It's great news in the sense that this new energy storage and EV production capacity is (part of) our best chance to avoid catastrophic outcomes from climate change.
It's terrifying because we (in the West) can't seem to motivate ourselves to do anything like this on the same timescale, and nations that suffered similar disparities in industrial capacity (not to mention energy production) haven't done well in the past.
> It's terrifying because we (in the West) can't seem to motivate ourselves to do anything like this on the same timescale
The sad thing is, we still can if we want to. When Russia throttled down the natural gas pipelines into the EU, it took them mere weeks until the first new floating natural gas terminal was put into operation. And they've collectively dumped an astonishing number of new terminals into the North Sea since then, all at the same time. Germany alone spent $6B in infrastructure investments before that first winter without Russian gas.
We could if we wanted to. But by and large, we don't want to.
Of course we can motivate ourselves. But they're acting like we did in the 1800s through the mid 1900s. They just build anywhere no matter what. They have no interest in dealing with environmental concerns. The officially released pollution levels in China are mind-boggling and they still do not represent how bad it really is.
You think US manufacturers wouldn't be delighted to just buy a few hundred acres land and start building stuff? They'd do it in a heartbeat. For better and for worse, it is not a level playing field. Conforming to government regulations over here is stifling for a 100-house development in Arkansas, but it's almost impossible in California, Illinois, or New York. Now imagine what it's like to build a huge factory. It is nearly impossible to get permission, and inspections, endangered wildlife concerns, waste removal, etc. handled in under 5-10 years.
The air quality in China is lot better now than a decade ago. The smog was so bad in 2012 and I remembered the AQI hitting 999 (the max it would go) on more than one occasions during Beijing winter.
Went back again in early 2024 and it was so much better, pollution still noticeable on more days than not but at least half the time I spent had AQI below 100.
Counterpoint: See the speed with which Colossus has been (is being) assembled in Memphis Tennessee. Yes, on an existing industrial site but this is still one damn impressive accomplishment.
> Conforming to government regulations over here is stifling for a 100-house development in Arkansas, but it's almost impossible in California, Illinois, or New York. Now imagine what it's like to build a huge factory. It is nearly impossible to get permission, and inspections, endangered wildlife concerns, waste removal, etc. handled in under 5-10 years
Reading this (and I completely agree, it's even worse in Europe), sounds like Chinese "management" implemented Agile on a whole new scale.
The upside of a planned economy is that it can work like the internals of a private company, with one drive, "do what needs to be done". The downside is that it can work like the internals of a private company where you bite the bullet or look for another employer. This is much harder with countries, especially because planned economies are more likely to have taller fences around them.
> Now imagine what it's like to build a huge factory. It is nearly impossible to get permission, and inspections, endangered wildlife concerns, waste removal, etc. handled in under 5-10 years.
This explains why the Tesla gigafactory in Nevada (announced in Sept 2014) still isn't operational...
The bread and butter of progress is competition and I think a lot of American companies “won” like Boeing or Intel in the 90s and no one else could compete.
Unfortunately winning is disastrous because it makes you complacent.
Perhaps the most flagrant and dumbest example is Internet Explorer 6.
I do not approve of raising tariffs on foreign vehicles because it will dull our edge in the long term. Protectionism is a short term bandaid.
Tariffs are a good way to ensure you still have a domestic capability. If Germany/korea/japan/China outcompete all US auto makers and they die, along with it goes a ton of jobs, manufacturing knowledge & capacity, cultural influence, an ability to keep capital flowing domestically, downstream suppliers, and ability to change factories from autos to military equipment in wartime. If China just keeps taking industry, then all we have left is an outpouring of all capital and a bunch of “content creators” left. Not a good prospect.
US auto companies already try to compete globally in situations with/without tariffs. That provides plenty of competition too.
Intel was famously not complacent. Perhaps a long lapse starting a decade ago. But even then “complacence” was not the problem. Ditto for Boeing. Managerial focus on just milking the cow has been the fundamental problem: and they milked frantically—not complacently.
> It's great news in the sense that this new energy storage and EV production capacity is (part of) our best chance to avoid catastrophic outcomes from climate change.
How so ?
There are 1.4b vehicles on earth, petrol or batteries it just doesn't work out, especially if we keep using 2000-3000kg metal boxes to move 80kg meat bags 1hr a day and let them rot in a parking for the remaining 23 hours.
Not even talking about the fact that cars are but a fraction of the problem anyways
Western country populations seem to be willfully falling for obvious fossil fuel propaganda over and over again. Future generations will rightfully curse our names. (Including today's children.)
I vote for change, but I don't have the money to buy electric. Even running costs don't make the difference when it comes to multiple tens of thousands of dollars in purchase price.
I'd love to "care for our environment by buying an electric car". I can't afford to.
> our best chance to avoid catastrophic outcomes from climate change
The US and EU are long off-peak carbon emissions (emissions even decreased during the Trump administration I, even using a trendline ignoring COVID). The biggest emitter right now is China, and it's emissions are growing not shrinking, and a considerable amount of that (including 90% of the worlds new coal plants) goes to projects like this.
China is building more renewable energy than the rest of the world combined. At this point there is no “let’s just reduce our emissions by 30% or so and hope things work out” plan that’s compatible with stopping worst-case outcomes, there is only a “let’s replace every single energy and fuel source with non-emitting ones on a ridiculously short timescale” plan. Insofar as we have a chance of doing that, it’s because of what China is doing right now.
To the extent that they’re using fossil fuels to build the infrastructure for this renewable tech, I’m completely fine with that. That’s much better than using it to build iPhones or consumer nonsense. Insofar as they’re building a renewable grid backed by modern dispatchable coal and they’re also building out massive storage manufacturing capability and their emissions are on track to decline, I’m also fine with that.
EU supports China economy by donting their products from EU citizen taxes. As EU citizen, you can ask donations for your new photovoltaic panels or EV up to 8000€.
We Americans have more to fear from economic and technological dominance than we do from military invasion.
As a budding superpower ready to unseat the US from it's throan. All China has to do is wait for progress and time to run it's coarse and emerge the victor. If anything, the US is the tigger happy country as we watch the inevitable, looking for any excuse to use to stop them.
Remember, why the hell does China give two shits about war if China can surpass the US simply through economic progress. They don't care, in fact they want to avoid war.
It's great news in the sense that this new energy storage and EV production capacity is (part of) our best chance to avoid catastrophic outcomes from climate change.
It's terrifying because we (in the West) can't seem to motivate ourselves to do anything like this on the same timescale, and nations that suffered similar disparities in industrial capacity (not to mention energy production) haven't done well in the past.
> It's terrifying because we (in the West) can't seem to motivate ourselves to do anything like this on the same timescale
The sad thing is, we still can if we want to. When Russia throttled down the natural gas pipelines into the EU, it took them mere weeks until the first new floating natural gas terminal was put into operation. And they've collectively dumped an astonishing number of new terminals into the North Sea since then, all at the same time. Germany alone spent $6B in infrastructure investments before that first winter without Russian gas.
We could if we wanted to. But by and large, we don't want to.
Of course we can motivate ourselves. But they're acting like we did in the 1800s through the mid 1900s. They just build anywhere no matter what. They have no interest in dealing with environmental concerns. The officially released pollution levels in China are mind-boggling and they still do not represent how bad it really is.
You think US manufacturers wouldn't be delighted to just buy a few hundred acres land and start building stuff? They'd do it in a heartbeat. For better and for worse, it is not a level playing field. Conforming to government regulations over here is stifling for a 100-house development in Arkansas, but it's almost impossible in California, Illinois, or New York. Now imagine what it's like to build a huge factory. It is nearly impossible to get permission, and inspections, endangered wildlife concerns, waste removal, etc. handled in under 5-10 years.
The air quality in China is lot better now than a decade ago. The smog was so bad in 2012 and I remembered the AQI hitting 999 (the max it would go) on more than one occasions during Beijing winter.
Went back again in early 2024 and it was so much better, pollution still noticeable on more days than not but at least half the time I spent had AQI below 100.
4 replies →
Counterpoint: See the speed with which Colossus has been (is being) assembled in Memphis Tennessee. Yes, on an existing industrial site but this is still one damn impressive accomplishment.
https://www.servethehome.com/inside-100000-nvidia-gpu-xai-co...
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I’d argue that vested interests in oil and coal have done more to damage the US’s ability to invest like this than any regulatory red tape.
Huge parts of America hate EVs. There is endless debate about nuclear vs clean energy vs coal, which prevents any change from happening.
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> Conforming to government regulations over here is stifling for a 100-house development in Arkansas, but it's almost impossible in California, Illinois, or New York. Now imagine what it's like to build a huge factory. It is nearly impossible to get permission, and inspections, endangered wildlife concerns, waste removal, etc. handled in under 5-10 years
Reading this (and I completely agree, it's even worse in Europe), sounds like Chinese "management" implemented Agile on a whole new scale.
The upside of a planned economy is that it can work like the internals of a private company, with one drive, "do what needs to be done". The downside is that it can work like the internals of a private company where you bite the bullet or look for another employer. This is much harder with countries, especially because planned economies are more likely to have taller fences around them.
1 reply →
> Now imagine what it's like to build a huge factory. It is nearly impossible to get permission, and inspections, endangered wildlife concerns, waste removal, etc. handled in under 5-10 years.
This explains why the Tesla gigafactory in Nevada (announced in Sept 2014) still isn't operational...
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1 reply →
The bread and butter of progress is competition and I think a lot of American companies “won” like Boeing or Intel in the 90s and no one else could compete.
Unfortunately winning is disastrous because it makes you complacent.
Perhaps the most flagrant and dumbest example is Internet Explorer 6.
I do not approve of raising tariffs on foreign vehicles because it will dull our edge in the long term. Protectionism is a short term bandaid.
Tariffs are a good way to ensure you still have a domestic capability. If Germany/korea/japan/China outcompete all US auto makers and they die, along with it goes a ton of jobs, manufacturing knowledge & capacity, cultural influence, an ability to keep capital flowing domestically, downstream suppliers, and ability to change factories from autos to military equipment in wartime. If China just keeps taking industry, then all we have left is an outpouring of all capital and a bunch of “content creators” left. Not a good prospect.
US auto companies already try to compete globally in situations with/without tariffs. That provides plenty of competition too.
1 reply →
Intel was famously not complacent. Perhaps a long lapse starting a decade ago. But even then “complacence” was not the problem. Ditto for Boeing. Managerial focus on just milking the cow has been the fundamental problem: and they milked frantically—not complacently.
2 replies →
Well even with 100% tariffs BYDs new sub 10k vehicles will be far cheapet than anything else the US market has to offer
> It's great news in the sense that this new energy storage and EV production capacity is (part of) our best chance to avoid catastrophic outcomes from climate change.
How so ?
There are 1.4b vehicles on earth, petrol or batteries it just doesn't work out, especially if we keep using 2000-3000kg metal boxes to move 80kg meat bags 1hr a day and let them rot in a parking for the remaining 23 hours.
Not even talking about the fact that cars are but a fraction of the problem anyways
Western country populations seem to be willfully falling for obvious fossil fuel propaganda over and over again. Future generations will rightfully curse our names. (Including today's children.)
Sadly it comes down to "Show me the money."
I vote for change, but I don't have the money to buy electric. Even running costs don't make the difference when it comes to multiple tens of thousands of dollars in purchase price.
I'd love to "care for our environment by buying an electric car". I can't afford to.
3 replies →
> our best chance to avoid catastrophic outcomes from climate change
The US and EU are long off-peak carbon emissions (emissions even decreased during the Trump administration I, even using a trendline ignoring COVID). The biggest emitter right now is China, and it's emissions are growing not shrinking, and a considerable amount of that (including 90% of the worlds new coal plants) goes to projects like this.
China is building more renewable energy than the rest of the world combined. At this point there is no “let’s just reduce our emissions by 30% or so and hope things work out” plan that’s compatible with stopping worst-case outcomes, there is only a “let’s replace every single energy and fuel source with non-emitting ones on a ridiculously short timescale” plan. Insofar as we have a chance of doing that, it’s because of what China is doing right now.
To the extent that they’re using fossil fuels to build the infrastructure for this renewable tech, I’m completely fine with that. That’s much better than using it to build iPhones or consumer nonsense. Insofar as they’re building a renewable grid backed by modern dispatchable coal and they’re also building out massive storage manufacturing capability and their emissions are on track to decline, I’m also fine with that.
ETA: China’s emissions appear to be peaking and entering a structural decline. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2453703-clean-energy-ro...
5 replies →
Kinda, but we’re not really in a position to blame them right? To some extend, sure, but that’s easy to say when you’ve already got yours.
3 replies →
EU supports China economy by donting their products from EU citizen taxes. As EU citizen, you can ask donations for your new photovoltaic panels or EV up to 8000€.
Frightening?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_production_during_Wor...
We Americans have more to fear from economic and technological dominance than we do from military invasion.
As a budding superpower ready to unseat the US from it's throan. All China has to do is wait for progress and time to run it's coarse and emerge the victor. If anything, the US is the tigger happy country as we watch the inevitable, looking for any excuse to use to stop them.
Remember, why the hell does China give two shits about war if China can surpass the US simply through economic progress. They don't care, in fact they want to avoid war.
26 replies →
The first thing that came to mind with the word "frightening" was a battery fire there.
frightening? yeah you should be
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