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Russia is in full scale climate denial. China is building a lot of solar, wind, and nuclear but still also building coal. Don’t know about India but it seems th

by api 3y ago

Russia is in full scale climate denial. China is building a lot of solar, wind, and nuclear but still also building coal. Don’t know about India but it seems the answer is mostly no. I’ve always argued that if we can’t make non carbon emitting sources cheaper than coal and gas (full load leveled cost) and dispatchable (batteries) we have no hope of cutting emissions and everything else is theater. Right now it seems that burning fossil fuel is still the cheapest way to generate energy without any regulations, taxes, or subsidies. Yes that includes nuclear.

js8 3y ago
Last year, China built roughly 4 times more renewables than coal. They argue that they build coal because renewables are unreliable, but surprisingly it was hydro what was unreliable (thanks to droughts brought by climate change), not solar and wind, as people are led to believe. Personally, I think China still building coal is organizational inertia more than anything. Anyway, there was an article here that also claimed 80% energy investments in the U.S. are renewables. Isn't this 4:1 ratio interesting? Doesn't this tell you that (despite the noise), both China and US are on a very similar path?
ClumsyPilot 3y ago
> Russia is in full scale climate denial There is a big tragedy in the west - we have no understanding of other countries. Despite having millions of immigrants from those other countries. Could we maybe interview some of them to find out what’s going on? For example - we’ve been in Afghanistan for 20 years. Britain has thousands of refugees from Afghanistan. When the time came to evacuate people from Afghanistan, the British team that was in charge of planning, selecting and prioritising evacuees had zero people from Afghanistan, zero people who’ve been to Afghanistan and zero knowledge of how things work there! Report spells it out: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5803/cmselect/cmdfence/725/report.html https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5803/cmselect/cmdfen... In case of Russia on climate change, it’s a laggard-follower of European technology and practices. Vodka is produced and bottled with Italian machinery, artillery for war in ukraine is still produced on German CNC machines, Russian tanks had French thermal scopes, and cool dudes drive a BMW. When all European countries go renewable, after a few years lag, Russia will do the same. The cool dude will buy an electric BMW when all BMWs are electric, etc. Given that Russia has massive resources and farmland locked away in permafrost, they have been dealt a good hand if climate change is not addressed. So they have no urgency to act, but they are not a malicious actor on this specific issue.

by api 3y ago

js8 3y ago

Last year, China built roughly 4 times more renewables than coal. They argue that they build coal because renewables are unreliable, but surprisingly it was hydro what was unreliable (thanks to droughts brought by climate change), not solar and wind, as people are led to believe. Personally, I think China still building coal is organizational inertia more than anything. Anyway, there was an article here that also claimed 80% energy investments in the U.S. are renewables. Isn't this 4:1 ratio interesting? Doesn't this tell you that (despite the noise), both China and US are on a very similar path?

ClumsyPilot 3y ago

> Russia is in full scale climate denial There is a big tragedy in the west - we have no understanding of other countries. Despite having millions of immigrants from those other countries. Could we maybe interview some of them to find out what’s going on? For example - we’ve been in Afghanistan for 20 years. Britain has thousands of refugees from Afghanistan. When the time came to evacuate people from Afghanistan, the British team that was in charge of planning, selecting and prioritising evacuees had zero people from Afghanistan, zero people who’ve been to Afghanistan and zero knowledge of how things work there! Report spells it out: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5803/cmselect/cmdfence/725/report.html https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5803/cmselect/cmdfen... In case of Russia on climate change, it’s a laggard-follower of European technology and practices. Vodka is produced and bottled with Italian machinery, artillery for war in ukraine is still produced on German CNC machines, Russian tanks had French thermal scopes, and cool dudes drive a BMW. When all European countries go renewable, after a few years lag, Russia will do the same. The cool dude will buy an electric BMW when all BMWs are electric, etc. Given that Russia has massive resources and farmland locked away in permafrost, they have been dealt a good hand if climate change is not addressed. So they have no urgency to act, but they are not a malicious actor on this specific issue.