Wild, fascinating, frightening.
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.
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.
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.
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.
https://www.servethehome.com/inside-100000-nvidia-gpu-xai-co...
Huge parts of America hate EVs. There is endless debate about nuclear vs clean energy vs coal, which prevents any change from happening.
Meanwhile coal has been on a clearly uneconomical trend for decades, and no amount of bitching by 60k coal miners can prevent that fact, no amount of crying about "woke" policy can prevent other fossil fuels from just being better than coal in every single way.
It's infuriating our country has been strangled by these morons.
They all cry about making America great again, oblivious to the fact that America thrives when it shovels public money into infrastructure like a bad habit. From gifting thousands of square miles of public land to bribe the railroads into building one of the best transportation networks for it's time (also why "america isn't dense enough" is utter horseshit. We connected the coasts before there was anyone living in most of the US), to the interstate which is still unparalleled, to the Postal Service way back in our infancy, to the homesteading project which ensured we have some of the most productive farmland in the world, to the highly educated workforce of the mid 1900s who did the electronics revolution which came about largely because the US navy wanted computers all the way back in WW2, and transistors largely exist so we could have ICBMs, to the millions of electronics experts just set free to build after the war...
America has ALWAYS profited from public investment into infrastructure, both physical and mental, but because a bunch of poorly educated (not a slight, an objective fact) people would rather get black lung like their pappys, we aren't allowed to have nice things.
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.
This explains why the Tesla gigafactory in Nevada (announced in Sept 2014) still isn't operational...
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.
US auto companies already try to compete globally in situations with/without tariffs. That provides plenty of competition too.
Intel was paying customers Billions a year not to use their competitors products in the early 2000s. So not complacent about breaking the law to stifle competition but also complacent about actually building competitive chips that could win in the market.
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
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.
If I bought it sooner, then my car would just go into the second hand market and do the same thing.
"Affordable" isn't changing anything: I don't need another car, and I'm not going to prematurely crush mine into a cube.
Somone who drives a lot may be able to scrap their fossil car, buy a new EV and start saving on carbon emissions in a much shorter time than me.
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.
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...
https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/co2?country=CHN~USA~IND...
The New Scientist article is terribly misleading. It suggests China's emissions have peaked because of a few months of reported stable numbers. What they don't tell you is that such periods have happened many times before. Between 2014-2016 Chinese emissions were stable or even fell slightly, according to their not very reliable data. Then it started climbing strongly again, even as US emissions dropped by a billion tonnes/year between 2008-2023.
So there's no evidence China is turning anything around or is on track to decline. You can't extrapolate a few months out to decades in the future, and the New Scientist should know that.
https://www.google.com/search?q=china+solar+deployment&sca_e...
"China's Solar Surge Presents Future Opportunity"
"China ramps up renewable energy deployment"
"Why China Is Leading The World In Solar Power"
etc. Solar can't replace fossil fuels so it's not unexpected that Chinese emissions would continue to grow.
And solar (and wind and nuclear) absolutely can replace fossil fuels. What they can’t do is replace 100% of fossil fuels until storage is cheap and plentiful. With expanded grid capacity and dispatchable fossil generation, a 90%+ low-carbon grid is entirely feasible.
Building renewable tech is such a small percentage of chinese output. And besides, at a very small ~10-20% premium you can get far more efficient and durable solar panels from South Korea. And by doing so, you can buy your solar panels from a country that is past carbon peak.
It’s possible that was not the intent.
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.
1) the ability of the internet to extract value overseas while untaxed in the client country 2) The H1B visa which funnels the best talent from struggling countries 3) strong institutions and financial and education centers and 4) military industrial complex that thrives on basically manufacturing conflicts with other countries
#4 is what is scary. not the dominance of any other country itself
Why can’t there be a winner and a loser and both the winner and the loser cooperate and thrive with loser having the humility to admit he’s a loser? Isn’t this the same peaceful consequence? Just say China is better and admit inferiority for the everlasting peace. Why can’t you do it?
Because competition and cooperation are intrinsic parts of natural selection and therefore evolutionary biology and therefore human nature. Don’t pretend to be above your own nature.
Or do pretend. We can all act according to our ideals and deny our basest instincts, but don’t expect the mob to act the same way in aggregate.
Don't be deluded on the whole individual freedom or quality of life thing. 99% of Americans don't even exercise the right to protest. China doesn't let you protest and this fact doesn't really affect anyones life.
China will soon be more aggressive as any other empires.
in its entire history it has never invaded outside its traditional borders, and it achieved all this without invading or enslaving people. It will continue this way in future too :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_China
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_disputes_of_the_Pe...
Vietnam, 1979.
Support for North Korea's invasion of South Korea 1950-1953.
Invasion of Indian-held areas in 1962 based on extremely dubious claims.
Not an invasion, but its support for the genocidal Khmer Rouge in the 1970s (who ended up invading Vietnam with Chinese arms) was quite significant.
Its current menacing of the Phillipines.
Claims about "traditional borders" are almost invariably nonsense.
China did not support North Korea's invasion. North Korea did not seek China's support initially and only asked for Stalin's permission. China would not have entered the Korea war at all if MacArthur did not disobey Truman and marched all the way to the Chinese border. He also publicly stated that he planned to bomb China. It was one of the reasons for which he was fired. All this was well documented in the US's own literature.
I don't see how to read China's dispatch of 1.5M combat troops, taking on some 110,000 battle deaths (thus saving the invasion from imminent collapse) other than as "support" for the invasion.
I don't see any substance the point you're trying to make here. One could try to say, "China was only trying to preserve North Korea's borders prior to the invasion". But once it pushed further south, into South Korea proper -- it was joining the invasion. There's nothing to debate here.
1) to make sure China was not invaded as MacArthur intended
And this just makes no sense at all.
MacArthur never intended to invade China, and didn't even start making noises about bombing China until after the it joined the war effort.
Your notion of "traditional borders" is where this becomes nonsense. With a little bit of revisionist history you can justify all sorts of invasions, such as the 1959 invasion of Tibet, or the desire to retake Taiwan. In reality, China is an empire, with several of its regions very unhappy to part of it (Tibet, Xinjiang, and probably more if you could only ask its people).
Most of you don't even know a single Uigur in your whole life, everything you learnt about Xinjiang/Uigur is from western media(ofc, wikipedia, The "Free" Encyclopedia, and from some random "Xinjiang experts" who funded by some Hawkish think tanks which backed by the US gov.
But I do know many westerners like you in HN, Twitter, etc. And, since I have the more reliable information and experience, just like the one you replied, I know you more than you know Xinjiang/Uigurs, so, my oponion about you is way more reliable than your oponions about Xinjiang/Uigurs. I can easily judge you are ignorant due to credulousness and misinformation.
Now, do you understand why there's "laugh"? They/We are not laughing at "this", we are laughing at people like you.
TBH, I do enjoy browsing China-related comments in HN, it's like watching a comedy, you guys may never get this, untill you take a flight to China/Xinjiang, if you did, you'd find the funny part