• queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    I’m consistently impressed by Chinese timelines.

    Every time I hear projections about America it’s always “by 2030” or “by 2050” and shit like that - meanwhile, China is accomplishing more in less than half the time.

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆OP
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      1 year ago

      Solar isn’t a solution for everything and that’s precisely why China is pursuing a multi pronged approach for its transition off fossil fuels. China is actively developing wind power, geothermal, hydro, and nuclear on a massive scale. Each of these technologies has its own pros and cons, and they all work together.

    • zephyreks@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      I think you’re misunderstanding to some degree. While silicon PV caps out at around 24% (I think up to 27% now), 100% conversion is basically impossible because of physics.

      Plus, the sun basically has infinite energy, so it’s not like efficiency is that big of a concern compared to energy density.

  • Fizz@mastodon.nz
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    1 year ago

    @yogthos All good and well to “forecast” things that make them look good. Currently they consume over half the worlds coal and only account for 1/3rd of the solar. They are the biggest climate change threat on the planet and they are doing nothing to change that. Infact the forecast increasing emissions until at least 2030.

    • ☭ 𝗚𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗘𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿 ☭A
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      1 year ago

      yes, the country that’s actively reducing their fossil fuel use and have historically reached their stated goals with time to spare is surely the problem, never mind the massive pollution from the long-industrialized Western countries that have had many decades to stop using fossil fuels

    • zephyreks@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      They account for like 80% of PV production. Basically all of that solar deployed in the rest of the world was built in China. For the fraction that isn’t, it was probably built in Southeast Asia by a Chinese company.

      • Fizz@mastodon.nz
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        1 year ago

        @zephyreks I don’t under what is your point? They are allowed to make no progress because they are producing the solar?

        I disagree that them producing the tech used for green energy is good. China has no environmental standards or ethical standards for how things should be produced. This allows them to outcompete the rest of the world.

        If China wasn’t making solar, other countries would produce solar. The result wouldn’t be no solar production.

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆OP
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      1 year ago

      Where do you think all your shit is produced exactly genius. The biggest climate change threat are mouth breathers living in the west who consume more energy per capita than anywhere else in the world.

      • Skua@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        China is on par with the EU for consumption-based emissions per capita these days. Better per capita than the US still, but the direction of travel for both is narrowing that gap over time

        • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆OP
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          1 year ago

          That’s factually wrong, US, Canada, and lots of nordic countries have far higher per capita consumption. Meanwhile, the transition from fossils at China is happening at a far more rapid pace than in the west. The gap is actually growing over time.

          • Skua@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            Your link shows exactly what I said. EU and China close together, US way above. Go to the chart view and you can pick the EU as a single entity, plus you get the change over time.

            Of course, what I actually said was not “energy usage”. I said consumption-based emissions. You can get those here and you’ll see that the slim gap between the EU and China vanishes altogether, plus the direction of travel changes. Energy consumption alone does not account for the way that that energy is being generated, something which seems pretty pertinent considering the article we’re commenting under.

            • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆OP
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              1 year ago

              My link shows that it varies significantly across the EU and northern European countries consume around double of China per capita.

              • Skua@kbin.social
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                1 year ago

                Okay? I’m sure it would vary significantly across different parts of China too, or across different parts of any individual country. I chose the EU as a whole because then we’re dealing with an entity on a similar scale to China, and a much closer approximation of “the west” than any one country of five-ten million people.

                You’ve completely failed to respond to the fact that energy consumption does not directly correlate with emissions. If you’re using twice as much energy as me but you’re getting it all from solar panels and I’m getting it all from burning coal, which one of us is doing more harm to the environment?

                • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆OP
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                  1 year ago

                  What the map clearly shows is that the highest consumption in China is on part with the lowest consumption in EU. I’m not sure why you’re having so much trouble with this to be honest.

                  Meanwhile, the reason to focus on energy consumption is because it’s far more meaningful than focusing on emissions. EU countries are largely deinudstrialized and they import much of the necessities from places like China. This creates a skewed picture of emissions because EU outsources much of the emissions needed for EU to operate to other countries.

                  And last I checked burning increasingly more coal is precisely what EU is doing. In fact, Germany is even dismantling wind farms to create more coal plants https://euobserver.com/green-economy/157364

          • Fizz@mastodon.nz
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            1 year ago

            @NoneOfUrBusiness @yogthos @bioemerl they don’t have a point. They absolutely hang off per captia emissions stats because it’s the only way they can dismiss the extreme damage China is doing to the environment. Having more population doesn’t allow you to pollute more. That output still harms the earth all the same.

            Majority of the west is trending towards less emissions where as China is increasing emissions exponentially year on year.

            • Pili
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              1 year ago

              That’s so stupid. Of course more people will mean more pollution. You’re not making any sense, please try to think 5 minutes before posting.

              • Fizz@mastodon.nz
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                1 year ago

                @Pili more people more pollution is obvious but the can make per captia stats look good. China for example makes a third of thr world’s pollution. Why should they be allowed to make so much pollution? Can they make that much pollution because they have so many people, well if that’s the case everyone should boom their population up so that they have more room to pollute.

                You still haven’t made an argument why my criticism of per captia stats being used is wrong.

            • bioemerl@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              The main thing I think is important in regards to China and the environment is that China explicitly opted to open up areas that subverted all of our pollution controls and ability to regulate industry, undervalued our labor, and generally fucked up progress for a solid decade, and they’re going to continue to do that for a decade yet.

              I’m not super prone to blame China for the pollution because they have a lot of people and they have to feed and give those people stuff.

              But I will happily blame them for everything in paragraph one.

              I left my comments because it’s important to know when a bunch of shills for Stalin and mao are running around regardless of the validity of what they have to say, because whatever’s coming out of their mouth is almost certainly propaganda.