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Posted by mrtksn 1/15/2026

Photos capture the breathtaking scale of China's wind and solar buildout(e360.yale.edu)
775 points | 572 commentspage 3
MarceliusK 1/15/2026|
On the one hand, the geometry is beautiful and almost serene; on the other, it's a reminder that decarbonization at this scale is still an industrial transformation of landscapes
Ericson2314 1/16/2026|
Solar fucks up the landscape far more than wind
otikik 1/15/2026||
Wow, pictures look great, well done Mr Weimin Chu
waffletower 1/16/2026||
The photos demonstrating the scale of China's solar arrays are impressive. The wind farms are beautiful, but don't show a scale unfamiliar to me. Driving through the Columbia Gorge on the Oregon and Washington border, or through the Coachella Valley in Southern California, you will see wind farms of larger scale than depicted here.
AuthAuth 1/15/2026||
All this praise around China's buildout is just encouraging others ignore a problem to sell the solution. When the major nations started coming together to reduce emissions it was agreed that they would all aim to reduce emissions. However China did the opposite and purposefully scaled coal at record rates for nearly a decade and implemented no environmental regulations so as to outcomplete the nations who were transitioning and to be the ones to sell the solution. So now that its 2025 and they are finally starting to deploy some solar and wind im just not impressed. Its a dirty move and going forward I doubt we will see global trust in tackling these kind of problems again.
maxglute 1/15/2026|
>it was agreed that they would all aim to reduce emissions

No, it was agreed during Kyoto that developed nations would reduce emissions, and developing nations (aka PRC, India) would not. Developing nations could keeping scaling fossil to industrialize until Paris where all countries had to submit climate plan (again not explicitly to reduce), and PRC's was to peak emissions by 2030s, which they're on trend to do early. PRC did what was legally permitted / agreed upon, and if developed nations want to cope / be butthurt and label following the agreement as dirty and not cooperate in the future global projects because they're not financial beneficiaries then that's on them. Also "some" solar and wind is ~ROW combined, which surely is very unimpressive.

> sell the solution

Selling solution to problems is solving problem, selling solutions to problems cheaply is solving said problem faster. As if developed economies did not decarbonize by selling clean tech solutions... which btw PRC bought. PRC simply doing globe a favor by selling real climate solutions at cost and scale that makes global difference, instead of scaling retarded paper solutions like carbon credits from countries that primarily scales spreadsheets.

AuthAuth 1/18/2026|||
China is not a developing nation. At that time they were more than wealthy enough to implement the same regulation as other nations and their industry was already developed.

They are not on trend to peak emissions pre 2030. Here is what happens Reliable china emission data takes a long time to verify and collect. So during the times where good data is not available china makes a ton of claims that will not line up with the next emissions study that comes out.

Ok then why does every country scale up their manufactering to make clean tech solutions. Im sure US, EU, India and Africa could use a few more steel mills and some coal plants to power it, we can handwave the emissions if they end up producing clean tech.

maxglute 1/19/2026||
China WAS a developing nation in Kyoto 1997, GDP per capital $800, high income $7000.

China WAS a developing nation in Paris 2015, GDP per capita $11000, high income $13000 USD.

China JUST around developed nation in 2025, GDP per capita $14000, high income $14000.

They're on trend to peak emissions last year, see study below for PRC emissions trending down for last 18 months. What happens is we have these things called satellites that can detect emissions live, so you get the PREVIOUS study that confirms they have likely already peaked emissions.

Every country SHOULD scale manufacturing, no other country can scale as much as PRC into making stuff commodity tier. If PRC peak domestic emissions and global clean tech exports displaces 5x more emissions than US oil and produce net global reduction in emissions then that's aggregate emission reduction. If other countries can/wants to do that they ought to. It's not about handwaving emissions, it's about realizing 50% of world are developing, they're going to consume and generate massive amounts of shit, aka poverty alleviation, which is moral good, which will require magnitude increase in power and the most sustainable pathway to that is use as much clean tech as possible, clean tech that net displaces more emissions, which is only possible by making clean tech cheap, which PRC is uniquely able to do.

avsteele 1/15/2026|||
Lots of this is right, but

> and PRC's was to peak emissions by 2030s

This appears to be wrong. Peak is supposed to be before 2030. They will not hit it.

https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/china/targets/

maxglute 1/16/2026||
>The 14th Five-Year Plan (FYP) aims to cut energy intensity by 13.5% and emissions intensity by 18% by 2025 from 2020 levels (Xinhua News Agency, 2021) . As of November 2025, China is unlikely to achieve the targets, as emissions intensity is projected to decline by only 16–17.

1% off according to dashboard analysis for 2025 5 year plan target. There's study from Q4 that PRC emissions has been stalled/trending, i.e. peaked for past 18months. Functionally they've peaked emissions before 2030 NDC commitment.

https://e360.yale.edu/digest/china-emissions-decline

mcswell 1/16/2026||
And all the US can do under the current president is steal oil from other nations.
blindriver 1/16/2026||
What sort of risk of environmental poisoning comes from having that many solar panels in an area? Is there any risk that it can contaminate the area or are the environmentally safe?

I speak this having lived south of Moffett airfield where the entire area was poisoned from the degreasers used on the military planes in Moffett Field. It's one of the largest Superfund sites in the US and there are thousands of families living there. It might seem innocuous but I'm wondering whether solar panels in the environment leak any chemicals.

lvl155 1/15/2026||
China is far more incentivized to champion renewable considering that they do not have the same access as the US. US is also on a path to quite literally invading other countries to extract crude and other resources. I don’t think China is in a position to do this, yet. If China invades Brunei or arrests Bolkiah, they will face irreversible repercussions.

All that said, I don’t think wind and solar are the answers. Geothermal and fusion will need to be the solution.

tim333 1/15/2026||
I think China is incentivised due to health effects of coal. "China's reliance on coal reduces life expectancy by 5.5 years" https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jul/08/northern... etc.

I think it's a bit better now. I don't think invasions change that much.

NickC25 1/15/2026|||
>All that said, I don’t think wind and solar are the answers

Found the Oil & Gas lobbyist / apologist.

China might not have oil, but at least they are trying to figure something else out. Credit to them. Say what you want about The Party (I certainly have) but gotta give credit where and when its due. They have an interest in pushing alternative fuels, and by god they are doing it.

Mashimo 1/15/2026|||
> Geothermal and fusion will need to be the solution.

China needs power NOW though.

Dumblydorr 1/15/2026|||
What is the question to which fusion and geothermal is the answer? From a climate perspective those will come too late to aid our planet much until decades of further change, if fusion even comes at all.

Seems to me like wind solar batteries and nuclear are the answer, what’s actually being built now in a big way, not pie in the sky like fusion.

pfdietz 1/15/2026||
Fusion is the answer to "how can we extract R&D money for decades without ever actually delivering anything." There is little prospect it's going to be competitive, particularly DT fusion. The engineering/economic obstacles are profound even if all the plasma physics problems are solved. Most of the efforts being touted are obvious nonstarters.
thorncorona 1/16/2026||
That is what they say about self driving cars, and there are services which are commercially available right now.
pfdietz 1/16/2026||
So, no technology is impossible? Every dream can come true? That's what I'm getting from the logic of the argument you're making there.

Sometimes technologies really do have showstoppers. There are fundamental reasons to think fusion is not going to be competitive. I know of no fundamental reason self driving cars would be impossible. The analogy doesn't work.

actionfromafar 1/15/2026||
You can get a lot of stationary batteries for a couple of trillion dollars.
motbus3 1/15/2026||
I know nothing about the topic. Although it seems a better alternative than coal or petrol, is it free of side effects for the nature? I wonder if the heat that would be spread around the atmosphere and back to space can actually gradually serve as a trap for heat?

Does this question make any sense at all?

appointment 1/15/2026||
No it doesn't make sense. Every photon that hits the Earth is eventually either absorbed as heat, reflected back into space or both (eg. partially absorbed and partially re-emitted as lower energy photons.) There is no net global increase in heat from a wind turbine or solar panel. (There might be slight local shifts.)

The only way this could change net heat if it significantly altered the reflectivity of the surface, and in practice the affected area is too small to matter. As an exaggerated example, I found an article [1] that calculated the area that would need to be covered by solar panels to generate power equal the total global electricity consumption to be 115,625 square miles, approximately equal to the state of New Mexico.

[1] https://www.axionpower.com/knowledge/power-world-with-solar/

FpUser 1/15/2026|||
This is actually quite a sizeable chunk. If in the future needs grow 10 times the area needed might become big problem.
pfdietz 1/15/2026|||
It would actually be much better than nuclear. Remember, for every kWh of electrical energy delivered from a nuclear plant, 2 kWh of waste heat goes up those cooling towers. This is not the case with solar, particularly if it were built on ground that was already fairly dark.

Direct thermal pollution like this is not yet globally significant, but if demand increased to the point that land constraints actually applied then it would become important.

barbazoo 1/15/2026|||
Might.
spiderfarmer 1/15/2026|||
Sure, everything has downsides. Even breathing. But none of the alternatives have downsides that are as big as taking carbon from the soil and pumping it in an already stressed ecosystem.
lm28469 1/15/2026||
> is it free of side effects for the nature?

What is free of side effects for "nature" ?

seydor 1/15/2026||
Americans keep drilling baby drilling for oil that is becoming less and less necessary
asdefghyk 1/16/2026|
Re Wind and Solar Buildout.

The NEXT more challenging part is to build the necessary storage and "power network transmission lines" so that the supply can be made ( Large Scale ) reliable - 24/7 , independent of the weather.

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