Alternative Energies
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Title: China’s wind farms can now produce more energy than all of America’s nuclear plants
Source:
Quartz
URL Source: http://qz.com/357332/chinas-wind-fa ... ll-of-americas-nuclear-plants/
Published: Mar 8, 2015
Author: Richard Macauley
Post Date: 2015-03-08 07:34:28 by Willie Green
Keywords: None
Views: 16507
Comments: 23
China is building more than a third of the world’s nuclear reactors currently under construction, and has plans to triple its nuclear power capacity by 2020. That has some observers worried about the country’s opaque and politicized nuclear safety regulations. But amid all the hype over nuclear power, China has been expanding its wind power capacity at an even faster clip. Last year, China’s wind farms reached a capacity of 115,000 megawatts, compared with just 20,000 megawatts from its nuclear sector. (To be sure, capacity is different than the actual amount of energy created.) Working at full pace, China’s wind farms could now produce more energy than all of the nuclear power plants in the US. Despite the government’s ambitious goals to keep developing its nuclear energy capacity, for the foreseeable future, nuclear is unlikely to match wind in China. After the 2011 disaster in Fukushima, Japan, the Chinese government put the brakes on building nuclear power stations in the west of the country, as this is an area prone to earthquakes. Meanwhile, the north of China famously struggles with a lack of water, something nuclear power stations require plenty of to keep reactors cool, and the east coast, where there is plenty of water, is home to China’s most developed cities, which are increasingly turning to NIMBY-ism. Beijing says it plans to increase China’s wind power capacity to 200,000 megawatts by 2020, but its own figures see nuclear rising to just 58,000 megawatts in the same time frame. It’s encouraging to think that wind power may be a leap-frog technology in China, skipping over the potentially messy and dangerous issues related to nuclear power. But wishing nuclear away could be unwise, and most of China’s massive—and growing—energy needs are still met by burning coal. If barriers to nuclear persist, the energy gap will likely be plugged by more fossil-fuel power plants, which would render the cleanliness of China’s wind farms academic.
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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 5.
#1. To: Willie Green (#0)
(Edited)
24/7/365? LOL. Get serious. Tellingly, the article does not report that China's nuclear plants actually have ever produced more electricity for even a single moment than America's nuclear reactors.
After increasing rapidly since the 1970s, electricity generation at U.S. nuclear plants began to grow more slowly in the early 2000s. It then plateaued between 2007 and 2010—before falling more than 4 percent over the last two years. Projections for 2013 show a further 1 percent drop. With reactors retiring early and proposed projects being abandoned, U.S. nuclear power’s days are numbered. We're not building enough nukes to replace the old ones that are shutting down, and the total number has fallen below 100 for the first time in over 30 years.
America has a supply of natural gas and oil that will last through the 21st century. That's before you consider alt energy and improvements in coal-burning tech, hydrogen, etc. There is no shortage of energy, particularly here in the States.
No... we have an abundant supply of low-grade, carbonaceous crap that contaminates the air we breath, the water we drink and the food we eat.
America has far cleaner water and air virtually everywhere in the country than we had at the end of WW II.
#7. To: TooConservative (#5)
Of course... it was in the post-war period that we first enacted federal air & water regulations: The Modern Environmental Movement that the GOP/Tea Party -- Oil & petrochemical industry want to gut. The more I think about it, the less tolerance I have for the Oil & petrochemical industries. As far as I'm concerned, the Bush family, Koch Brothers, Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice and all those others who advocate Fossil Fuel Production Uber Alles are guilty of genocide on a grand scale.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/LatestTitle: China’s wind farms can now produce more energy than all of America’s nuclear plants
Working at full pace, China’s wind farms could now produce more energy than all of the nuclear power plants in the US.
#2. To: TooConservative (#1)
US Nuclear Power In Decline
#3. To: Willie Green (#2)
We're not building enough nukes to replace the old ones that are shutting down, and the total number has fallen below 100 for the first time in over 30 years.
#4. To: TooConservative (#3)
America has a supply of natural gas and oil that will last through the 21st century.
#5. To: Willie Green (#4)
Replies to Comment # 5. October 30-31, 1948
Although I'm too young to recall Pittsburgh being that smoggy, I do recall my father stoking the coal fired furnace in the basement of the home we lived in until I was 4-years-old. And I was 6 when my grandfathers (both of them) were required to convert their furnaces from coal to gas.
In Donora, PA, 20 people die and over 600 go to the hospital after sulfur dioxide emissions from a nearby steel and wire plant descend in the form of smog, made worse by a temperature inversion that trapped the sulfuric poison in the valley of the town. 
Pittsburgh at noon.
And I can recall most of the buildings & stone churches being black with soot, and natural color of the stone being gradually revealed by the weather 15~20 years later.
And I vividly remember the orange glow of the coke ovens & open hearth furnaces on the horizon like a sunset, long after the sun went down. And the acrid sulfur stench of the air pollution and the burning/stinging sensation in my eyes.
And I remember elderly relatives and neighbors, who never smoked tobacco, suffering from emphysema & other breathing difficulties
And I remember streams & rivers being void of fish because the water was literally orange with industrial pollution.
And I've seen firsthand the devastation that strip-mining inflicts on the landscape.
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