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China Is Now the World's Largest Solar Power Producer (digitaltrends.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Digital Trends: Not only is it the world's most populous country, it's now also the world's biggest producer of solar energy. On Saturday, the National Energy Administration (NEA) noted that the nation officially claimed the title after doubling its installed photovoltaic (PV) capacity last year. By the end of 2016, China's capacity hit 77.42 gigawatts, and while this is great in terms of raw numbers, it's a lot less impressive relative to the country's massive population. As it stands, solar energy represents only one percent of the country's energy output. But this may soon change as China devotes more and more of its attention towards clean energy. The NEA says that China will seek to add more than 110 gigawatts within the next three years, which could help the nation up the proportion of its renewable energy use to 20 percent by 2030. Today, it stands at 11 percent.
China produces a quarter of the world's carbon pollution. their solar use doesn't really matter yet.
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Solid bet that within 2yrs, over 50% of their panels will require replacement; sure it's a ton of energy production, but dear god I'd bet my left nut on how piss poor terrible cheap & nasty manufactured the panels are...
To people that DONT have solar yet, your #1 PRIORITY and concern, should be made in America solar panels. Ask multiple times, ask about everything mentioned that is actually being sold to you. Don't get screwed buying chinese crap.
As it stands, solar energy represents only one percent of the country's energy output
and
Today, it stands at 11 percent
Am I missing something here? How is it that it Is it simply Solar in the first one, and all renewable energy in the second? Still seems strange
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
At least they're working toward solving the problem, unlike Australia and USA, who would rather bury their head in the sand, deny there is a problem or spread FUD on renewables.
Australia refuses to invest in solar and instead wants to build more "clean coal" plants, at nearly double the all-in cost of renewables. Their lobbyist must give great headjobs.
No wonder Australia is falling behind too.
What do you do at night when a large percentage of your installed capacity is solar? Actually, solar works only about 5 or 6 hours per day.
No, this is a gnat fart's less in hurricane of China's carbon emissions, I'm always amused China's foreign coal ramp up that is in progress to support their manufacturing plants in other countries is also conventiently ignored
Trump, by by cozying up to Big Coal and Big Oil, has thrown China a glaring opportunity to get well ahead in the race to a post-fossil-fuel-future.
John_Chalisque
Those shallow little potshots... Why bother? You need to confirm your prejudices and hatreds? You think it makes your beliefs stronger because you get to read them again?
"Reality? Bah! What a concept!"
At least that seems to be the new motto of #PresdientTweety's administration, and if so, it goes far towards explaining why they [mostly Bannon and his cronies] seem to be imitating so many of China's authoritarian government techniques and even policies.
Of course the reality is rather more complicated. Perhaps the deepest underlying reality is that petrochemicals are limited, and the Chinese government is only being realistic in moving away from oil and they can't help being authoritarian in how they are doing it. When your only hammer is "authoritarianism", then everything looks like a nail, eh? The coal reserves are much larger, but still limited and the externalities are much larger, again making it realistic to move away from coal and once again the Chinese government can't help but do things in an authoritarian way. Yes, climate change is a real concern, but I think the Chinese government doesn't really care that much. They just want results and if "climate change" helps ratchet up the pressure for the results they want, then that's okay.
Even if they are successful, to my mind that does not justify remaking America in China's authoritarian image. However, from the Chinese perspective things look quite different. Only when there is a strong authoritarian government (with the "mandate of heaven") does anything get done, and the alternatives are chaos and anarchy and even civil war. You know how it is, but even China has a few bad centuries now and then. From their long-term perspective, the normal situation is a strong dictatorship (normally emperors, but now communists) and under that "normal" dictatorship China is "normally" the most civilized and most advanced and most peaceful civilization in the world.
Or else. Troublemakers will be disposed of. Drop that mandate on 'em. Hard.
In this particular case, they are actually right to be pushing for renewable energy as fast as they can.
And if they were wrong? Well, that's the problem with dictators. "Wrong" is not in their dictionary. At least not as regards themselves.
P.S. I'm still expecting the Chinese to invade North Korea and Taiwan this spring. Opportunity beckons, this offer expires soon, and so they are going to make the Donald an offer he can't refuse... The Art of War versus The Art of the Deal .
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Technically, China is converting more than 80 percent of all coal plants to modern (as in 1980s) tech clean scrubber cogeneration coal plants. This allows them to double output from the coal plants, but use only as much coal as they were using in 2010, and reduce emissions 80 percent by 2020.
So, while they are investing quite a bit in solar and wind power, it will take a few years until they clean up their act.
Remember what Detroit and LA and NYC used to look like, covered in brown choking haze? That's where they are.
The main problem they have is continued conversion of bicycle and transit commuting to cars, even if some are plug-in electrics (average cost in China for a plug-in electric car is $6000 USD and around $8000 UDS for a plug-in SUV).
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
By the end of 2016, China's capacity hit 77.42 gigawatts,... As it stands, solar energy represents only one percent of the country's energy output...The NEA says that China will seek to add more than 110 gigawatts within the next three years, which could help the nation up the proportion of its renewable energy use to 20 percent by 2030
Adding the 110 gigawatts of "capacity" is a drop in the bucket. Capacity doesn't mean much actual power generated when it comes to solar.
Wouldn't that be the sun?
Have gnu, will travel.
Why are you comparing apples to oranges? Why not compare apples to grapefruits instead, such as our bloated military? I suspect your fruit is fake news anyhow.
O did invest in solar R&D. Remember the Solyndra brew-ha-ha? (Solyndra was only one of many solar co's that received investment funds, by the way.)
Table-ized A.I.
"Even a fart can contribute to the wind."
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
The air quality in Guangdong is certainly improved over what it was the first time I came to the region, roughly ten years ago. Don't let "perfect" be the enemy of "better".
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
In Guangzhou, they've banned gas-powered motorcycles and scooters. Now there's electric bikes/scooters/carts all over the place. Haven't noticed any increase in the number of automobiles.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Wind turbines are still being put up around the United States. It's not being done on the national level, but it's still plodding along.
At least they're working toward solving the problem, unlike Australia and USA, who would rather bury their head in the sand, deny there is a problem or spread FUD on renewables.
The world moves on, either with us in the lead, or us behind. The anti technology, anti physics, and anti science views that are becoming the law of the land will ensure that.
I predict that in the next few years, the dollar will be replaced by the yen in international currency.
Turn in a climate scientist for Jesus.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Future of United States =(
https://youtu.be/5AhTGK1ybkk
Cool! Again, let me know when they've solved their pollution problems. Talk is cheap.
Thank you Wal-mart shoppers
Yen only if it is a virtual currency with some huge, unknown demand. Japan is in greater debt than us, with greater old age liabilities, and has failed to reproduce an adequate replacement generation. Big oops.
1. They're not adding 110 GW, that's the total target by 2020. ie: they will add 37GW. (https://www.pv-magazine.com/2016/11/07/breaking-china-reduces-solar-installation-target-to-110-gw-by-2020_100026817/)
2. This is solar *capacity*, not generation. The amount generated is significantly lower.
Australia is a major exporter of black coal, which generally has less ash and sulphur content than other countries, and consequently higher energy densities.
They therefore have a significant motive to spruik a market for coal, and therefore investing in "clean coal" plants, even if they are more expensive for power generation than other forms of power, is a significantly better investment over the medium to long term for the nation. The extra cost of the power is more than offset by the export money.
China has already hit its peak coal consumption and it's now in decline.
https://www.theguardian.com/en...
https://www.carbonbrief.org/an...
https://www.eia.gov/conference...
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
At least they're working toward solving the problem, unlike Australia and USA, who would rather bury their head in the sand, deny there is a problem or spread FUD on renewables.
That's an awfully broad brush you are painting with there. I cannot speak with any authority about Australia but there are literally millions of people here in the US who are very strong proponents of renewable energy and are working very hard to make it a reality. The fight against renewables is largely coming from the fossil fuel industry and those whose livelihoods and bribes depend on it. That's a powerful and wealthy industry that employs a lot of people (around 2 million directly and many times that indirectly) so it makes the fight harder in a democracy. We also have a political right wing whose members tend to regard anything good for the environment (or helpful to others for that matter) as suspicious and "socialist".
In China they also have the problem of VERY bad and obviously present pollution from their dependence on coal and other dirty sources of energy. It's a lot harder to argue against clean energy when you can visibly see the pollution and the problems it causes. In most places in the US the pollution problem is far more subtle so it's easier to brush under the rug and ignore for those inclined to do so.
So you want to pursue the postscript? Okay, I don't mind (but there is no newsletter). I find it an amusing topic, but more so for face to face discussions... Managed to get a Singaporean perspective yesterday. (We even made a small wager on it.) (I've also discussed it with a number of mainland Chinese, but so far no one from Taiwan.)
Concrete evidence? Not really anything specific, though I've read a number of books about North Korea. Hard to find much available in English and it's not the kind of stuff I can easily read in Japanese. The most interesting (and in many ways insightful) book I can recall was by a French cartoonist who was hired to train North Korean animators when one of the fearless leaders had the inspiration of using cheap labor to compete in that industry. Improved computer animation obviously blew that idea out of the water. Most of the books I've seen on North Korea are Japanese perspectives, often focusing on the abductions.
My interest in China goes much farther back, though these days most of the memorable books have been comparison-and-contrast books against India. Used to be against Russia. Can't say I really know that much about Taiwan, though I feel like I have watched the Japanese shift their focus and interest back to the mainland side.
However I do see the current situation as a golden opportunity from the Chinese perspective. There are a number of time-critical factors, but all of the windows seem to be open right now. The window that is likely to close first is actually North Korea, because some evidence indicates that they are near collapse, and if that happens by itself, then the Chinese get nothing (or worse). However I think the two most important factors are whether the mainland's military superiority is sufficient to occupy Taiwan relatively cleanly (without demolishing too much infrastructure) and whether there would be any long-term resistance (along the lines of La Résistance).
Yesterday's discussion was largely focused on the question of internal cohesion within mainland China, but I actually see weakened internal cohesion as a concern that might motivate Peking in favor of the adventure. This is an angle where Trump's exact words about Taiwan might be relatively more important. (I'm taking it as a precondition that it will be easy to get him to agree with the idea of a Chinese invasion of North Korea.) If he strongly reassures them about the one-China policy, but manages to make it clear that only a peaceful unification is okay, then the propaganda value is limited, but I don't think Trump is up to anything that delicate and subtle. If Trump just agrees to one China and shuts up, then I'm not sure of the effect on Chinese side. However, I think it is quite likely that Trump is foolish enough to say something threatening about independent Taiwan, and I think that recording could be quite helpful in focusing Chinese popular opinion on defending the nation's honor and all that jazz.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Trump, by by cozying up to Big Coal and Big Oil, has thrown China a glaring opportunity to get well ahead in the race to a post-fossil-fuel-future.
That's what happens when you elect "conservatives" who never want things to change. Conservative by definition means "holding to traditional attitudes and values and cautious about change or innovation, typically in relation to politics or religion". Those aren't generally the people you expect to lead the charge into a bright new future.
We won't always use more and more power.
There is little evidence available to support that assertion. In fact there has been considerable empirical evidence suggesting exactly the opposite.
Yen only if it is a virtual currency with some huge, unknown demand. Japan is in greater debt than us, with greater old age liabilities, and has failed to reproduce an adequate replacement generation. Big oops.
And you do realize that the USA would also be shrinking if if wasn't for all those darned immigrants, don't you?
Build a Wall!
You gibbering idiot, China's coal use has been decreasing for the last few years with no chance of increasing again.
And the USA has 3x the emissions per person than China does...
Cool! Again, let me know when they've solved their pollution problems. Talk is cheap.
But solar energy plants cost money.
Oh, wait...
Did you mean "by the yuan", perhaps?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
But the new administration would rather support oil and coal. In fact, our new President actively fought a wind farm not long ago.
Sure. Many key players in the current administration have their financial bread buttered by the fossil fuel industry. So do many members of their political base. Republican administrations tend to be ludicrously sympathetic to the fossil fuel industry and like to pretend that science only matters when it supports their ideology.
Practically speaking, fracking isn't currently necessary for our energy needs and West Virginia already sucks up more Federal taxes than it sends in
It might not be strictly necessary but the currently viable replacements aren't clearly any better. If you don't do fracking and you aren't willing to install more nuclear (we clearly aren't) then the only near term alternative today is coal. Solar and wind are coming on strong but they aren't quite at the tipping point economically. Fracking is driving the price of natural gas cheap and making coal plants economically less competitive. Eliminate fracking and a lot of that capacity in the near term would go back to coal at least for the near future.
BTW you are aware that Wyoming is a FAR bigger producer of coal than West Virginia, right?
we ought to just abandon coal
Not going to happen. The USA is to coal what Saudi Arabia is to oil. We have vast amounts of it. We mine about 20 quadrillion BTUs of coal annually. It's going to be nigh impossible to get this country to leave all that coal in the ground even if it is a good idea to do so.
Nothing wrong with reducing population. Especially when a substantial portion of it is taking more than they contribute. Many illegal aliens routinely wire money back to their homeland, removing it from the US economy. This is detrimental to the US. So they pay sales and property tax (though there are often several families under a single roof), and many pay income tax, but only a blind fool would think there's no under the table employment going on. They also make the very most out of every social program available to them, at least, in my hometown, which is rapidly becoming brazilian.
They also recently cancelled the construction of over a hundred coal plants.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/18/world/asia/china-coal-power-plants-pollution.html
I wouldn't say turn in a climate scientist for Jesus, but I see more anti science rants from the SJWs than from anyone else.
Hope and change is a fake promise (actually it was "Change We Can Believe In" and "Hope"). Make America Great Again is another fake promise, and not even that creative because John Kerry's 2004 slogan was "Let America be America Again". I also think Leave no Child Behind is one of the biggest jokes of any fake promise in recent history. And Compassionate Conservatism one of the most disingenuous. Kinder, Gentler Nation is an interesting one, but I can't say that anyone particularly liked it, a bit too Mister Rogers Neighborhood. "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" is perhaps the least fake campaign slogan because it's not a direct promise although it implies a lot, perfect political double talk.
A Chicken in Every Pot and a Car in Every Garage is the only one that I can think of that actually came through.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I wouldn't say turn in a climate scientist for Jesus, but I see more anti science rants from the SJWs than from anyone else.
All of the fringe groups hate science, bith left, right, and alt.
Fringe groups tend to believe in things like triumph of the will, where if you only believe hard enough, you can bend the rules of physics to whatever you want them to be.
But seriously, you actually see more anti-science from SJW's than deniers of the so called greenhouse effect? If it didn't exist, neither would we. Hey, I suspect that 3/4 of slashdot is anti-science, and this ain't no bastion of special snowflake liberals.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Yes,. The dollar is on that slippery downward slide. I don't think it will last another ten years before it becomes a domestic only currency.
Future of United States
YIKES!
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Did you mean "by the yuan", perhaps?
Yuan all the rest of the folks are correct......
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
So when do you figure we'll be at infinity?
Who said anything about foolish extrapolations? Our energy use will almost certainly continue to increase until it rather precipitously drops to either zero or something close to it. As long as our society holds together we should expect our energy use to increase. If energy use actually falls significantly it probably means something very bad has happened to the human race.
I don't really care, because I'm tailoring my electrical use, and the more that grid power goes up, the sooner I'll be saving money off grid.
Hey I'm all for distributed power generation. If you can do what you need without the grid that is awesome. I look forward to the day when most houses and businesses generate the majority of their own power from solar and/or wind (+batteries of course) and just use the grid to supplement. And yes I think that is long term realistic.
With all of my changes I made to my house, I now use less electricity than in 1993 when I bought it.
Which raises the question of how bad was the energy efficiency of your house when you bought it? Don't get me wrong, I'm not being a hater and I really do think what you say you are doing is great. But if the home was relatively efficient to begin with it's harder to make improvements than if it was an energy sink hole. My home for instance was built in 2001. I've done some similar improvements to what you describe and I've saved some money on my monthly bill but it's not a night and day difference because the house was comparatively efficient to begin with. Decently insulated, reasonably efficient furnace, etc. I'm probably going to replace my furnace and AC in the next 5 years and I should get a good bump in efficiency from that. But I started from a pretty good place so it's harder to make improvements without dropping a LOT of money on the problem. Far more than is economically sensible.
I do not consider the idea that energy use will always have to go up as inevitable.
I suppose you are correct that it is not inevitable but so far all the data we have points that way, at least for the population as a whole. I'm not aware of any meaningful period where total human energy use has declined - ever. Presumably there is some carrying capacity for humans but we clearly haven't reached it yet. Until we do, I don't really see any credible circumstance where total human energy use declines except for a major war/catastrophe unless we invoke some hypothetical technology breakthrough that we cannot currently predict.
We are moving toward a point source power generation system where individual households are not affected by what happens on the grid.
Though in my heart I hope you are right but my logical side tells me that the grid isn't going away any time soon. What I think will happen is that connecting to the grid will over time get more expensive but will still be a necessity for a very long time to come. I do think it would be reasonable for many/most homes and a fair number of businesses to generate a lot of their own power (at least subsistence levels) and then supplement periods of high demand from the grid. It's going to take many decades under the best circumstances to get to that point however. Retrofitting that many buildings just isn't going to happen quickly.
So really, if I am not connected to a grid sourced power system, and later, most people aren't, what does that mean for energy use?
It's an interesting question. First thing to consider is population growth. All other things held constant more people = more energy use. So as long as the population continues to grow we should expect to see a commensurate growth in energy use. Second is what applications for energy use will become available. Computers in the home were just starting to become a thing when I was a child. Nobody refueled their car at their house. Homes had way fewer lights, fewer had dishwashers, fewer had dishwashers, fewer had AC. Homes in the US were considerably smaller on average too. I've seen little indication that people want to walk any of this back. Home automation (for better or worse) is becoming a thing. We always seem to come up with new and clever ways to use more energy than we did before. The third thing to consider is how realistic is it that most homes will actually become energy self sufficient to the point the grid becomes unnecessary. My guess is that they won't. Not completely anyway within the lifetime of anyone reading this. I do think that lots of homes could generate most of their own power most of the time but occasionally will still need to tap into a grid. I'd be happy to be wrong but I don't see the evidence pointing that way currently.
That's true, slashdot isn't a bastion of special snowflake liberals, but what is so interesting is that it used to be far more left wing than it is now. And of course you're right about the fringe groups hating science. They all feel like if they wish hard enough, tinkerbell will come back to life.
That's true, slashdot isn't a bastion of special snowflake liberals, but what is so interesting is that it used to be far more left wing than it is now. And of course you're right about the fringe groups hating science.
Now it is time for me to piss them off. The presumptive far right Trumpists, and the so called social justice warriors are actually almost identical in idealization, and with how they demand things to be run, even if they fight each other tooth and nail over silly little details. They demand freedom over some things, while demanding a hard fist or refusing other things - big deal, all of them are dangerous anti freedom groups who demand to rule everyone's lives. With either group, you end up with no freedom over anything.
At least the libertarians - real ones, not the Republicans who try to tap dance their beating their meat while thinking of Ayn Rand, and opposing most everything she stood for - actually try to think in terms of allowing individuals to run their lives as they see fit.
And that's why idealists hate scientists. Seeking for truth is almost always in direct conflict with ideology. When evolution is replaced by Lysenkoism or creationism, or people deny that the actions of the so-called greenhouse gases and anti-greenhouse gases exist, or that if a few people are given all of the money, it means they will naturally share it with people who don't, and all will become well to do, or that vaccines cause autism, and hold that belief long after every proof has been given that they don't or that you can rule with an iron fist forever - well, science just doesn't fit with those political ideologues.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I don't think China's economy can afford to lose the U.S. market just yet. Give them another decade or two
Basically just an ACK, but it I doubt that the Chinese dictators have a decade to wait for economic self-sufficiency, and that is part of why they may be feeling forced to seize the current opportunity. They may know that their economy is about to crash in any case, and they NEED a scapegoat like #PresidentTweety. I certainly hope a bigger international fool doesn't come along later...
Minor supporting evidence in the recent assassination of Kim Jong-un's older brother. From the insane North Korean perspective, he was a dangerous pretender to the throne, but that is not a new thing. So why did they decide to kill him now? Perhaps because the North Korean government is on the verge of collapse? That would create the mess without giving the Chinese any benefit from it. Or perhaps because the North Korean's feared a Chinese invasion to install a puppet? The older brother could have been a good one, though I still doubt the Chinese want more involvement with North Korea no matter who is in charge there...
I still think my scenario is plausible, and the warm weather is coming soon...
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.