" as the solution seem to be completely unable to articulate how much it would cost just to build of the infrastructure, as well as articulate the amount of wind and solar overcapacity required to make it the 100% solution (or even the 85% solution).

    27. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "First, it's a matter of resources. Wind power takes ten times as much steel and concrete to produce the same power as coal or nuclear. I don't have the numbers for solar in front of me but I do recall it being similar. Those windmills sit atop large steel poles anchored to large concrete pads. We can choose to put those resources into wind power or we can use those same resources, put it into nuclear power, and get ten times more energy in return."

      This isn't a good argument. Optimizing our steel usage is not a major priority, minimizing total cost is, and nuclear plants are extremely expensive. In the US plants are struggling to compete with all the combined cycle natural gas units that have been and are continuing to be built. Some nuclear plants are shutting down or attempting to secure bailouts to survive. The cost overruns on the Hinkley plant in the UK are also astronomical.

      The reliability argument is better, until battery technology and transmission infrastructure gets good enough. Though in areas with cheap natural gas, the aforementioned combined cycle units can be operated as baseload units.

    28. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      First, it's a matter of resources. Wind power takes ten times as much steel and concrete to produce the same power as coal or nuclear. I don't have the numbers for solar in front of me but I do recall it being similar. Those windmills sit atop large steel poles anchored to large concrete pads. We can choose to put those resources into wind power or we can use those same resources, put it into nuclear power, and get ten times more energy in return.

      This makes no sense. There isn't a shortage of steel or concrete. In fact, if anything there is too much steel at the moment and its driving down prices as it gets dumped.

      And if we are talking overall cost, then windmills and solar PV are cheaper, so there is no question of monetary resources being better directed either.

      Second, it's a matter of reliability.

      You don't really seem to understand the needs of the grid at all, in terms of reliability. Wind and solar are actually more reliable than nuclear in one critical way - they tend not to fail in a way that knocks out a gigawatt instantly with zero warning. If you lose a turbine or two, it's tens of megawatts at most, and both wind and sunshine are very easy to predict on the timescales required to spin up alternatives (15+ minutes).

      Batteries further improve this situation, and have been in use for over a decade to smooth wind farm output. With geographic distribution and enough turbines, other sources are relegated to making up supply at peak times and nuclear is less suited to that than hydro, pumped storage and biofuels.

      France is pretty fed up with nuclear. It was supposed to be cheap and clean, but ended up being expensive and accident prone. The government is removing the subsidies, and as such the energy companies are not building new plants in France. They are building a few in other parts of Europe, but they are all over budget, don't work properly and have insane price tags.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    29. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by dunkelfalke · · Score: 1

      Are we still talking about France? Because it already has a grid. Basically the whole EU is one huge grid.

      --
      "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
    30. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by Maritz · · Score: 1

      Solar and wind can't do what nuclear does without the kind of capacitors/batteries that don't currently exist. And the French will be perfectly aware of that.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    31. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by Maritz · · Score: 1

      Advances in IT are easy, that's why they've happened. Advances in power generation are hard, that's why they haven't happened.

      We don't have the kind of batteries and capacitors that would be needed to store energy at off-peak times, when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    32. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by Maritz · · Score: 1

      Most of those issues can be resolved by putting the wind farms off shore, just over the horizon. Doesn't solve the power storage problem though, which is much more of a problem.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    33. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by Maritz · · Score: 1

      Modern reactors produce very little waste, actually. It's the smart option right now - well, unless you agree with Donald that climate change is all a big scam rumbled by a few plucky billionaires and oil companies ;)

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    34. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by Eunuchswear · · Score: 1

      You could maybe argue nuclear is renewable, making renewables 90GW, but 130 is an outright lie.

      Nuclear is renewable... if you're prepared to wait for the next supernova...

      --
      Watch this Heartland Institute video
    35. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by Eunuchswear · · Score: 1

      Windmills look a heck of a lot nicer than a coal fired electricity plant.

      France has only two coal fired plants, at least one of which is being converted to biomass.

      Personally I find windmills quite pretty, but then I also find our nice nukes quite pretty too, and given that it's fucking cold today and there is not much wind I'm happy to have them.

      --
      Watch this Heartland Institute video
    36. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by Eunuchswear · · Score: 1

      Are we still talking about France? Because it already has a grid. Basically the whole EU is one huge grid.

      That is, in fact not really true.

      France has interconnectors with its neighbours, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and the UK, but they are of limited size, for example the links to Germany are around 5GW max.

      The other problem is that Europe is pretty small, we tend to have the same weather over large parts of the continent. It's freezing pretty much everywhere at the moment, so we can't actually share all that much.

      Currently France is exporting 3GW to Italy and importing 2GW from Spain and 1GW from the UK (thanks, guys)

      --
      Watch this Heartland Institute video
    37. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by blindseer · · Score: 1

      You have that backwards, for whether you like nukes or not the current economic reality there is that replacing the old nukes with new news is unrealistic due to the huge capital outlays and long lead times.

      This problem of the high cost of nuclear power lies mostly in satisfying the regulations put upon the nuclear power industry. Making the price of nuclear power cheaper than coal can be solved with a change in policy, a relatively trivial problem. Making wind and solar cheaper than coal is a technological problem, which is not trivial. Some of the problems with wind and solar are matters of physics, which cannot be "solved" in any real sense.

      In reading the news lately I do see that there are likely big changes in energy policy coming soon to us in the USA. I expect nuclear power to get much cheaper real quick.

      The large capital outlay for nuclear power right now is a result of the regulations placed upon nuclear power right now. The regulatory costs to get a reactor licensed only makes sense when spread out over many years with many megawatts. If the regulatory costs get reduced then those costs are more easily absorbed with a smaller reactor. If the reactors are small enough then they can be mass produced like jetliners. Even if they can be "mass produced" like aircraft carriers, which a new one in a series is cranked out at a rate of one every three years, then the costs can be spread out that way too. The reactors in these aircraft carriers are likewise "mass produced" but they fall under military rules which makes their regulatory cost structure very different from a civilian reactor.

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    38. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by Khashishi · · Score: 1

      You need to update your facts. Wind and solar are affordable now. The price of solar has come down quite a bit in the last decade. Lazard's levelized cost report shows solar and wind as cheaper than nuclear.

      "Base load" is still an argument, but it isn't relevant until solar and wind become a vast majority of the energy in a locale. You only need a small percentage of "base load" to cover some emergency situations. We have enough existing conventional energy that we don't need to build more.

    39. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by scsirob · · Score: 1

      Yep. Germany's Mrs Merkel made more than one huge mistake..

      --
      To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
    40. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by CanadianMacFan · · Score: 1

      I like windmills too. I was just making a somewhat sarcastic response to the parent that said the windmills ruin the sight and I said coal plant because it was in my mind as the article was about them. I could have gone on a rant about how the parent was wrong about them being very expensive to operate and maintain and that they are noisy too. As to their visual elegance it's more of a personal opinion.

    41. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by blindseer · · Score: 1

      If you had read my entire comment I did consider a grid. Infrastructure costs money, for wind and solar to compete with coal, nuclear, and natural gas the infrastructure costs need to be included in that price. Many people will ignore this cost because it is inconvenient for their argument.

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    42. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by lazy+genes · · Score: 0

      I charge $200 an hour to babysit my grandkids and that's with no guarantee. Right now they have no guarantee applied to any waste storage plans. All they have are plans and every plan has failed. There is no safe way to store the waste for 10000 years. It ends up costing more energy than it puts out.

    43. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by jwhyche · · Score: 0

      Or glowing in the dark from nuclear fallout.

      --
      I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
    44. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by pointybits · · Score: 1

      The French total generation capacity is indeed around 130GW but that includes everything (nuclear, solar, hydro, some gas and even coal and oil), and includes the reactors that are currently shutdown. The "renewable" part of the quote was either a misquote or misstatement.

    45. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by blindseer · · Score: 1

      This makes no sense. There isn't a shortage of steel or concrete. In fact, if anything there is too much steel at the moment and its driving down prices as it gets dumped.

      There will be a shortage if we try to replace coal, nuclear, and natural gas with wind and solar. I have on my desk a report from Morgan Stanley claiming that it would take 10 billion tons of steel and concrete annually to replace coal power. Current world production of steel and concrete is 1.5 billion tons/year. This report was given at the 2016 Platts nuclear conference. I don't recall where I downloaded this report otherwise I'd link to it for you.

      You don't really seem to understand the needs of the grid at all, in terms of reliability. Wind and solar are actually more reliable than nuclear in one critical way - they tend not to fail in a way that knocks out a gigawatt instantly with zero warning. If you lose a turbine or two, it's tens of megawatts at most, and both wind and sunshine are very easy to predict on the timescales required to spin up alternatives (15+ minutes).

      Imagine that I have a dozen nuclear power plants all humming along at about 80% capacity. Now imagine I have one of those once in a century events that knocks out one of those power plants. In the short term, the first few minutes and hours, the emergency and peaker power makes up for this loss because that is why they are there. Once it is determined that this failed plant will not come back online any time soon the remaining 11 plants crank up their output to 85% capacity. In the exceedingly unlikely event that another plant is lost before another plant comes online then these remaining 10 plants have to go up to 95% capacity.

      With wind and solar the output is what I get depending on the weather. If I lose one of those PV panels or a windmill then I can't just crank up the rest to make up for it. With a nuclear power plant it might take a decade to replace a failed power plant while a wind or solar component is likely replaced within a week. Given that nuclear power plants have scheduled downtime, reserve capacity, and (assuming you have a nation/state/utility/whatever that has a long term energy plan) the building of new plants will be planned for the obsolescence of older ones. This schedule should mean that with a dozen plants and an expected lifespan of 50 years I can expect a new plant to come online about every four years. If a plant is lost in that time I can opt to delay decommissioning an aging plant for a while to make up for lost capacity if I must.

      Batteries further improve this situation, and have been in use for over a decade to smooth wind farm output. With geographic distribution and enough turbines, other sources are relegated to making up supply at peak times and nuclear is less suited to that than hydro, pumped storage and biofuels.

      Do you think that batteries care what kind of power they are charged from? What makes you think that someone won't come up with the idea of using nuclear power to charge those batteries? I believe that if we do see this battery technology come about then I think that it will be just as popular with the nuclear people as with the solar. The difference is that nuclear can charge those batteries all night while the solar panels can only do so for a few hours every day.

      People keep talking about how batteries will change how we view wind and solar. I agree, only I disagree on the polarity of how it changes that view.

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    46. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When I wrote 'in practice' I suppose I meant 'in the awareness of most people'. I know I had no idea such a thing existed in 1992. Desktops, yes, but as a replacement for a typewriter.

    47. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by blindseer · · Score: 1

      You need to update your facts. Wind and solar are affordable now. The price of solar has come down quite a bit in the last decade. Lazard's levelized cost report shows solar and wind as cheaper than nuclear.

      I read that report and a couple things stuck out to me. First is that the reductions in costs seen in wind and solar have been made in large part from government subsidies. This is not a real reduction, only taking money from energy users from one pocket (taxes) instead of another (energy rates). The real cost reductions, as in from reduced material costs, have flattened in recent years. This means that the big cost reductions seen in the past is not likely to be seen again. The second thing that stuck out to me is the admission that these subsidies go to people that can afford to buy solar panels, the wealthy, while being taken from those paying taxes, the working poor. This is not acceptable on so many levels.

      Perhaps most important is that solar is still more expensive than natural gas, only marginally better than coal, and (as pointed out above) much of this cost advantage is from subsidies. Wind does compete well, and I don't have near the problem with wind as I do with solar because of that, but wind cannot be relied upon for energy. If wind is deployed widely then there must be an infrastructure to address this unreliability which I'll get to next.

      "Base load" is still an argument, but it isn't relevant until solar and wind become a vast majority of the energy in a locale. You only need a small percentage of "base load" to cover some emergency situations. We have enough existing conventional energy that we don't need to build more.

      I've seen people in the industry talk about this and the "limit" for wind and solar on the grid is about 20% before real stability issues start to come up. Real weird things start to happen with so many different sources on a grid trying to balance voltage and such. To account for this means expensive changes to the electric grid. Making the grid larger to account for things like poor weather in certain areas only makes the problem more complex. Smaller grids where solar power is popular, like those in Hawaii and Texas, have already seen this.

      Many people think that solar power matches load well but it does not. Peak solar output is at noon, when demand actually takes a small dip, and is gone at dusk, when demand peaks. This makes load management more difficult and therefore more expensive. More peak power, and therefore expensive power, is needed when solar exceeds about 15% of capacity. Wind is less of an issue since wind power tends to peak at dusk but this is still problematic in many ways when near 15% to 25% capacity.

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    48. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by Areyoukiddingme · · Score: 1

      There will be a shortage if we try to replace coal, nuclear, and natural gas with wind and solar. I have on my desk a report from Morgan Stanley claiming that it would take 10 billion tons of steel and concrete annually to replace coal power.

      By when? Next month? Obvious bullshit number is obvious bullshit. Nobody has suggested that replacing coal, nuclear, and natural gas with wind and solar is going to happen overnight. Not even quickly. Coal, nuclear, and natural gas represent large capital investments with long amortization schedules. The power companies will only shut one off short of its design lifespan in extremis, and there has been no spike in fuel cost for any of them. Quite the opposite. Gas is dirt cheap now, but most utility companies have set fees agreed with state PUCs when gas was expensive, which have not been revisited, so they're making money hand over fist on gas power generation.

      Imagine that I have a dozen nuclear power plants all humming along at about 80% capacity. Now imagine I have one of those once in a century events that knocks out one of those power plants.

      Why imagine, when we have actual numbers? Average capacity factor of nuclear power plants in the US for 2015 was 91.9%, the highest it has ever been. If you follow the link, you'll see that at least the top 10 plants are actually operating at capacity factors in excess of 100% in order to achieve that average. Now consider that, with the shutdown of Vermont Yankee, there are only 99 total nuclear plants in the US. Having not just 10 plants, but 10% of the plants running at over 100% capacity, where they are by definition eating into their safety margin, doesn't seem all that safe, and it means that quite a few of those 99 plants are running at much less than 91.9% capacity factor.

      Of those 99 plants, the majority of them are of such an age and design that they're incapable of being throttled, so when they're operating, they're operating at 100% or above. That means out of the 365 days in a year, the average nuclear power plant was offline for 30 of those days, and for every year but 2015, it has been worse than that. So there is no margin to "crank up" to accommodate a plant going offline.

      In short, nuclear power plants are just as dependent on the existence of the full grid as wind and photovoltaics are.

      This schedule should mean that with a dozen plants and an expected lifespan of 50 years I can expect a new plant to come online about every four years.

      Design lifespans were universally 30 years and between 1977 and 2013, there were no new plants started. The Obama administration approved construction of 4 new plants. The US will be transitioning from nuclear to solar and wind by default, simply because those plants are not being replaced fast enough. But it won't happen so fast that Morgan Stanley's nonsense number is even remotely relevant.

    49. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by dbIII · · Score: 1

      This problem of the high cost of nuclear power lies mostly in satisfying the regulations put upon the nuclear power industry.

      Incorrect. Nuclear power also has a very high capital cost in China it is just that they have the will and patience to bear the cost and wait for the returns. What you have written is relaying a poor excuse aimed at removing some regulations mostly to do with operating very old plant and it has nothing at all to do with the issue.

      Making the price of nuclear power cheaper than coal

      For very large installations it may already be there, a lot of people certainly keep on telling me so, but that does not matter when the people putting up the money are only taking a short term approach. Coal, hydro, solar thermal etc - those other things with high capital costs and slow returns are also suffering the same fate.

      those costs are more easily absorbed with a smaller reactor

      The reactors are only a part of the cost, plus also the small ones do not scale down in cost very well. A lot of tiny little reactors to get enough steam to drive some large turbines to make it worth having nukes at all is currently going to be a lot more expensive than a few big reactors. People have been working on that idea of a lot of little reactors since TMI because little reactors are not going to melt down. While your dream is nice it hinges on government being the problem - unfortunately reality has other ideas when nukes are used in situations where government has completely got out of the way. A mass produced nuke depends on a lot of R&D (especially development) to have something worth mass producing first. We're not going to get there with just a dream, especially with accountants telling us R&D has zero budget. I see finance to solve the real problems as being a vastly more difficult problem than rent seekers whining about the red tape they need to cope with before they can get a handout to continue to run their 1970s plant.

      Perhaps look at something more technical instead of propaganda from rentseekers that just want to cut the cost on their old nukes and have no intention of building new ones - that propaganda is written by marketing folk with less scientific or engineering grounding than yourself. Of course they are going to blame regulations and stuff, they don't know shit about physics because they never went near it in school or after.

    50. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by dbIII · · Score: 1

      The infrastructure is already there.
      If you wish to advocate nukes attacking wind with a silly "the wind isn't blowing" when it is blowing in a lot of other places connected by that grid is counterproductive.
      Wind has a niche - peak power.
      Nukes have a niche - base load.

    51. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by dbIII · · Score: 1

      it would cost just to build of the infrastructure

      Isn't it lucky that people in the 1950s did most of the work for us.

    52. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by dbIII · · Score: 1

      The other problem is that Europe is pretty small, we tend to have the same weather over large parts of the continent

      Are you really taking that line to charge against windmills?
      Take a look at this:
      https://www.meteoblue.com/en/weather/map/wind/europe
      Now you know and can no longer act like a totally ignorant idiot without being an outright liar as well.

    53. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by Eunuchswear · · Score: 1

      Hey, fuck you very much too.

      Why don't you try reading what I wrote rather than listening to the little voice in your head? I didn't even mention windmills in my message. I was pointing out that when it is cold in one place in Europe it is often cold in almost all of Europe. We all need electricity at the same time, so there is not much scope to use the grid, in so far as it exists, to move power from places where it's needed to places where it's not.

      At this exact moment France is generating 1.32GW from wind, out of an installed capacity of around 8GW. Our neighbours in the UK are generating 0.92GW from a similar capacity.

      Which is entirely consistent with the wind map you posted which shows very low wind speeds across France, Belgium, Germany, Holland and the UK due to there being a fucking big freezing cold anticyclone over our heads at the moment.

      Luckily their is a bit of wind and some sun in Spain, so we're able to import about 2.3GW from them -- like I said before, thanks guys.

      --
      Watch this Heartland Institute video
    54. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Grids were brought up because of the "Wind power only works when the wind blows" comment above and that's why they were discussed before you jumped in.
      The obvious assumption would be that you would read comments in the thread you jumped into.
      Your complaint about it being cold everywhere is available capacity thing and not really related to what is being discussed, so I assumed you were bringing out the old "the weather is the same everywhere" bullshit that would be related to what is being discussed.
      So sorry about that. It appears I mistook you for one of those types.

    55. Re: Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The cost to build and operate wind and solar, absent subsudies, is still dropping. The subsidies stimulated investment which has led to economies of scale, but in many markets the subsidies are being scaled back. Even then the cost of the subsidy on the typical energy bill is only a few percent. Arguably, funding it via general taxation would be better, though, to avoid exacerbating fuel poverty.

      In terms of the 20% limit, European electricity generation is already almost there, and there don't seem to have been any particular issues so far, so that limit may be tested soon.

    56. Re:Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about. by Khashishi · · Score: 1

      Actually, the report makes a comparison without subsidies.

  11. Saving the world with a Tax. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Assuming we're in for an 11C increase in temperature before the turn of the century if we stay the course, the thing that strikes me as the most insane on this entire discussion is we've got people who think a carbon tax would fix the issue.

    That's right. We've literally got an entire community of elites saying taxes, not technology, not changes in behavior, not a international effort, but taxes, will save the world. What a farce.

    Your options on that one are, the threat is far more serious than first imagined and they are trying to get some cash together to build an ark, or we're trotting out a monster to scare people into emptying their wallets which is not something I'd cry wolf over.

    The worlds problems are going to get very serious with the 3rd world attempting to obtain 1st world living standards. The US, for all it's problems, has a moderate and fairly responsible population growth rate compared to most countries. China and India in particular are going to see mass die-offs due to pollution and corruption, and the west has hit it's tolerance limit on immigration; pew research is showing in the US a newborn male today has a 1 in 2 shot of procreating, go look at their publications on marriage. We've seen the tip of the ice berg in regards to racism and bigotry coming back into style.

    1. Re:Saving the world with a Tax. by TheRaven64 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The idea of a tax isn't as silly as you make it sound. The problem with most forms of pollution (from a purely economic standpoint) is that one person or company gains the benefits from polluting, but everyone pays the costs. This is known as an externality. Taxing pollution fixes this and means that the polluting technology becomes more expensive to operate and makes the barrier to entry for non-polluting technologies higher. If something is producing a lot of carbon dioxide but costs $5/widget, and you add a tax that amounts to $2.50/widget, then a replacement technology that doesn't emit any CO_2 but costs $7/widget is now cheaper to use. This means that you can bring it to market before you've got the economies of scale to push the price down below $5/widget.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    2. Re:Saving the world with a Tax. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Carbon taxes implemented via tradeable carbon credits are a scam.

      Investment banks and brokers benefit when there are more trades and more liquidity in the market. They are the ones pushing for carbon credits since they will be the ones that will control it and profit from it.

    3. Re: Saving the world with a Tax. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Obama may have done strange things - but a correctly implemented environmental tax works.

      Today, people go with coal because it is cheaper. They therefore won't bother with solar/wind/waves that cost more per kw.

      A CO2 tax makes pollution more expensive. The tax won't make anything "greener" on its own. But set the tax sufficiently high, and suddenly windmills (or whatever) saves money on the now expensive energy. So you get a transition to greener energy because the dirty variant is being taxed to a slow death. After a while coal dies, and no more coal tax money comes in; this is not a problem. Coal miners out of work is not a problem with this scheme either - more people will be needed to maintain the much more distributed green energy production. (One of the reasons green is more expensive to begin with.)

      Economic stagnation due to high energy cost is a problem; but though luck! Coal isn't viable in the long run, we can't breathe an atmosphere with even 1% CO2.

    4. Re: Saving the world with a Tax. by blindseer · · Score: 1

      A CO2 tax makes pollution more expensive. The tax won't make anything "greener" on its own. But set the tax sufficiently high, and suddenly windmills (or whatever) saves money on the now expensive energy.

      I have a few questions for you. What do you think windmills are made of? This isn't a trick question either. The answer is that a large portion of the costs in windmills is in the steel, aluminum, and concrete. What do you think happens to the price of these materials if CO2 output is taxed? The way concrete is produced now includes the reduction of limestone to lime by heating it. This heat is often from natural gas or coal. The reduction of the limestone releases CO2.

      Aluminum also produces a lot of CO2. The aluminum ore is dissolved in a hot vat where a carbon rod is inserted, current passed through it, and the carbon rod is "burned" away, releasing CO2. The heat for this is also derived from natural gas or coal. Steel is produced by various means, depending on the properties desired, also involving a lot of coal burned and CO2 produced.

      While it may be possible to produce this steel, aluminum, and concrete in ways that do not produce CO2 such processes would require more energy which means more cost. Taxing carbon output like you describe is likely to hurt the transition to wind more than it helps. Solar power has similar issues since it involves a lot of aluminum, steel, and quite likely a lot of concrete too. Hydroelectric sources needs these same resources too. Basically anything you want to replace coal with is going to take resources that must be mined, refined, transported, molded, shaped, etc., etc., all of which require energy that now largely comes from carbon sources. Raising the price of carbon raises the price of energy, which raises the price of materials, which raises the price of labor, which can easily price out the competition to carbon energy.

      People don't burn carbon to be dicks to the environment. People burn carbon because it is the cheapest means to get the energy we need to live. So long as people have a vote the taxes on carbon will not last long, just look at Australia and Canada for proof of that.

      Economic stagnation due to high energy cost is a problem; but though luck!

      This is tough for the legislators that impose policies that arbitrarily raise the price of energy too. People will not put up with such taxes for long. If imposed on a society that do not have a vote then expect a real environmental disaster. With expensive fuel for cooking and heating those trees in the nearby forest look real tempting for firewood. You can look to any of a number of tyrannical hell holes on Earth for examples of deforestation out of desperation. This also goes way back in history too, the "cedars of Lebanon" are an example of that.

      I saw a talk from a Dr. Stephen Boyd where he described this exact problem. He ran a lab doing research on battery technologies and electricity costs were a big problem for him. The equipment he needed to do his research inherently required a lot of energy. Raising his costs more will only make his job more difficult. (I tried to look him up quick to give a reference but it appears that there are a lot of people called Dr. Stephen Boyd on the internet.) Raising the cost of energy to the point it impacts the economy also makes this research more difficult, since there is just less money flowing about for the luxury of technology research.

      Not only is a carbon tax a bad idea I would argue it would be counter productive.

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    5. Re: Saving the world with a Tax. by DamnOregonian · · Score: 1

      I have a few questions for you. What do you think windmills are made of?

      I have one question for you- what do you think coal power plants are made of, and what is it exactly that you think they burn every day to keep producing that power?
      Overall- I just can't wrap my head around the economics of taxation's total effect on the system, but i'm quite sure any coal power plant worth its salt dumps many "windmills" per day of CO2 into the atmosphere, efficiently sucked from the depths of the earth's deepest and most stable carbon sink.

      If I'm wrong, forgive me, but I have trouble believing I am (and couldn't find a quick and easy way to find out)

    6. Re: Saving the world with a Tax. by blindseer · · Score: 1

      While a switch to wind would reduce carbon output, by a large margin, but the taxing of carbon will only slow it's adoption.

      I may be proven wrong in my assessment in the long run but in the short run a tax on carbon is such an economy killer that it hasn't lasted long enough to matter when and where it's been tried. Reducing the ability for people to invest in new business ventures by increasing taxes arbitrarily is always a bad idea. People need money to spare to invest in any business this includes wind power. If taxes remove this economic freedom then wind investment will take a hit.

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    7. Re: Saving the world with a Tax. by DamnOregonian · · Score: 1

      Like I said about the taxes... I don't think I'm smart to really see all angles of the vast amount of things that would affect... I'm just certain that a tax on... let's call it planetary carbon redistribution... would have a much larger effect against the externalized costs of a coal plant vs. that of a windmill.
      I'm definitely not on the side of any of the proposed economic solutions, but the argument that the true cost of fossil power when externalized costs are factored in makes it the least appealing form of energy available at this point in time seems to hold a lot of water for me, hence I'm inclined to agree that a taxation against such things would definitely raise their cost a lot more than their competition's.

    8. Re:Saving the world with a Tax. by PPH · · Score: 1

      The problems with taxes are: First, governments become addicted to them as a revenue source. Second, businesses (particularly utilities) just pass the tax on to their customers. Plus, they make a profit on this pass-through as well. Third, the tax exempt businesses just end up being less efficient. And when they finally drive their non-tax exempt out of business and their tax advantage disappears, often they go out of business as well.

      By far, the worst thing about taxes is the government addiction to them. You don't want to drive an electric or hybrid car in the 'progressive' states that first encouraged them. Because now, they are falling over themselves trying to squeeze a 'fair share' of revenue out of cars not paying at the pump. Taxes: GibsMeDat on a government level.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
    9. Re: Saving the world with a Tax. by david_thornley · · Score: 2

      It's possible to impose a revenue-neutral carbon tax, by reducing other taxes. (I'd recommend reducing the taxes that affect the poor, since they'll be hardest hit by a carbon tax.) A revenue-neutral carbon tax would leave just as much money available for investment, and would make investment in renewable energy more profitable.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    10. Re:Saving the world with a Tax. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you Koch Brother A, or Koch Brother B? Either way, that makes you one of the 'elites'.

      Your second paragraph is an object lesson in self-serving pap. You sound a little more intelligent (though cruel and detached) farther down. Maybe work on that part first.

  12. another xkcd by DrYak · · Score: 1

    The frozen sea. Ice which should show up in October didn't show up until December and January.
    {...}
    And always. https://xkcd.com/1732/

    And another ob. xkcd.

    To quote the strip:

    What used to feel normal now feels too cold

    --
    "Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
  13. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by KeensMustard · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because apparently last year was the 'hottest year on record', even though it was a very mild summer in the U.K.

    Aaaaand what percentage of the earths surface is covered by the UK?

    And nothing like the drought of 1976.

    Was there a worldwide drought in 1976?

    And 'since records began' means 'in the past 150 years', and the planet has existed for millions of years.

    Aaaand for how many of those millions of years have we been pumping CO2 into the atmosphere and disabling carbon sinks?

  14. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by aliquis · · Score: 2

    What's your problem really?
    We know how humans affect the climate and we know it's affected.
    What's the reason to disbelief?

  15. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by aliquis · · Score: 1

    Sweden have had a few winters now with positive Celsius around Christmas and new-year.

    I leave that up to chance rather than immediate climate reaction but I'm in no way a disbeliever in what so many scientists think is a real thing. Why would I be? We know the trend and we know how humans affect it.

    I don't complain about the mild winters (however if the gulf-stream was f*cked up and they would be gone then I'd complain ;D)

    (Only negative is it may make the "refugees" more comfortable.)

  16. This is progress. by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

    While some my scoff and call this a worthless effort, I disagree! Could they do more? Of course... but so could everyone else! Changing energy generation for a large country is a monumental undertaking and you will always have the greedy who would rather stab their own child in the eye than lose a single dollar but this shows a large counter-investment is going into renewable power sources. It's depressing that there is so much resistance to this change but it's slow, steady and unstoppable. Even the incoming US administration cannot turn the tide of this fight against pollution. Progress is slow at first, then really fast and completely unstoppable.

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    1. Re:This is progress. by l0n3s0m3phr34k · · Score: 1

      I see it this way; the first step on a difficult path. Now that they've started, future reduction steps will be far easier since it's now "implemented policy". And I think those here in the USA that oppose this would feel far different if forced to live through the pollution levels in Beijing.

  17. Only half true article by blindseer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Interesting that the article makes no mention of China's plans to build more nuclear power plants.
    Found this with a quick Google search:
    http://dailycaller.com/2016/09...

    China intends to bring 58 gigawatts of nuclear generating capacity into operation by 2020, up from the current capacity of roughly 27 gigawatts, according to World Nuclear News. China plans to follow this by getting about 10 percent of its electricity from 150 gigawatts of nuclear power by 2030, according to the World Nuclear Association.

    Why mention plans to reduce coal use, increase wind and solar use but not mention the plans to also increase the use of nuclear power?

    There is a bias in all news. The bias is in not only what they choose to report but what they choose to leave out. I've begun to seek out news from places that wear their bias on their sleeve, that way at least I know what they likely chose to report and leave out.

    --
    I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    1. Re:Only half true article by Tranzistors · · Score: 0

      How exactly does not including nuclear power show bias?

    2. Re:Only half true article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      because every power plant is a potential chenyoble /s

    3. Re:Only half true article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They plan to install 130GW of solar and wind power generation by 2020. That is roughly TWICE as much as the numbers you quote for nuclear power for the same time scale.

      Also, according you your article, those nuclear power plants will cost around one order of magnitude more than this project.

      With regards to bias? I don't see it. The project is specifically about replacing current and future coal power with renewable sources (solar and wind). Nuclear doesn't even fit into *this* plan. It is something else altogether.

      I think you are reading too much into the article.

    4. Re:Only half true article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think the accusation is the author portrays China's efforts as being close to the policies advocated by green campaigners in Europe and North America in order to imply Europe and North America should follow. Presumably the nuclear component is not something the author wishes to emulate.

    5. Re:Only half true article by ArthurPo · · Score: 1

      That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind !

    6. Re:Only half true article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm not sure where you're seeing bias. The whole point of the article is the cancellation of coal plants as a step toward "weaning the country off coal". China's construction of new nuclear plants is old news (that link of yours is from September last year, for goodness sake) and only vaguely tangential to this story. Why should it get special mention?

    7. Re:Only half true article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They also left out the fact that China's population curve doesn't support building that power infrastructure. Despite commonly held beliefs, China's population is at best stabilizing, and at worst will start to drop.

      But of course it's spun as something to do with renewable power, which is just for show in China anyway.

    8. Re:Only half true article by swb · · Score: 1

      Selective omission. It creates a false impression that the only replacement power is renewables without mentioning additional nuclear capacity that presumably will also make up for the loss of this coal power.

      If I say "My family has decided to cancel spending on a new SUV as part of a focus on increasing use of bicycles and public transit and wean ourselves off of cars" it sounds like we're really going green.

      However, the reality is we're not just cancelling the new SUV, we're also adding another compact car, so the statement should read "My family has decided not to buy a new SUV, but instead bike and ride the bus more, and buy a second compact car to increase our transit options" we look a lot less green.

      The first statement omits our use of the first compact car and the fact that we are increasing our compact car usage for transportation, creating the false impression that bikes and transit will be completely filling the transportation the SUV would have provided.

      The second statement is much more accurate, as it shows while we want to bike and ride transit more, we're also expanding our use of compact cars for transportation.

    9. Re:Only half true article by blindseer · · Score: 1

      Here's a news article from a few weeks ago:
      http://www.forbes.com/sites/ja...

      Happier now?

      I didn't say that nuclear power requires "special" mention, only that by leaving it out of the discussion the authors of the article show an anti-nuclear bias. Forbes claims that China's wind and solar growth cannot continue at this rate for long, the economics don't add up. Forbes also claims that if China is going to reduce its coal use by any meaningful amount it will be from growth in nuclear and hydro energy.

      Reuters claims that this shift to zero carbon energy will come from wind and solar. The implication is that the rest of the world should follow China's lead in this. I agree, only if the whole story is told. China, or any other nation, can only truly reduce fossil fuel use if nuclear power is part of the solution.

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    10. Re:Only half true article by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Why mention plans to reduce coal use, increase wind and solar use but not mention the plans to also increase the use of nuclear power?

      They didn't mention it because it's not true and the parts that are true are misleading. The World Nuclear Association is basically the propaganda arm of the nuclear industry, so you wouldn't really expect anything else.

      China had big plans for nuclear. Post Fukushima, it has massively scaled them back. They were talking about 240GW at one point, around 15% of their projected energy use. Yes, 15% was the highest goal, not exactly massive. Anyway, it's all been abandoned and reduced now, with approvals frozen and the reality of over-budget over-time current builds setting in.

      Any way you look at it, China is moving away from both coal and nuclear towards renewables. Beyond the current short term plans for nuclear it looks like it will decline as a percentage of total energy generated.

      I've begun to seek out news from places that wear their bias on their sleeve

      Like people who take the World Nuclear Association's word for it... I appreciate what you are trying to do, but you are doing it wrong.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    11. Re:Only half true article by Tranzistors · · Score: 1

      Omission could very well be because addition of nuclear power is not that important. If they replaced coal with diesel generators, that would have been a blatant omission. It seems that article is talking about reduction of coal (not contested) to reduce CO2 emissions (nuclear has large up-front energy consumption for concrete, but far less operational C02 costs) and pollution (possibly less problematic with nuclear in short term). Also summary talks about relying more on renewable power sources, but at least here it means some baseline energy provider — either nuclear, fossils or batteries. As such, new nuclear plants are (at least to me) a rather non-story. TMMW.

    12. Re:Only half true article by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 2

      "There is a bias in all news. "

      There is even more of a bias in what gets posted by a certain editor.

      China has an industrial economy and high population density, so reducing carbon by moving the baseload from coal to nuclear is an obvious path. They are also installing what solar and wind they can manage given the nature of their economy and, since these sources are factory-built with low upfront cost, the solar and wind are what we are seeing go online first. That is the source of all those breathless stories about "OMG - China is installing a record amount of wind!"

      When the construction dust clears, we will see a nuclear China with about 20% renewables.

    13. Re:Only half true article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Interesting that the article makes no mention of China's plans to build more nuclear power plants.
      Found this with a quick Google search:
      http://dailycaller.com/2016/09...

      China intends to bring 58 gigawatts of nuclear generating capacity into operation by 2020, up from the current capacity of roughly 27 gigawatts, according to World Nuclear News. China plans to follow this by getting about 10 percent of its electricity from 150 gigawatts of nuclear power by 2030, according to the World Nuclear Association.

      Its also worth noting that 58 GW of nuclear capacity produces more electrical output than 250GW of solar or 150GW of Wind. So nuclear is the primary new clean air energy source in China's plans.

    14. Re:Only half true article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They plan to install 130GW of solar and wind power generation by 2020. That is roughly TWICE as much as the numbers you quote for nuclear power for the same time scale.

      No, 58 GW of nuclear will actually produce more than twice the amount of electrical energy than 130GW of wind and solar. Or did you forget about capacity factors? Its a shame these articles use 'capacity' instead of actual production. But they prefer to mislead people like yourself.

    15. Re:Only half true article by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Selective omission. It creates a false impression that the only replacement power is renewables without mentioning additional nuclear capacity that presumably will also make up for the loss of this coal power.

      It's not just hydro, some people put nukes under the banner of renewables as well. There may not be a lot of breeder reactors active today but they are a reasonable reason to put all nukes under that banner.
      Don't blame me, I don't do it but I can see where they are coming from.

    16. Re:Only half true article by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Fair enough, but citing Forbes - fuck! You can do better. You already know better than most of the journalists for that thing.

    17. Re:Only half true article by dbIII · · Score: 1

      When the construction dust clears, we will see a nuclear China with about 20% renewables.

      The peaks are a lot higher than base load.
      You don't use nukes for peak capacity. If you have nukes you use them every second you can.
      Based on those two bits of information that you should already have known but somehow failed to consider, how does that estimate look now?
      There no point dumbing things down to a Star Trek view of energy since we do not have perfect batteries, the problem has to be considered in terms of matching supply to a demand curve. High school level thought instead of first grade level.

    18. Re:Only half true article by MrKaos · · Score: 1

      Why mention plans to reduce coal use, increase wind and solar use but not mention the plans to also increase the use of nuclear power?

      Because no one wants to read about nuclear power plants being built anymore.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    19. Re:Only half true article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, the whole purpose of the global warming hullabaloo, is to convince Joe Sixpack that building more nuclear power plants is a good idea. It looks like the information campaign is succeeding. It is actually possible to build coal plants that have scrubbers in the smoke stacks and do not pollute, but then they lose their cost advantage.

    20. Re: Only half true article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're assuming the 130 figure isn't bogus. Also:
      1. As of november china downgraded their solar and wind goals by 27% and 16% due to a cooling market. Now 110 gw total solar (already ~70gw) and 210 gw wind by 2020. (already have 140 gw). Do the math. They've also set a target of 350 gw hydro (already 319gw). But their hydro has a capacity factor of around 33% on average.
      2. There is significant renewable hydro capacity coming on line.
      3. They also have significant nuclear coming online.
      4. The solar capacity has the downside of serious manufacturing pollution concerns due cutting corners with toxic byproducts.

      By 2020 they expect to add:
      58 gw nuclear
      ~40 gw solar
      70 gw wind
      31 gw hydro

      Given they're already throttling their wind and coal generation due to low demand, they really don't need an extra 100+ gw of coal in addition.

    21. Re:Only half true article by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

      Since China does not have that much natural gas, load following will be up to that largest fraction of China's renewable generating capacity, which as in most other places is hydro:
      http://www.ecology.com/2013/03...

    22. Re:Only half true article by hey! · · Score: 1

      Why mention plans to reduce coal use, increase wind and solar use but not mention the plans to also increase the use of nuclear power?

      There is a bias in all news.

      This is true, but a story not being about what you want to be about is not necessarily bias.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    23. Re:Only half true article by edtice1559 · · Score: 1

      I wish I had mod points

    24. Re:Only half true article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The GP's argument was that the bias in reporting was overstating the impact of renewables on replacing these coal plants. Nothing you said refutes that.

    25. Re:Only half true article by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      When the construction dust clears, we will see a nuclear China with about 20% renewables.

      Um... You do realize that China's plan before Fukushima was to reach about 15% nuclear, and those plans have been massively scaled back from 240GW to about 80GW maximum since 2011? All new approvals have been on hold since 2014.

      Nuclear in China will be about 5% of total capacity by 2050, assuming it doesn't get scaled back even more.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    26. Re:Only half true article by Maritz · · Score: 1

      Nuclear is better than coal, so I have no idea what point you're trying to make. Replacing coal with nuclear is something we need to be doing. Yester-fucking-day. Who gives a fuck if they're building more nuclear plants? That's a good thing.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    27. Re:Only half true article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because it's a vast liberal conspiracy against you in your basement and is the real reason you don't get laid.

      Nuclear energy isn't desirable an no amount of geek circlejerking is going to make it any better.

    28. Re:Only half true article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because no one wants to read about nuclear power plants being built anymore.

      I do. It gives me a good feeling, seeing that there is still a country that hasn't succumbed to the whims of whiny hippies.

    29. Re:Only half true article by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

      Wrong again. China has big plans for nuclear, including development of full-burnup technology in parallel with building current-generation plants. The primary impetus is their massive air pollution problem.
      http://www.world-nuclear.org/i...
      The only effect that Fukushima had on the Chinese reactor program was a round of system-wide special safety checks.

    30. Re:Only half true article by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Anyway, it's all been abandoned and reduced now, with approvals frozen and the reality of over-budget over-time current builds setting in.

      Most of what China has done was put plants on hold pending the outcome of construction and testing of the AP1000 reactors. Post Fukushima it makes sense that you do one experimental thing, not 20 at a time.

      Maybe read a Chinese newspaper sometime.

    31. Re:Only half true article by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      All the pro nuclear posters keep linking to industry run propaganda sites as their sources. Never any credible ones, just the nuclear industry trying to put a positive spin on its slow decline.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    32. Re:Only half true article by MrKaos · · Score: 1

      Because no one wants to read about nuclear power plants being built anymore.

      I do. It gives me a good feeling, seeing that there is still a country that hasn't succumbed to the whims of whiny hippies.

      So essentially what you are saying is that nuclear power, controlled by totalitarian communist governments who killed hundreds of millions of people, gives you a good feeling because they can force it onto their people.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    33. Re:Only half true article by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Are you not including hydro in renewables?

    34. Re:Only half true article by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Let me rephrase that - do you seriously think the peak load is only 20% higher than the base load?
      If you do why are you commenting on this topic as if you knew as much or more than the average high schooler about the topic?

    35. Re:Only half true article by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

      I include hydro in renewables, which wind and solar fans do only when they want to brag about the percentage of renewables in a given country's generation mix. The rest of the time, they oppose dams.

    36. Re:Only half true article by taiwanjohn · · Score: 1

      China also has a billion-dollar program to develop a Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR). It is the best-funded such program in the world, with (last I heard) 500 PhD engineers and scientists. Their goal is to have LFTRs in production by the early 2020s.

      --
      XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
    37. Re:Only half true article by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Then what on earth are you basing that 20% on if you are writing about nothing other than nukes and renewables? Do you really know so little about electricity demand? From my experience when children are taken on field trips to power stations they know about the large difference between peak and base load before they even get there. That was in the 1990s when I had to answer their questions, but surely things have not declined so much between then and when you went to school?

    38. Re:Only half true article by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

      My 20% figure was the ultimate fraction of real generation - not the cumulative theoretical nameplate values for wind and solar - that most countries will be able to claim from renewables. Greens will continue to brag about Norway and Switzerland running mostly on renewables, when all the other days of the year they will go on opposing hydro in these countries.

    39. Re:Only half true article by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      $1bn is a pittance for such a project. Japan has invested tens of billions into the technology over several decades and it still doesn't work. In fact they abandoned the most recent experimental plant late last year and decided to try again from scratch a few years down the line, which sounds more like kicking it into the long grass.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    40. Re:Only half true article by taiwanjohn · · Score: 1

      Hm... my impression was that the Japanese had only invested a couple-hundred million in this area, primarily in IThEMS. AFAIK no entity on earth has ever put "tens of billions" on this. If you have info indicating otherwise, please cite.

      As for the Chinese, it appears I got a few details wrong. They have spent $300M thus far, with plans to maintain this level of funding for the next few decades. You'll find a decent description of their program here. (But one thing I do know, which is not mentioned in the article: the project is led by a guy named Jiang Mianheng, who happens to be the son of Jiang Zemin, the former president. So I would guess their funding is pretty secure.)

      Anyway, thanks for prompting me to look into it and get my facts straight.

      --
      XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
  18. Chinese economy dipping by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    When the economy tanks so does the need for energy. Canceling 100 power plants would usually raise a few eyebrows but in the age of Greenpeace and ignorance you can hide all that behind buzzwords like solar, wind and renewable.

  19. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by Opportunist · · Score: 1

    Driving a 5mpg gas guzzler is one, for example.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  20. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by sheramil · · Score: 2

    What's your problem really? We know how humans affect the climate and we know it's affected. What's the reason to disbelief?

    Some people don't want to have to give up a few luxuries or profit-making concerns on the off-chance that it'd force our descendants to live on an Earth that will resemble what Venus looks like today. The believe that if climate change is a thing, they can deal with it.

    If it can be dealt with.

  21. Trump will build them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Trump will build the 100 plants in the US.

    1. Re:Trump will build them by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Yes just like Reagan, Bush and Bush did - oh wait, all words no action on nukes.

    2. Re:Trump will build them by Uberbah · · Score: 1

      oh wait, all words no action on nukes

      Because nuclear power is far too costly and takes far too long to construct. Even assuming there is never another Chernobyl or Fukishima, nuclear power cannot be justified based on cost alone.

    3. Re:Trump will build them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And Nixon! He "built" 1000 nukes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Independence

    4. Re:Trump will build them by dbIII · · Score: 1

      And Nixon! He "built" 1000 nukes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      Hush - the Republicans try to pretend Nixon didn't exist, what with the clean air act and all that stuff.
      The ones that they admit to didn't build nukes.

  22. Conspiracy Masters by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Wow, China are really taking their climate change conspiracy to make America less competitive seriously. It's almost like they don't know that it's all fabricated and that Trump's talking out of his toupeed rectum.

  23. today sunny, tomorrow rainy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    there's a nice "global warming" infographic video over at wired.com
    it would also be nice to have a plot of how global "background radiation levels" have developed in the same time span? did it get more, less or did it stay the same?

  24. Re:solar/wind talk is spin - France vs China by scsirob · · Score: 1

    The reference to the 'total renewable energy in France' is a joke. France has 66 Million inhabitants. China more than 1.3 Billion. So even though it sounds impressive at first sight, it's a very, very small portion of their total energy requirement.

    --
    To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
  25. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by Rei · · Score: 1, Troll

    I don't know how China managed to melt so much arctic ice, leading to the absurd situation that just a couple days before the winter solstice this year I went on a hike through the snowless mountains in Iceland among chirping songbirds digging for worms. All I have to say to China about this is: Best. Conspiracy. Ever. Well played, China. Well played.

    --
    "Who the hell is Nietzche? It's a question stupid people are asking." -- Newscaster, "Jesus Christ Supercop"
  26. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    Nuh uh - it's not about averages. Global warming means that all cold disappears and winter ceases to exist. And if there are any exceptions to that, it's a hoax.

    Also, snowfall levels have nothing to do with the amount of moisture in the air, and/or a warmer planet doesn't contain more moisture in its air, and/or the greatest odds of snowfall are when it's really really cold.

    Also, jet streams don't exist, and/or they don't move hot air north / cold air south when they kink up, and/or that's not happening more often.

  27. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by ghoul · · Score: 0

    The hottest year statistics are based off mostly warmer winters than hotter summers. Global Warming== a More pleasant Climate

    --
    **Life is too short to be serious**
  28. Solar is good business by ghoul · · Score: 1

    Now that Chinese companies have the lead in Solar panel manufacturing it makes sense for the Chinese to support their home industry rather than building coal plants and importing turbines from GE

    --
    **Life is too short to be serious**
  29. Imagine how bad the smog must be for the Chinese to actually take steps against it.

    --
    http://i.cubeupload.com/T6cyLu.png
  30. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by TheRaven64 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Aaaaand what percentage of the earths surface is covered by the UK?

    Speaking as an Englishman: 100% of the important parts, plus Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  31. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    You should open google and write "Hottest month on record".

    Spoiler: It was July 2016.
    Spoiler 2: It followed 10 consecutive months of record breaking temperatures.

    A more pleasant climate? Maybe if you are a cactus.

  32. Re:solar/wind talk is spin - France vs China by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

    Size doesn't really matter, because most renewable schemes scale with area. Population density does. France has 116/km^2, China has 145/km^2, so almost a 25% higher overall population density. That translates to a little bit less space for wind, solar, hydro and so on per capita, but not by enough to make it infeasible. Add in nuclear power, and the scaling is quite easy - building a nuclear power plant is hard, but doubling the generating capacity doesn't come close to doubling the land area, as long as you have a supply of uranium (China has uranium mines, France doesn't).

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  33. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by Rei · · Score: 1

    So win-win.

    --
    "Who the hell is Nietzche? It's a question stupid people are asking." -- Newscaster, "Jesus Christ Supercop"
  34. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by Maritz · · Score: 1

    You're not very persuasive, because your points are stupid. Sorry.

    though it was a very mild summer in the U.K

    All that is required to dismiss your ignorant, dumbass opinion.

    --
    I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
  35. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by Maritz · · Score: 2

    This is going to be awfully complex so pay close attention.

    "I don't like it therefore it is not true"

    --
    I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
  36. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 0

    No, global warming meands infinite drought, everywhere you look. For a few years there, every single media article on warming was headed by the same stock photo of a dry, cracked lake bed. That photographer must be worth millions.

  37. Installed generation vs. delivered generation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It always annoys me that wind and solar projects get away with X GW of installed power generation. While they deliver on average 20-40% of that number.

    I would rather see installed an estimated Y TWh of energy generated per year.

    1. Re:Installed generation vs. delivered generation by radl33t · · Score: 1

      idiot peak power is used for all facilities. No one has a capacity factor of 1

    2. Re: Installed generation vs. delivered generation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sure, except for the part where every other source can reliably generate peak power. (Sure, hydro has edge cases for environmental management)

    3. Re: Installed generation vs. delivered generation by Uberbah · · Score: 1

      Which is why you spread your green energy generation across the grid - just like you do with coal or nuclear power!

  38. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Damned Wogs...

  39. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Exactly. Because evaporation rate increases, decreases in snowpack at low latitudes, and northern-shifting monsoon belts obviously cannot occur on the same planet as a greater total atmospheric moisture from said evaporation rate increases, correspondingly strong peak precipitation events, and again, northern-shifting monsoon belts.

  40. Per area doesn't really matter with electricity by dbIII · · Score: 1
    Line losses are very low these days so the number of people per area doesn't really matter as far as electricity generation goes. Try using Canada as an example and it should be easy to grasp. They have huge hydro plants in sparsely populated areas but that doesn't matter when there is a big city at the end of the wire.

    France doesn't

    Did you really forget the whole ridiculous "freedom fries thing" where Saddam was supposed to have been supplied with Uranium by the French out of their former colony of Niger?
    Here is more with a specific mention of the Uranium issue:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France%E2%80%93Niger_relations

  41. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Some people don't want to have to give up a few luxuries or profit-making concerns on the off-chance that it'd force our descendants to live on an Earth that will resemble what Venus looks like today.

    Venus resembles Venus because Venus has the misfortune to be too damn close to the Sun.

  42. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Devil's advocate: a very mild winter in the southern hemisphere.

    (To be fair, winters here in southern Africa have been abnormally mild for the last few years, do the point where total annual demand for electricity has been going down despite increasing population. Then again, summers have been getting steadily hotter too)

  43. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by smallfries · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The weird thing about racists is the way they need to inject their views into unrelated topics.

    --
    Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
  44. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A more pleasant climate? Maybe if you are a cactus.

    Well, then at least we'll have more tequila to drown our sorrows with, right?

  45. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

    Aaaaand what percentage of the earths surface is covered by the UK?

    That's the "Looked out my window and it was cold this morning - Take that golbal warming douchebags!" theory that he's spouting.

    Now that can be of some utility. For instanceI can note that it was a fairly cold winter two years ago here in the Northeast of the US. Okay.

    But the part of interest is that the other 15+ winters this century have been warmer than normal. That's a lot more interesting than "soundbite" weather.

    If I wanted to play the UK denier's game I would note that I was outside doing yardwork last week in a just jeans and a T-Shirt as the temperature hit 60+ degrees F. But that was weather.

    A little more interesting is that during what is statistically the coldest part of the year, it is not going to dip below feezing here for the next week. A little more more interesting, but still weather.

    But with that trend continuing for years and years? Now it has become extremely interesting.

    The ability of politics to trump science and the laws of physics is remarkable. It's called the "Neener-Neener effect.

    --
    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  46. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    If this is supposed to be sarcasm, allow me to show you my air conditioning bill for this winter as it has progressed so far. And last winter's.

    The winter die-backs of local bugs and weeds has stopped.

    Even some of Trump's nominees accept Global Warming, even if they're not wholly convinced it's man-made.

    But China isn't just being a bunch of la-la feel-good Liberals here. Air quality in some parts of China is so poor that rich people are literally buying air bottled in London and shipped to China. And when you consider what London has boasted for air at times, that's saying something.

    If you want to see the Capitalist Dream come true vis-a-vis the environment and its consequences and its impact on humanity, read something like John Brunner's "The Sheep Look Up". In China, it's no longer science fiction. They're living the Dream today. And the dam commie government intends to do something about it.

  47. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 2
    More pleasant climate not just for humans, but also for bugs, worms, weeds etc.

    The yearly frost has been killing vermin for ages in North America and Europe. As the frost line moves upwards, as USDA "zones" creep northwards, so do these creatures.

    Often these creatures are "invasive" the native plants have no defense against these bugs. For example stink bugs have existed 200 miles south of Mason-Dixon line for centuries without serious issues. When the climate became pleasant enough to inhabit pockets north of PA-MD border, they found many delicious plants and nesting places to winter over, and they are becoming serious pests.

    Such changes have taken place repeatedly in the past. We know that. If it happens slow enough, the plants will develop resistance. What is alarming is the rapidity of the change. The life cycle of a tree is in decades. Bugs have life cycles measured in days. Bugs would have several hundred generations to go against an existing tree which has no way of defending itself. It takes centuries or even a millennia for a forest to assimilate, integrate and thrive as new bug species infest them.

    Creating doubt is easy. Asking questions is easy. Finding answers is difficult. Accepting uncomfortable answers, is even more difficult.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  48. Re: Catastrophic man-made global warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And the dam commie government intends to do something about it.

    Let's wait a year and see if they started any new coal-fired plants elsewhere in China before we argue they are doing the right thing... they stopped some plants, but didn't announce any 'green plants' to produce lost capacity from cancelled power plants.

    They could wind up building new coal-fired plants in alternate locations...

  49. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why are you wasting your time here - don't you have anything better to do, like blowing up a government building or shooting up a youth camp?

  50. Re: Catastrophic man-made global warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    China may even be planning to build nuke plants instead.

  51. US debt holders by sjbe · · Score: 4, Informative

    China owns something like a third of the total foreign held US debt

    The amount of US debt China owns is less than 10% of the total amount outstanding. Currently around $1.3 Trillion which is a big number but only a single digit percentage of the total debt. Most of the US debt is actually held by Americans. Of the $12.9 trillion chunk of debt owned by Americans, $5.3 trillion is held by government trust funds such as Social Security, $5.1 trillion is held by individuals, pension funds and state and local governments and the remaining $2.5 trillion is held by the Federal Reserve. Basically most of the debt is IOUs to the American people.

    Interestingly Japan owns almost as much US debt as China does at $1.1 Trillion. But Japan isn't so scary so people gloss over that fact.

    Although China needs the US as badly as the US needs China, if we try to bluster our way into something stupid, just calling the debt will make for a rather unpleasant time as the world economy topples.

    China has no ability whatsoever to "call" the US debt. Treasury bonds don't work like that. China bought those treasuries to keep their currency exchange rate under control. Furthermore even if China wanted to get rid of their US denominated debt, they have absolutely no one else they can sell it to. There simply are no buyers for that much US debt at anywhere close to face value. If they hold a fire sale they absolutely screw their own economy in the process.

    1. Re:US debt holders by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What happens to new debt that the US tries to sell, if China is selling its at the same time but a little bit cheaper? Either America cant sell the debt, or has to up the interest rates it will pay. IE cost the US more money.
      America simply cant go on borrowing forever, it will inflate the debt away as it cannot repay it, China and anyone sensible knows long term it's worth little, but it buys stability now. A worthwhile investment for a long term thinking country like China. As interest rates rise America will feel the pressure of all that constantly rising debt.

    2. Re:US debt holders by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What China could do is dump the US bonds on the market at a time when the US is selling bonds, thus lowering the price and raising the rate that the new US bonds must sell at. Theoretically, the US could have cash flow problems if they were unable to sell enough bonds to cover their expenses.

  52. Re: Catastrophic man-made global warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Which race do you refer to? Nationality is not race. In fact the entire concept of racism constitutes racism. Can't we just transcend that?

  53. Re: Catastrophic man-made global warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Typing stuff out in a throwaway paragraph at the end of a comment is easy.

  54. Renewable energy in China by Layzej · · Score: 3, Informative

    China's renewable energy sector is growing faster than its fossil fuels and nuclear power capacity. In 2015 China became the world's largest producer of photovoltaic power, at 43 GW installed capacity. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    1. Re:Renewable energy in China by stoatwblr · · Score: 1

      China's been holding off on nuclear capacity because they're working on molten salt systems - which are intrinsically safer than water-moderated designs.

      As a coal station is simply a steam engine and a source of heat, a MSR could be used as the heat source on the uncompleted ones.

      Ironically, in the past, several USA nuclear station turbines were converted to coal-fired heat.

  55. Re: Catastrophic man-made global warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    "I am young and have little power in the world, so I will support theories that take on "the man" to compensate. Later when I am older, my 401k will have value and my stake will go the other way.

  56. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by cheesybagel · · Score: 0

    That must explain how the Jurassic was full with infinite drought then...

  57. Re: Catastrophic man-made global warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... Whammed Dogs.

  58. Re: Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Are you telling me that electric lights are most frequently needed when my solar panels are the least capable to produce the electricity to light them? Who would have figured?? I don't see anything about that in the leaflets those greens littered the neighborhood with last week.

  59. Re: Catastrophic man-made global warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Racist toward which race exactly? If an American fled political opression to the UK, he'd be a refugee regardless of his skin color.

  60. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by fnj · · Score: 1

    the planet has existed for millions of years

    Er, the planet has existed for 4.5 BILLION years. There have been at least 5 major ice ages in geological history. The last one was from 110,000 to 12,000 years ago. We are currently in the early stages of an inter-glaciation period.

    The period of contemporary scientific research and record-keeping, as correctly pointed out, at about 150 years, represents about the last 0.000003% of planetary existence. If the existence of the earth were represented by the 1281 pages of the bible, the period of contemporary scientific research and record-keeping would be represented by less than the single last letter of the last word on the last page of the bible.

  61. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by unixisc · · Score: 1

    More like China-made global warming.

    They make the bulk of everything else, so why not this?

  62. Re: Catastrophic man-made global warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Only cretins own a bible.

  63. Political Power by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is the kind of thing a one party dictatorship can do. Obviously it cuts both ways but we never really acknowledge that this kind of thing is impossible to do in a democracy without some immediate catastrophic event compelling people to action.

  64. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by Rei · · Score: 2

    Perhaps, perhaps not. Venus is still very poorly understood. In its high temperature environment its conditions are largely self-sustaining (preventing the sequestration of CO2 in rock), although it's also unstable, prone to broad temperature and pressure swings. It also appears to have undergone a global resurfacing event about 300-500mya, if that gives a clue as to how unstable the planet as a whole is. ;) We don't know what caused it, or really anything about it. Part of the planet's properties are now a result of it having lost its water rather than being a cause, such as its hard crust. Obviously its lack of a magnetic field is responsible for its loss of water, but we don't know exactly when or why it disappeared (there are of course theories... I had always just assumed it was the slow rotation rate, but the last research I read suggested that not enough to account for it). Other issues as to how Venus ended up as it did may be related to size - although it's only a bit smaller than Earth, that may be the initial factor that set its fate in motion - for example, its lithosphere in general appears to be thicker and higher viscosity on Earth, which could have hindered or prevented plate tectonics, and thus subduction of carbonates.

    Either way, it's a mess now at the surface (though rather comfy ~55km up ;) ). And I'm not so sure I buy into some of the proposed ways to fix it (terraforming). For example, some have suggest mass drivers ejecting the atmosphere. Let's just say you can pull it off, and then you start building oxygen in the atmosphere - what happens next? The crust is something like 7-9% FEO; it's going to rust away whatever oxygen you make in short order.

    Interestingly, I'd argue that this is possibly the salvation to Sagan's airborne-microbe concept for terraforming Venus. The main criticism is that if you engineered some sort of carbon-sequestering microbe on Venus (or artificial equivalent), you'd end up with a deep surface layer of graphite surrounded by some hugely hot, dense oxygen layer, and the atmosphere would explode. But that would never happen; at Venus surface temperatures and pressures, the surface rocks would rust away the oxygen as fast as it was created, even in tiny quantities, with the wind blowing the dust around to collect at low/eddy areas. So you're laying down bands of carbon and iron oxide as you burn through the planet's iron buffer. Where have we seen this before? Right, Earth, ~2,3 billion years ago, banded iron formations. Just like on Earth, you'd eventually burn through the iron and start to accumulate oxygen. But by then the graphite is already underground, buried in iron dust.

    It's not a fast process. But it has precedent. Microbes already rusted at least one planet, and that planet's surface conditions weren't nearly as favorable for rusting as Venus's.

    --
    "Who the hell is Nietzche? It's a question stupid people are asking." -- Newscaster, "Jesus Christ Supercop"
  65. Over Capacity is the Reason by Zack63 · · Score: 1


    From other articles, it is clear the Chinese are cancelling these projects because they would have caused an over capacity of power.
    What is not mentioned, is why they scheduled so many plants to begin with.
    Either bad planning, excess corruption, or the Chinese economy is slowing faster than predicted.

    To gain some political capital, they are "spinning" this that the reason is to reduce CO2 emissions.

  66. oh yum ... parts are ready for import by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'd put one CFP in Hollywood, another in Manhattan, a 3rd in SanFran, another in Belltown-Seattle, roll on with Palm Springs, Santa-Barbara, Georgetown & Madison units. Jeeez we got 100 to pass out to Providence and Baltimore ... and 10s-of-thousands of snowflake progressives to have them rammed up their rumpoid!

  67. Tap Dance going On by wbtittle · · Score: 1

    I have been hearing about alternate reasons for such a pull back. We have the ghost cities that China built in the belief that "If you build it they will come". They were rolling in money and were spending it in that magnanimous Command style.

    The money isn't quite so flush now and they have to make decisions. Blaming it on "changing to 'cleaner' methods" sounds like a way to distract from the real reason ... "We have a shortage of funds and had to change our priorities!"

    --
    God: "I don't leave footprints!"
  68. US announces 1000 power plants fueled by Russian o by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    N/t

  69. Re: Frank Yu doesn't know what he's talking about by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And you're mostly asleep when there's no sunlight. It's called "Night time". Try it some time. You'll find your need for electric lighting is zero when you're sleeping.

  70. power plants not entirely at fault by swell · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's winter! Why is China covered with smog in winter and not summer? Warm and fuzzy environmental types would like to blame Big Business and Government, but is there another explanation?

    The primary reason is that high sulfur coal is used to heat homes in winter. "Homes and small businesses that burn coal in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei contribute up to half of the air pollution in the region every winter, said Zhao Yingmin, chief engineer at the Ministry of Environmental Protection." http://english.caixin.com/2016... - but note that burning coal is generally outlawed in cities. The bulk of home consumption is in rural areas, and in the North where it is cold.

    "In rural areas coal is still permitted to be used by Chinese households, commonly burned raw in unvented stoves. This fills houses with high levels of toxic metals leading to bad Indoor Air Quality (IAQ). In addition, people eat food cooked over coal fires which contains toxic substances." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    Linfen, a city in northern China's Shanxi province has suffered greatly from unbreathable air. Citizens were told by the local environmental minister that "70 percent of sulfur dioxide emissions comes from citizens' coal use." There is skepticism, yet it is clear that industrial pollution is not entirely responsible. http://www.sixthtone.com/news/...

    The seasonal differences in air pollution cannot be explained by the rather constant industrial use of coal. Large scale power plants are able to mitigate the offensive emissions somewhat. The difference that we see right now is due to millions of individual homes producing the worst kind of pollution.

    --
    ...omphaloskepsis often...
  71. Re: Catastrophic man-made global warming by Krakadoom · · Score: 1

    How about don't use air conditioning in the first place (and in winter??), before you complain about China trying to supply power to its populace at all? Sounds ridiculously wasteful.

  72. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by ghoul · · Score: 1

    Tell me again why should developing countries in the Global south complicate their industrialization so that lifestyles and ecosystems can stay the same in the rich Global North?

    If you want to fight Global Warming because currently your country is on top climatically speaking but not sure what would happen in a changed world you should pay developing countries in hard cash to adopt measures which complicate their industrialization.

    Just asking them to do it from the goodness of their heart is being disingeneous

    --
    **Life is too short to be serious**
  73. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by Jaegs · · Score: 3, Funny

    Shouldn't you Birts be using solar, anyway, as I was taught in school that the sun never set on the British Empire?

  74. Only for unharmonious areas of China. by sethstorm · · Score: 1

    Coal will still be there as expected, much to the chagrin of environmental activists.

    --
    Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
    1. Re:Only for unharmonious areas of China. by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      still wondering about the over 70+ coal plants they're building in foreign countries, as part of infrastructure for their outsourcing of manufacturing. if they're cancelling plants at home to outsource pollution that would be funny

    2. Re:Only for unharmonious areas of China. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not "outsorcing pollution", if a country wishes to buy a coal-fired plant from China, why should China not sell one?

    3. Re:Only for unharmonious areas of China. by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      guess again, the plants are for powering Chinese manufacturing plants

  75. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

    Eh, it I think we could stand to see Bognor slide into the sea and no-one would miss it. Especially not the people living there.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  76. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You've not been to britain have you.

  77. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

    What does climate from 4 billion years ago have to do with anything? In fact, what does climate from even 100,000 years ago have to do with anything? Human civilization has evolved within fairly narrow climactic constraints. It did not arise in the Carboniferous epoch, nor did it evolve in Paleolithic. So what exactly is your point?

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  78. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    When I was kid, we almost always had snow through the whole of december here in Sweden. Now, still living in the very same area, first snow usually comes in January, and so far, winter has only been a single, sudden, heavy 15 cm snowfall lasting 1 hour, and which had _completely_ thawed away 5 hours later. The climate is changing alright.

  79. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    20 degrees above normal? Yesterday was the first time I've seen temps above freezing in more than six weeks. More than a third of that time has had overnight temps below zero. WTF are you even talking about?

  80. Re: Catastrophic man-made global warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    How could anybody think there was a racial component to random mention of "refugees" who like warmer weather? Really these could be refugees from Norway or Finland! I was shocked!

  81. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Read less science fiction.

  82. Coal out, nuclear in by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 0

    China's adding a lot of nuclear capacity instead. Good for China to lead in a reasonable replacement for coal. Not PV or wind, buy nuclear.

    --
    Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
  83. They weren't really needed by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

    After China took the suggestions of myself and others to investigate converting their most modern coal power plant designs to cogeneration and start using air scrubbers (which use water for the most part), resulting in the same quantity of coal producing twice as much end power and heating, they were able to shelve the bad designs. With the added solar and wind power they have now found is cheaper is coal, they sidelined an additional quantity of coal plants as well.

    The game is over. We won.

    Adapt.

    --
    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  84. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Silly troll, no one cares about you fake news.

  85. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by skullandbones99 · · Score: 1

    Is that US gallons or imperial British gallons ? US gallons are smaller so in the UK the gas guzzler might get 6mpg !!

    It is why vehicles in the UK have better mpg than the US ;)

  86. Re: Catastrophic man-made global warming by DamnOregonian · · Score: 2
    For a dog, you entirely missed his whistle. Dog hearing does degrade rapidly with age, though.

    Hint,

    "refugees"

    wasn't referring to UK asylum seekers

  87. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by DamnOregonian · · Score: 1

    They had to build the empire in order for them to see any sun. British belief in this thing called a "sun" vanished with their empire.

  88. Thier motivation is to fight global warming? No by skam240 · · Score: 1

    I see everyone talking about this as a Chinese bid to slow global warming but I just see that as a highly unlikely motive for them. Far more likely is that it is an attempt to reign in their truely massive domestic polution problem and thus avoid the social unrest that could come from it. Currently, due to their polution problem in general, many Chinese citizens are exposed to air quality in their own homes equivalent to smoking several packs a day unless they can afford air filters (which cost far more than quite a few can afford) http://www.bbc.com/news/magazi... . Let that run long enough and people will start getting pretty upset when they start getting lung cancer in their 40s.

    To put it another way, China only does things that might slow economic growth a bit (like cancel 100 very cheap to run coal plants) when the problem is very immediate. They've let the air quality drift to such a massively degraded level in some regions that I find it hard to believe that a problem like global warming, whose symptoms are really only now starting to be felt, is anywhere on their radar.

    --
    I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
  89. Re: Catastrophic man-made global warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sure, but where does that stop? You know that we haven't been allowed to have one single opinion on immigration ever, since that would be "racist". So by that token, we have only two options left then. Either open our borders completely, or be racists? (The close kin to "If you utter one word of criticism against a single one of Israel's current policies, then you're an anti-semite!")

    I'm thinking there's maybe middle ground here, and that these to are largely orthogonal, or can at least in theory be... The problem with "dog whistle" this and that, is that with taht sort of thinking, nothing goes free. Because everything can always be twisted... And it's racist, sorry, anti-semitism.

  90. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by blind+biker · · Score: 1

    The weird thing about racists is the way they need to inject their views into unrelated topics.

    I didn't see any reference to races in that post. Even the implication that refugees may be of a "different race" than the poster is very far-fetched. Most of the refugees in Sweden are caucasian. Also, the poster him/herself may be black.

    The weird thing about you is the ease with which you think you can throw around accusations of racism.

    --
    "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
  91. China's problem by DarthVain · · Score: 1

    One of the things that make nuclear ideal for China is it has a relatively small footprint per GW. The problem with renewables is they do not. China has a lot of competing vectors for physical space. Never mind the population. The land required for food and agriculture has always been primary. As it becomes industrialized, so has the demand for that land. China has tried to plan intensive cities to combat sprawl and land sterilization but as any planner can tell you it is difficult as best even with all the policy behind you. Before someone uses the argument, I will squash it. Yes China is a big country. Yes they do have parts of it that are indeed undeveloped with few people in it. However you also do not need power there either. Trying to produce from very far away and distribute it is not efficient to say the least. You need to generate as close to market as possible. Therein lies the issue with moving away from nuclear and towards renewable within the Chinese perspective (never mind peak power, and other other normal considerations).

  92. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by KeensMustard · · Score: 1
    And somehow, you failed to address the question.

    For how many of those billions of years have we been pumping CO2 into the atmosphere and disabling carbon sinks?

  93. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by KeensMustard · · Score: 1

    Wait: The other guy just told me that there was no warming trend.

    And another guy told me it was due to natural variation, without actually mentioning what had varied, which I thought was weird.

    Now *you* tell me that it's warming, but warming will be good for us.

    Which of you is telling the truth?

  94. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by KeensMustard · · Score: 1
    During the jurassic even the continents weren't in the same place as they are now.

    So, do tell us why the climate would be the same.

  95. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by KeensMustard · · Score: 1

    You speak as if countries industrialise *independently* of one another. Are you on the right planet?

  96. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by aliquis · · Score: 1

    Venus is hotter than Mercurius.

  97. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by aliquis · · Score: 1

    The weird thing about racists is the way they need to inject their views into unrelated topics.

    It's THE largest problem and issue and thing in Sweden and the only thing Swedish politics really is about and will be about and the problem will lasts for long so it's not weird at all.

    If we saw a slow moving large comet or meteorite coming straight for earth then that would be the topic but now it's this one.

    There's an obvious advantage in cool as fuck winters and complete darkness if that's what they arrived too in that maybe then they wouldn't want to stay.

  98. Re: Catastrophic man-made global warming by aliquis · · Score: 1

    "I am young and have little power in the world, so I will support theories that take on "the man" to compensate. Later when I am older, my 401k will have value and my stake will go the other way.

    They way I see it losing a lot of land area, drowning cities and making other adjustments will also cost a lot so I'm not convinced just letting it happen is the more cost-effective solution.

  99. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The summer may not have been exceptionally warm, but this winter in the UK has been somewhat warmer than usual. Do you not know how averages work? (Not to mention that the UK temperatures aren't necessarily representative of the whole globe)

  100. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by aliquis · · Score: 1

    Why are you wasting your time here - don't you have anything better to do, like blowing up a government building or shooting up a youth camp?

    Nah it has consequences.

  101. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by cheesybagel · · Score: 0

    Because it's patent BS. Increased CO2 levels usually lead to a growth in vegetation... the opposite of desertification. But sure, please continue to believe the idiocy of the global warmist scare mongering.

  102. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by aliquis · · Score: 1

    Why are you wasting your time here - don't you have anything better to do, like blowing up a government building or shooting up a youth camp?

    It's also one of those things not living in a democracy where you can affect the political decisions, affect the outcome and share your concerns forces you into such solutions.

    In a more civilized society where freedom of speech and democracy and influence is a thing you may not have to use such methods.

    Sadly the power of ones life and situation are moved away from the individuals and people all the time in our part of the world. "It's good" according to the socialists and globalists.

  103. Re: Catastrophic man-made global warming by LunaticTippy · · Score: 2

    Speaking of, every time you post to slashdot you are using air conditioning in hundreds if not thousands of facilities across the globe. All those servers, switches, routers, require vast amounts of cooling.

    --
    Man, you really need that seminar!
  104. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by KeensMustard · · Score: 1

    Because it's patent BS.

    Continental drift is BS? Sounds plausible, particularly given the citations you provided.

    Increased CO2 levels usually lead to a growth in vegetation... the opposite of desertification

    Usually?

    Is there a cite you can provide that demonstrates that global warming will not lead to increased desertification in arid and semi-arid regions, becuase arid/semi-arid vegetation is limited by CO2 availability (rather than H2O)?

    But sure, please continue to believe the idiocy of the global warmist scare mongering

    You've made the assumption that I believe the scare mongering that says the current warming trend is due to natural variation. Please provide a citation.

  105. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by cheesybagel · · Score: 1

    Do you have any critical thinking skills whatsoever? Plants consume CO2 and H2O so of course you'll have more plants. Fuck this "citation needed" Wonkypedia shit. I still remember when people used to be able to have critical thinking skills without being spoon fed all the time.
    https://phys.org/news/2013-07-...
    https://www.nasa.gov/feature/g...

    The fact is increased CO2 levels lead to increased vegetation cover and a reversal of desertification.

    I'm still to hear one big negative factor of increased CO2 levels and global warming... It would green the planet, make more areas available for manned settlement. Even if the sea levels increase a bit it would be largely offset by the extra available land area in arid and tundra regions. Plus the sea levels have been increasing even back when the human population was a lot smaller than it was today. Also other than with massive geoengineering efforts, which are pointless to begin with taking into consideration what I said before, the CO2 levels won't go back. Nor should they. In fact the present CO2 levels are way too low.

  106. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by ghoul · · Score: 1

    Newsflash July is winter in Antarctica

    --
    **Life is too short to be serious**
  107. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by JabrTheHut · · Score: 1

    Pfft. Anything outside the M25 is just dead weight.

    Mind you, after Brexit everything inside the M25 will be dead weight as well...

    --
    Work like no one is watching. Dance like you've never been hurt. Make love like you don't need the money.
  108. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Are you implying Blacks cant be racist? Because that would be absurd.

  109. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So you are going to have the rich countries give up all patents for the fight against global warming and helping the developing countries industrialize? Didn't think so.
    They would love to be able to do it independently.

  110. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by Blaskowicz · · Score: 1

    A hundred million years ago the Sun was dimmer. Sun output increases with time.

    Will Earth be a lush paradise 2000 or 10 000 years from now? Perhaps. Although the world map will look different. No idea what the global effects of nuclear disasters could be (not just fallout of nuclear bombs ; what if dozens of nuclear spent fuel pools are left uncared for because of war)

    Will new species be able to evolve to replace those lost in the current extinction, while humans still live in other parts of the same planet?
    But anyway, thanks for caring about the greening of the Earth. We enviro-nuts have a short term myopia and care what happens on the scale of a century or two, I hope you'll pardon the shortsightness of those green nuts and conspiracy scientists.

  111. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by Dr_Terminus · · Score: 1

    I could turn your first sentence back on you... do you have any critical thinking skills whatsoever? Assuming you do, lets use our critical thinking skills to work through this. What does desertification mean? Exactly, it means turning into a desert. So what makes something a desert? No, its not lack of plants; is the lack of something else that plants need. Let me give you a hint, you pointed it out in your own post. Thats right - a desert is where there is very little H2O available.

    So the process of desertification doesn't take place because the plants go away, rather its the plants going away because the water is going away. In a warming world, rain bands will shift locations, leading to a huge reduction in rainfall in some areas, which leads to desertification.

  112. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by KeensMustard · · Score: 1

    So you are going to have the rich countries give up all patents for the fight against global warming and helping the developing countries industrialize? Didn't think so.

    Sounds like you dion't even know what 'industrialise' means. Hint: nobody needs to reinvent the car just to build cars.

    They would love to be able to do it independently.

    No, they wouldn't. If they are thinking about industrialising at all, they intend to do it the same way that everybody else did.

  113. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by KeensMustard · · Score: 2

    Plants consume CO2 and H2O so of course you'll have more plants. Fuck this "citation needed" Wonkypedia shit. I

    I asked for citations because I'm skeptical of your ideas. If you don't want people to accept your ideas, why post them?

    https://phys.org/news/2013-07-...

    You obviously didn't read your citation, which contradicts your assertion.

    I'm still to hear one big negative factor of increased CO2 levels and global warming.

    Explain how your ignorance is our problem.

  114. So a wild guess based on nothing? by dbIII · · Score: 1

    not the cumulative theoretical nameplate

    If you think available generating capacity to be used at peak load is theoretical I do not understand why you are participating in this discussion.

    It's kind of sad that you used the words "real generation " to try to justify a guess based on nothing but appalling ignorance.

    There must be something that you are good at. Perhaps apply yourself to that instead.

  115. Re: Catastrophic man-made global warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We are not in the early phases of an interglacial, that was 10,000 years ago. We have been in the nature phases, with gradually declining temperatures for 8000 years until very recently (150 years ago).

  116. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by smallfries · · Score: 1

    No, it is not. But you believe it is. That is interesting more in what it says about you, and your obsession, than what it says about the issue.

    --
    Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
  117. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by aliquis · · Score: 1

    It is the largest problem and it is all problems with Swedish society.

    It create more and more of all problems.

    The only "problem" I can think of which isn't due to immigration is that people live longer, have had fewer children and as such that the share of the population which are older and hence wouldn't work if it was the normal Swedish society would had grown larger making them more of a burden of society.
    My solution there would had been to let each generation or individual save money for their own pension instead of relying on future tax payers.
    But yeah. That isn't directly connected to immigration and is a "problem" of it's own. However Swedish refugee immigration isn't a solution to that problem regardless because of how poorly qualified they are and how long it take to get them into jobs and how many of those jobs are subsidized jobs. For the refugees to contribute positively to that AT THIS TIME they would have to job and pay in taxes and not collect welfare. However refugees will get old too and will need to be supported at that age they as-well and as such over their life-time they will just weight the Swedish system down even more.
    Some news tabloid just recently bragged about how many more of the immigrants got a job here than in Denmark and Norway and so on it was just that 4/5 of those jobs was subsidized so .. Yeah.. Great! .. Tino has posted before that immigrants income from salaries and companies are 41% less than the native Swedes, Sweden have progressive taxation but that of course mean that the taxes they pay in is also at-least 41% less and since fewer of them work more of them will collect welfare.
    There's also things like they being over-represented in heavy criminality with 3-4 times, some of them in rape cases 20+ times but by now I assume it's even higher but the political establishment doesn't want new up to date numbers of that for some reason .. Their cars ends up in crashes four times as often, all the smashed schools, burned cars, buildings, people who feel less safe, are murdered, are raped, people who cheat the system, feel less trust in the system, so on, all of that have a cost too.

  118. Re: Catastrophic man-made global warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Racism in South Africa is defined as a uniquely white phenomenon. Here , it's impossible for a black person to be racist. Sorry , no citation , come live here and see.

  119. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by cheesybagel · · Score: 1

    If there was more CO2 there would be more vegetation. In addition,. like the links I posted here before claim, the more CO2 is available the less H2O is required for a plant to grow. To a point.

  120. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by cheesybagel · · Score: 1

    The report basically says that increased CO2 increases vegetation and, in addition, the more CO2 is in the air the less H2O plants will need to grow. So having more CO2 reduces desertification. So I don't get your BS.

  121. Re:Catastrophic man-made global warming by Dr_Terminus · · Score: 1

    Please enlighten me how more CO2 available makes it possible to have less H2O to grow. Photosynthesis is 6CO2 + 6H2O -> C6H12O6 + 6O2, so how does more CO2 make that equation work with a smaller amount of available H2O?