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Post by Grant on Dec 2, 2013 7:00:05 GMT 9.5
China along with being the cutting edge country in alternative energy is also suffering a pollution disaster. We can start from here. Some selected quotes: Now this is interesting. What isn't mentioned in the article but later came up in the commentary is that China is investing in syngas, coal converted to natural gas. Well it cuts down on some of the air pollutants but increases the output of CO2 and requirements for water, kind of out of the frying pan into the fire. Also the investment leaves them with what is called a "technological lock-in" - Apparently once you go that route it is hard to turn back. Here are a couple of links questioning the syngas commitment. people.duke.edu/~cy42/SNG.pdfA less technical version of the above. motherboard.vice.com/blog/china-hopes-an-energy-source-worse-than-coal-can-clear-its-air
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Post by Grant on Dec 4, 2013 18:06:57 GMT 9.5
I'm jumping threads here. I got this from a link in my link on Nuclear's 350 ppm thread.
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Post by Grant on Dec 14, 2013 13:19:03 GMT 9.5
This definitely leans on the dystopia side of China's development. My perspective on this article is how an emphasis on rapid growth inevitably leads to down grading environmental concerns. They throw capitalism into the analysis which may be relevant but is less my concern. China with its serious commitment to alternative energy, including nuclear, seems nevertheless, to be falling on the sword of growth at all costs and that brings up the whole issue of growth itself to me. Why growth, if sustainability is what finally must prevail? China may be a warning that economic growth finally has a fatal Achilles heel. www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/13/the-blob-hits-china/
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Post by Grant on Dec 14, 2013 13:28:40 GMT 9.5
I'm baffled that the excerpt from the article I included in the above post, in quoted form, was not carried over. Okay I will include it here in italics.
China’s CO2 emissions are equivalent to the U.S. and the European Union combined, and increasing at a rate of 12% per annum, or four times faster than a decade ago. So, the harsh truth is China’s polluting plants are working harder than ever, four times the rate of CO2 emissions of only 10 years ago.
“Over the last decade, China’s annual emissions of climate-destabilizing CO2 jumped by 5 billion tons per year, according to Shakeb Afsah, President and CEO of Co2scorecard.org, that’s ‘the highest [increase in annual CO2 output] for a single country in recorded history, representing an average annual emissions increase of almost 12%–more than four times the rate observed [for China] the previous decade’…
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Post by jagdish on Dec 14, 2013 19:41:33 GMT 9.5
I hope that China (and India) succeed in developing air cooled nuclear. That is the only hope for China and the world.
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Post by Grant on Jan 30, 2014 6:10:38 GMT 9.5
I noticed on another thread a discussion of high speed rail. Well China in its build out appears to be a leader in that department. This article from the New Yorker makes HSR in China a prism to address development in China as being a struggle between good or bad in its future. It's almost like corruption is a condition for China's rapid leap forward. It's a pretty long piece but well worth the read. www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/10/22/121022fa_fact_osnos?currentPage=all
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Post by Grant on Jan 31, 2014 1:36:29 GMT 9.5
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Post by Grant on Feb 11, 2014 20:20:52 GMT 9.5
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Post by eclipse on Feb 15, 2014 10:14:54 GMT 9.5
How? Won't China hit peak coal by then? www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-10/china-peak-coal-and-ets/5249436 Hopefully once they pass peak coal, the second half will prove just expensive enough to prevent them burning the rest. Sorry to say that. I just don't see any of us taking the climate seriously enough. Maybe economic forces will prevent us hitting 10 degrees, but it looks like we're going for 6! That raises the probability of needing geo-engineering solutions like a mix of a sulfur shield, green deserts, biochar, and maybe even olivine.
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Post by Grant on Feb 15, 2014 17:08:42 GMT 9.5
How? Won't China hit peak coal by then? www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-10/china-peak-coal-and-ets/5249436 Here's a quote from your own link. Despite the talk of peak coal from Australia, Professor Jotzo says coal will remain the dominant source of power in China for a long time to come.
Any geo-engineering solution is going to have to include carbon capture to prevent ocean acidification. If that is where they are going they better get on the stick. Unfortunately climate change generated weather extremes causes victims who want immediate help and that is going to increase. Long term preventive solutions aren't presently a public priority. Disasters do have a way of generating a rethink. Curiously Sandy wasn't bad enough apparently to induce a serious rethink so they are more into restoration along with the inevitable political fun and games.
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Post by Grant on Feb 27, 2014 6:14:34 GMT 9.5
China like many other 3rd world countries who have moved heavily into the industrial age is moving up the food chain in their eating habits. That and running out of water sources has caused them to abandon their earlier commitment to being food self-sufficient and has led them to becoming more and more food importers. One doesn't have to be a Malthusian to see limits on the horizon not only for China but the world. www.earth-policy.org/plan_b_updates/2014/update121
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Post by Grant on Mar 3, 2014 7:32:29 GMT 9.5
I'd like to pursue China and water scarcity further. This article details out some of the ominous challenges China is facing but offers some hope for the future. China is drying up its rivers, lowering its water table, polluting its existing water and being forced to employ the water resources of 3rd world regions like Africa and Latin America in the form of food purchases to make up for their own water deficits. It's responding by increasing efficiency in water use in industry and agriculture, building dams and desalination plants(Which I understand from reading here makes a strong case for nuclear power as an energy source)and a whole host of other responses. As the author indicates the jury is out on what the future holds. Global warming which they are contributing mightily to doesn't help. www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2291208/chinas_looming_water_crisis.html
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Post by eclipse on Mar 3, 2014 10:51:27 GMT 9.5
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Post by Grant on Mar 3, 2014 17:05:25 GMT 9.5
hir.harvard.edu/pressing-change/saudi-arabia-and-desalination-0My impression from the article is relying on foreign sources of food would only last until they built sufficient solar desal plants to become fresh water self-sufficient. It's a little confusing on that point but that was my impression. Of course Saudi Arabia enjoys unusual circumstances which makes such a scenario possible. I notice Lester Brown makes the point that China could be the big cheese whose demand brings affordable food into serious crisis world wide.
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Post by Grant on Mar 6, 2014 20:30:09 GMT 9.5
At least China is going all out on alternative energy. For the first time wind output outpaces nuclear. Fukushima and problems of cooling noncoastal new nuclear plants seem to have generated slower growth of nuclear power. www.earth-policy.org/data_highlights/2014/highlights45
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Post by Roger Clifton on Mar 9, 2014 15:23:27 GMT 9.5
The GRACE hydrological satellite is showing that there are receding groundwater levels right around the occupied world. At least the problems arising will evolve slowly enough for people to adapt. Perhaps more dramatic will be cross-border conflict. The major rivers of South Asia and Southeast Asia all arise in Tibet. As the Chinese authorities increase their control over the water flow in each river, they affect the water flow through the downstream countries. For example, China is damming the Brahmaputra, worrying the people of India. But the people of Pakistan, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam have reason to worry too. Normally, the Indian monsoon dumps water above and below the snowline in the Himalayas. Water deposited above the snowline joins the mountain glaciers that melt throughout the year, ensuring a continuing flow of water downstream. However global warming is now raising the snowline, decreasing the catchment area for the mountain glaciers. Thus more of the Indian monsoon rains will run off immediately as a summer flood and less snowmelt will run off during the dry season, exacerbating the flood-then-drought cycle. That is quite apart from any effect of climate change on the Indian monsoon rains. Damming mitigates such floods, the principle driving the damming of the Yangtze. Almost secondarily, the dams supply irrigation to the valley, and enough water to supply much of northern China by means of a giant aqueduct. That is water supplied on demand rather than at the mercy of the weather. It would help Chinese diplomacy if they actively collaborated with downstream countries over dams and water controls, so that they would be seen to be supplying water when the rivers would otherwise stop flowing, rather than be blamed for the partial drought.
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Post by Grant on Mar 10, 2014 8:01:39 GMT 9.5
Damming mitigates such floods, the principle driving the damming of the Yangtze. Almost secondarily, the dams supply irrigation to the valley, and enough water to supply much of northern China by means of a giant aqueduct. That is water supplied on demand rather than at the mercy of the weather.
It would help Chinese diplomacy if they actively collaborated with downstream countries, over dams and water controls, so that they would be seen to be supplying water when the rivers would otherwise stop flowing, rather than be blamed for the partial drought.
A recent Chinese showcase for damming has been the 3 Gorges Dam, I guess the biggest dam in the world. There are positives and negatives. It certainly is a considerable nonfossil fuel source of power and aids in flood control but unfortunately produces other important environmental and social costs. Apparently it has become a model for further damming on the upper Yangtze River as well as a chance for the Chinese to take their dam expertise to other parts of the world. Here are a couple of links on the dam. Here wikipedia offers a comprehensive description of the dam and its multiple effects. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Gorges_DamHere is a more critical assessment of the dam. www.internationalrivers.org/files/attached-files/3gorgesfactsheet_feb2012_web.pdf
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Post by seamus on May 3, 2014 7:38:42 GMT 9.5
Grant, China has big plans for nuclear energy. Multiple reactors are being built in several locations, and there are plans for many more. "While China only has 14.6 gigawatts of nuclear capacity as of 2013, it plans to scale up nuclear reactors to a combined installed capacity of 58 GW by 2020. It then hopes to nearly triple that figure to 150 GW by 2030. It has 31 reactors under construction and about 8.6 GW are expected to come online in 2014." oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/China-Moves-Forward-with-New-Nuclear-Reactors.html
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Post by eclipse on Jun 20, 2014 12:57:43 GMT 9.5
This article at NBF thinks China will be making water cooled GenIV reactors so cheap by 2025 that they'll stop building new coal plants. Shame about them opening one coal plant every week until then, though. If I ran the world I'd make new coal illegal immediately and forget the consequences to the global economy! It would eventually adapt around a mix of nukes & renewables, and kick start the right industries.
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Post by seamus on Jul 22, 2014 8:29:37 GMT 9.5
It's pretty simple. Every AP1000 or domestic equivalent that China is currently building is one less coal plant.
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Post by stevek9 on Jul 22, 2014 22:51:40 GMT 9.5
This article at NBF thinks China will be making water cooled GenIV reactors so cheap by 2025 that they'll stop building new coal plants. Shame about them opening one coal plant every week until then, though. If I ran the world I'd make new coal illegal immediately and forget the consequences to the global economy! It would eventually adapt around a mix of nukes & renewables, and kick start the right industries. I think the day when China announces they will build no more coal plants is not terribly far off. And, I do not believe they will build a coal plant a week until 2025. The nuclear supply chain is still gearing up. Maybe in ~ 5 years it will be running at full speed. Most of the plants after that will be CAP1400 (1400 MWe variants of the AP1000). They are already designing the CAP1700 as well.
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