7 ms·

36GW hours of water storage is pretty amazing. Looking at how much Solar/Wind over capacity you would need to take advantage of that is an interesting exercise

36GW hours of water storage is pretty amazing. Looking at how much Solar/Wind over capacity you would need to take advantage of that is an interesting exercise in itself. That said, from a "we're doing things to be 100% renewable and/or zero ghg" China has been making some strides that the rest of the world would do well to emulate or match.

ttkari 2y ago
China still generates approximately two thirds of it's electricity by burning fossil fuels so it still has a plenty of catching up to do. For example in my country power generation is already 94% carbon free.
- __alexs 2y ago
  China generates more renewable energy than the next highest 5 countries combined. It's nonsensical to compare them to most other countries.
  - LAC-Tech 2y ago
    Do you know how fractions and percentages work?
    - __alexs 2y ago
      Do you know how scaling industrial processes works?
      - LAC-Tech 2y ago
        Renewable electricity hydro-electric dams don't really work like that. You can't "scale out", because you're limited by waterflow, reservoir area etc. There's a natural ceiling.
        __alexs 2y ago
        China's renewable energy is mostly solar.
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  China backing off coal power plant approvals after 2022-23 surge - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41303635 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41303635 - Aug 2024 China's total wind and solar capacity outstrips coal - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41220098 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41220098 - Aug 2024 China is on track to reach its 2030 clean energy targets already - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41026542 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41026542 - July 2024 China installing the wind / solar equivalent of 5 nuclear power stations a week - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40982276 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40982276 - July 2024 China building two-thirds of world's wind and solar projects - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40940950 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40940950 - July 2024 China's clean energy pushes coal to record-low 53% share of power in May 2024 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40935688 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40935688 - July 2024 China's Batteries Are Now Cheap Enough to Power Huge Shifts - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40919052 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40919052 - July 2024 China is building more coal plants but might burn less coal - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39440374 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39440374 - Feb 2024 Look at trajectories, think in systems. They are rapidly building a nation state clean energy electrical system, and when they're done domestically, these products will be exported globally. The graphs on the below page might be helpful. https://globalenergymonitor.org/report/china-continues-to-lead-the-world-in-wind-and-solar-with-twice-as-much-capacity-under-construction-as-the-rest-of-the-world-combined/ https://globalenergymonitor.org/report/china-continues-to-le...
  - ttkari 2y ago
    Sure - all I'm saying is that they still have a whole lot of building to do, that's all. Reading the headlines it's sometimes easy to think that they're pretty much already there while the current production mix is not all that great yet.
  - Aloisius 2y ago
    I'm not sure the trajectory of PR matters much. The actual generation trajectory seems more useful: https://www.eia.gov/international/analysis/country/CHN https://www.eia.gov/international/analysis/country/CHN
- notShabu 2y ago
  There are two caveats to this. One is that a lot of it is due to work being outsourced to China (which allows for metrics like 94% carbon free) The other is it has a huge population so it's going to have high absolute numbers of everything good and bad.
  - ttkari 2y ago
    Actually, what allows for "94% carbon free" is the production mix. In our case that would be nuclear at 42% share, hydro 19%, wind 18%, bio 13% - leaving only single digit percentage to coal, gas and oil.
    - zardo 2y ago
      But it doesn't account for embodied energy in imported products.
      - karmakurtisaani 2y ago
        It's not typically included in the production figures. You only consider the emissions from production.
        in-pursuit 2y ago
        It's not typically considered, but it matters when comparing against an economy that primarily manufactures goods.
      - vladms 2y ago
        The initial statement was about power generation, not sure if it is of value to mention in this context all the other sources of carbon (of which imported products is one, but not the only one).
- christina97 2y ago
  Finland is unfortunately a bit of an outlier. I wish the rest of the world would also double down on nuclear.
  - schmichael 2y ago
    Nuclear requires an extremely mature bureaucracy to handle the serious longterm risks efficiently. Here in the USA I'm just not sure our government is mature enough for the task. Every 4 years we may have someone come in to slash safety regulations or erect impossible regulatory barriers, not to mention all of our defense treaty obligations and their churn. Every year (or less!) our congress may decide to let the government shutdown and stop paying critical contractors. Trains carrying spent or unspent fuel may derail thanks to inefficient regulation. etc etc. One of the massive benefits of wind and solar is that it can be scaled down to a size even a consumer can deploy. This makes it relatively resilient to regulatory whims compared to massive undertakings like nuclear. I'm not a nuclear engineer, but I suspect the recent emphasis on smaller nuclear plants has more to do with navigating regulatory hurdles and uncertainty than efficiency. All that to say I am quite jealous of countries with mature bureaucratic regimes that can efficiently manage nuclear!
    - 15155 2y ago
      > navigating regulatory hurdles and uncertainty than efficiency. Yes, but also (theoretically-real) economies of scale.
- bamboozled 2y ago
  They also make basically everything, so yeah, not sure what you expect. If America produced everything for the world, our fossil fuel usage would be through the roof as well.
SoftTalker 2y ago
China is of course doing this with zero need for environmental impact studies, which would be impossible in the west, even with the ostensible goal of reducing carbon emissions.
- markus_zhang 2y ago
  They do. Here is a summary of the environmental impaction evaluation of stage 2. Whether it is scientific enough, I cannot say because I haven't read the report (judging from the summary, readers need to contact them to get the report, which is pretty annoying). https://www.fengning.gov.cn/art/2014/6/23/art_3204_165228.html https://www.fengning.gov.cn/art/2014/6/23/art_3204_165228.ht...
- manquer 2y ago
  You have to give clear evidence that china’s environment impact process is weaker than those followed in global north. Even if what you presume without data is 100% true .. That is hardly the only or a key reason for slow adoption of green technologies in Europe or US. There has to political will to do large changes that is weak everywhere else outside China. Even if any project has heavy ecological impact locally, that doesn’t compare with far bigger problem of climate change. Rich countries lack of action is basically a slap in the face of the global south, saying that they care more about few fish and birds, over the all poor people in the world who will suffer from the greenhouse gases bulk of which they emitted . I would characterize that as just modern colonial wealth extraction with class and racial overtones. Remember climate change impacts poor communities far more than the rich, that is true even in rich countries. It shouldn’t be so easy a moral decision to say environmental impact mitigation is more important than people . Bureaucracy and red tape in the name of safeguards are weak excuses, when tens of if not hundreds of millions will die as direct or indirect consequence of climate change this century .
  - LAC-Tech 2y ago
    I agree with this. We need some nuance. We cannot just look at chinas human rights record and decide that justifies slow western bureaucracy when it comes to infrastructure. We can't hold them up as a bogeyman to justify our own inefficiencies.
christina97 2y ago
It’s 12 units, 300 MW each so 3.6 GW, not 36 GW.
- masklinn 2y ago
  > When fully charged, the upper reservoir can store enough energy to power the plant at full capacity for 10.8 hours That's actually 38.8GWh so close enough.
  - applied_heat 2y ago
    Both the GW and GWh are important and independent characteristics
- ggm 2y ago
  Gwh/Mwh and GW/MW are not the same units. One is a time based unit, scales to duration and the other is peak intensity. You can deliver 1 GW for an hour is 1 Gwh and the same Gwh can deliver 500 MW for 2 hours or 250 MW for 4 hours.
  - christina97 2y ago
    Ah yes I misread because it was written separately. Not sure where 36 GWh came from though.

ttkari 2y ago

China still generates approximately two thirds of it's electricity by burning fossil fuels so it still has a plenty of catching up to do. For example in my country power generation is already 94% carbon free.

__alexs 2y ago
China generates more renewable energy than the next highest 5 countries combined. It's nonsensical to compare them to most other countries.
- LAC-Tech 2y ago
  Do you know how fractions and percentages work?
  - __alexs 2y ago
    Do you know how scaling industrial processes works?
    - LAC-Tech 2y ago
      Renewable electricity hydro-electric dams don't really work like that. You can't "scale out", because you're limited by waterflow, reservoir area etc. There's a natural ceiling.
      - __alexs 2y ago
        China's renewable energy is mostly solar.
toomuchtodo 2y ago
China backing off coal power plant approvals after 2022-23 surge - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41303635 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41303635 - Aug 2024 China's total wind and solar capacity outstrips coal - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41220098 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41220098 - Aug 2024 China is on track to reach its 2030 clean energy targets already - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41026542 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41026542 - July 2024 China installing the wind / solar equivalent of 5 nuclear power stations a week - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40982276 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40982276 - July 2024 China building two-thirds of world's wind and solar projects - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40940950 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40940950 - July 2024 China's clean energy pushes coal to record-low 53% share of power in May 2024 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40935688 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40935688 - July 2024 China's Batteries Are Now Cheap Enough to Power Huge Shifts - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40919052 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40919052 - July 2024 China is building more coal plants but might burn less coal - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39440374 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39440374 - Feb 2024 Look at trajectories, think in systems. They are rapidly building a nation state clean energy electrical system, and when they're done domestically, these products will be exported globally. The graphs on the below page might be helpful. https://globalenergymonitor.org/report/china-continues-to-lead-the-world-in-wind-and-solar-with-twice-as-much-capacity-under-construction-as-the-rest-of-the-world-combined/ https://globalenergymonitor.org/report/china-continues-to-le...
- ttkari 2y ago
  Sure - all I'm saying is that they still have a whole lot of building to do, that's all. Reading the headlines it's sometimes easy to think that they're pretty much already there while the current production mix is not all that great yet.
- Aloisius 2y ago
  I'm not sure the trajectory of PR matters much. The actual generation trajectory seems more useful: https://www.eia.gov/international/analysis/country/CHN https://www.eia.gov/international/analysis/country/CHN
notShabu 2y ago
There are two caveats to this. One is that a lot of it is due to work being outsourced to China (which allows for metrics like 94% carbon free) The other is it has a huge population so it's going to have high absolute numbers of everything good and bad.
- ttkari 2y ago
  Actually, what allows for "94% carbon free" is the production mix. In our case that would be nuclear at 42% share, hydro 19%, wind 18%, bio 13% - leaving only single digit percentage to coal, gas and oil.
  - zardo 2y ago
    But it doesn't account for embodied energy in imported products.
    - karmakurtisaani 2y ago
      It's not typically included in the production figures. You only consider the emissions from production.
      - in-pursuit 2y ago
        It's not typically considered, but it matters when comparing against an economy that primarily manufactures goods.
    - vladms 2y ago
      The initial statement was about power generation, not sure if it is of value to mention in this context all the other sources of carbon (of which imported products is one, but not the only one).
christina97 2y ago
Finland is unfortunately a bit of an outlier. I wish the rest of the world would also double down on nuclear.
- schmichael 2y ago
  Nuclear requires an extremely mature bureaucracy to handle the serious longterm risks efficiently. Here in the USA I'm just not sure our government is mature enough for the task. Every 4 years we may have someone come in to slash safety regulations or erect impossible regulatory barriers, not to mention all of our defense treaty obligations and their churn. Every year (or less!) our congress may decide to let the government shutdown and stop paying critical contractors. Trains carrying spent or unspent fuel may derail thanks to inefficient regulation. etc etc. One of the massive benefits of wind and solar is that it can be scaled down to a size even a consumer can deploy. This makes it relatively resilient to regulatory whims compared to massive undertakings like nuclear. I'm not a nuclear engineer, but I suspect the recent emphasis on smaller nuclear plants has more to do with navigating regulatory hurdles and uncertainty than efficiency. All that to say I am quite jealous of countries with mature bureaucratic regimes that can efficiently manage nuclear!
  - 15155 2y ago
    > navigating regulatory hurdles and uncertainty than efficiency. Yes, but also (theoretically-real) economies of scale.
bamboozled 2y ago
They also make basically everything, so yeah, not sure what you expect. If America produced everything for the world, our fossil fuel usage would be through the roof as well.

SoftTalker 2y ago

China is of course doing this with zero need for environmental impact studies, which would be impossible in the west, even with the ostensible goal of reducing carbon emissions.

markus_zhang 2y ago
They do. Here is a summary of the environmental impaction evaluation of stage 2. Whether it is scientific enough, I cannot say because I haven't read the report (judging from the summary, readers need to contact them to get the report, which is pretty annoying). https://www.fengning.gov.cn/art/2014/6/23/art_3204_165228.html https://www.fengning.gov.cn/art/2014/6/23/art_3204_165228.ht...
manquer 2y ago
You have to give clear evidence that china’s environment impact process is weaker than those followed in global north. Even if what you presume without data is 100% true .. That is hardly the only or a key reason for slow adoption of green technologies in Europe or US. There has to political will to do large changes that is weak everywhere else outside China. Even if any project has heavy ecological impact locally, that doesn’t compare with far bigger problem of climate change. Rich countries lack of action is basically a slap in the face of the global south, saying that they care more about few fish and birds, over the all poor people in the world who will suffer from the greenhouse gases bulk of which they emitted . I would characterize that as just modern colonial wealth extraction with class and racial overtones. Remember climate change impacts poor communities far more than the rich, that is true even in rich countries. It shouldn’t be so easy a moral decision to say environmental impact mitigation is more important than people . Bureaucracy and red tape in the name of safeguards are weak excuses, when tens of if not hundreds of millions will die as direct or indirect consequence of climate change this century .
- LAC-Tech 2y ago
  I agree with this. We need some nuance. We cannot just look at chinas human rights record and decide that justifies slow western bureaucracy when it comes to infrastructure. We can't hold them up as a bogeyman to justify our own inefficiencies.

christina97 2y ago

It’s 12 units, 300 MW each so 3.6 GW, not 36 GW.

masklinn 2y ago
> When fully charged, the upper reservoir can store enough energy to power the plant at full capacity for 10.8 hours That's actually 38.8GWh so close enough.
- applied_heat 2y ago
  Both the GW and GWh are important and independent characteristics
ggm 2y ago
Gwh/Mwh and GW/MW are not the same units. One is a time based unit, scales to duration and the other is peak intensity. You can deliver 1 GW for an hour is 1 Gwh and the same Gwh can deliver 500 MW for 2 hours or 250 MW for 4 hours.
- christina97 2y ago
  Ah yes I misread because it was written separately. Not sure where 36 GWh came from though.