Bath County: 3.0GW output, 24GWh capacity
Fengning: 3.6GW output, 40GWh capacity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pumped-storage_hydroel...
This looks like the previous record holder (by stored energy, not power):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raccoon_Mountain_Pumped-Storag...
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.
China's total wind and solar capacity outstrips coal - 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 - July 2024
China installing the wind / solar equivalent of 5 nuclear power stations a week - 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 - 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 - July 2024
China's Batteries Are Now Cheap Enough to Power Huge Shifts - 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 - 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-le...
The actual generation trajectory seems more useful: https://www.eia.gov/international/analysis/country/CHN
"Primary energy production (percentage)" says 15% in Table 1 at the top, but I'm not sure how that's calculated - the whole table is as it seems to contradict the rest of the page:
- Generation by renewable sources has grown from 25% -> 40% from 2013 -> 2022 (Figure 5)
- 32 new nuclear power plants under construction in 2023 (Table 5)
- 49% of installed capacity in 2022 was renewables (Figure 6)
Primary energy production includes things like domestic coal production. Primary energy consumption includes things like gas consumption by cars, imports and distribution losses.
Germany has an installed solar capacity of 100 GW, 72 GW wind and some hydro and bio mass.
Yet there are 109 coal plants and 267 natural gas plants in Germany.
Comparing wind and solar with conventional power plants is completely pointless.
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!
Yes, but also (theoretically-real) economies of scale.
https://www.fengning.gov.cn/art/2014/6/23/art_3204_165228.ht...
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 .
Of course the Chinese are not uninterested in protecting their environmental values. You seem to be under the impression that environmental impact studies exist to obstruct progress. They exist to prevent external costs carried by the local population and future generations
That's actually 38.8GWh so close enough.
And if countries refuse to reduce their carbon footprint, we may start to put some tariffs on your goods and services.
As long as there is a lower reservoir or space for one , any hydroelectric dam could converted to pumped storage without additional ecological impact .
There might be a few locations in the Alps e.g. existing barrages which could be retrofitted into PHS in Switzerland and Austria (KOPS II was commissioned in 2008).
China does not seem to have this problem.
Europe has Norway for storage, but limited renewable potential compared to the US or China (not nothing, offshore wind is a thing, but the available land area for solar is very limited).
We've already tapped most of the suitable places for hydro dams because those need flowing water. Pumped storage does not need flowing water so the number of potential sites is massively larger.
ANU identified 616,000 potential sites: https://re100.eng.anu.edu.au/global/
Unsurprisingly, the Dutch seem to have put a lot of thought into it: https://deingenieur.nl/artikelen/lievense-de-man-van-het-ops...
You're forgetting about the environmental impact studies and the resulting bans to build anything in areas which are deemed to be important habitats. About the miles of red tape and stacks of regulations which need to be followed to build anything in 'the west'. Having an autocratic government which can just dictate whatever they want does help to get things going but in the west such a government style is only ever seen in times of war and even then they do not have as much authority as the CCP has in China. This is unrelated to the economic system - a capitalist dictatorship could achieve the same by pushing through its demands - so it does not make sense to blame it on 'capitalism'. It is the autocracy which makes it possible.
which is the whole point of the ideology of the CCP - that autocratic gov't, rather than democracy, is a better governing structure.
The idea is not even new - it stems from ancient china, from the days of the emperors. That their rule is mandated by heaven, and that they know what's best for the country.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Roman_dictators
The difference here is that Roman dictators were appointed to fix specific problems and did not derive their mandate from the heavens. Eventually the dictatorship took on a life of its own which then led to the fall of the Roman republic and the start of the Roman Empire - which later fell due to mismanagement and possibly the effects of a cooling climate [1].
I don't believe capitalism inherently incapable of this either. China, as you said, an autocratic country but not a socialist one. It is plainly capitalist, and they are able to make German EV manufacturers sweat.
China is not a capitalist country though, the system is closer to some form of fascism which is just one of the many forms of collectivism under which socialism and communism also reside. Fascism and socialism/communism are closely related through their reliance on central economic planning and the fact that they empower the state over the individual, it is mostly rhetoric which divides them. Socialism is the pre-stage to communism, the difference being that in a socialist state the means of production are owned by the state while the state is supposed to wither away under communism because it is no longer needed.
A cubic meter of water weighs a tonne. So that’s literally tonnes and tonnes of water.
My source on thus is international institutions like IEA and World Bank. The energy transition is going good according to the World Bank https://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-rep...
It does not quote its sources, but that sources seem to be the chinese government. Which then reports the progress of its provinicial governments- who miraculously always meet the set goals, by shifting goalposts and faking it. So, that fluff peace this aggregated into up on an hill high, does mean nothing.
During the great leap forward the chinese government statistics reported record harvests, enough to export grain to the sovjiet union. Meanwhile on the ground: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward#Deaths_by_f...
So, just because some provincial government buys scrapped solar cells to put them up unconnected some not used fields, buy a sattelite picture and doctor a report, while actually depending on coal plants that are planned and built. https://globalenergymonitor.org/projects/global-coal-plant-t... i do not believe that nonsense.
> Between January and November, BEV share was 58%, while PHEV share was 42% in China.
https://carnewschina.com/2025/01/08/early-data-shows-record-...
China doesn't want to rely on gas because they have to import it. They're fine relying on coal, which they can produce reliably, which is why they keep building coal-fired plants.
Germany has the same reliance but Europe broadly hasn't done anything about it, substituting piped gas from Russia with shipped gas from America. (Which, unfortunately, is their only option absent re-firing coal or turning on nukes.)
The country is expected to reach an installed nuclear capacity of 400 GW in 2060.
And, unlike wind and solar, nuclear power plants provide baseload and can actually drive an electricity grid.
Within the next ~14 months, the world will be deploying ~1TW/solar every year, ~200GW assuming 20% capacity factor for "apples to apples" comparison to thermal generation with a higher capacity factor. Compare to the rate of nuclear deployment and your 2060 figure, 35 years away.
> And, unlike wind and solar, nuclear power plants provide baseload and can actually drive an electricity grid.
There are numerous electrical grids in the world that operate without nuclear. There is minimum demand that needs to be met, but clearly nuclear isn't needed to do that (as evidenced by low carbon grids that operate without it).
https://e360.yale.edu/features/three-myths-about-renewable-e...
https://www.minister.industry.gov.au/ministers/husic/media-r...
https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/NYNu...
It seems like it from the picture of their turbine hall.
Variable speed hydro turbines is quite cutting edge for an old field where change occurs very slowly and carefully