Environment & Energy

I wonder why it is, therefore, that China is building 95 coal plants as we speak.

‘Rush’ for new coal in China hits record high in 2025 as climate deadline looms

A graphic from that account from Climate Brief.



From Yale 360:

As It Boosts Renewables, China Still Can’t Break Its Coal Addiction

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Excerpt:



An attachment to coal? You don't say? In a renewable paradise?

I have the distinct impression, that the climate is collapsing faster than ever, although this week for the first time since 1997, a weekly reading decreased with respect to that of the previous year. Is it because the wind was blowing and the sun was shining, or was it because the Orange Pedophile stumbled into a war cutting world access to petroleum and gas?

I track these carbon figures weekly. From two weeks ago:

New Weekly CO2 Concentration Record Set at the Mauna Loa Observatory, 431.87 ppm

When I joined DU, in November of 2002, at the start of 24 years of "renewable energy" will save us" rhetoric it was 368.91 ppm.

When one is shutting a coal plant because the wind is blowing and the sun is shining, one has two options. One is to keep the steam up by continuing to burn coal, but not generating electricity, (which therefore doesn't appear in the accounting of generation) and the other is to burn coal for a few hours to bring the steam back up before one can generate a single watt of power.

So called "renewable energy" - which is not sustainable because of its land and material demands, and of course, its clear and obvious (everywhere on the fucking planet) dependence on access to fossil fuels.

It does not matter how much power is generated as it does when it is generated, and what is replacing it when it isn't replacing it.

In any case, on a little reflection, one can understand that given the short life time of renewable junk, it will reach a point at which it can only be built as fast as its falling apart. This is analogous to a famous equation in nuclear engineering called the Bateman Equation, which defines the maximum equilibrium value to which a radionuclide can accumulate before it is decaying as fast as it is formed, a function of power level:



How much land must be littered with dysfunctional wind turbines and vast stretches of solar cells having become electronic waste, before the world capacity to build them is equal to the rate at which they fail?

The planet is burning. I have never met an apologist for the antinuke cults pushing so called "renewable energy" who isn't declaring victory in spite of this reality.

There isn't enough copper, lithium, cobalt, dysprosium and neodymium on the planet to get so called "renewable energy" to 20 EJ per year.

And there soon will not be enough water, given our failure to address the collapse of the planetary atmosphere, to get biomass to burn.

Great "percent talk" though. I'm sure all the hydrogen assholes and battery assholes will show up to cheer. Why in fact, I see they already have.

As for me, as always, I'm unimpressed with the apologists for continued fossil fuel dependence. Once again, in case the "renewables will save us" idiots missed it the first time: The planet is burning.

Have a wonderful day tomorrow.