The problem with percentages.
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RE: https://mastodon.social/@realTuckFrumper/116352197287159902
The problem with percentages.
“ In 2015 coal generated 69 percent of China’s primary energy, and by 2024 it was down to 56 percent (still much higher than the United States at 8 percent). But the actual volume of coal consumed was greater than ever, simply because China’s electricity demand continues to grow. …, four years after Xi Jinping’s pledges, China was consuming 40 percent more coal than the rest of the world combined. ” 1/n
#climatechangePhysics doesn’t give a shit about percentages. Volume matters.
The crazy thing about coal energy production is it is also water intensive. To extract, process and then in the power generation phase. Another aspect of coal is that it’s also an industrial input outside of energy, it’s used in steel production as a source of carbon.
2/n
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Physics doesn’t give a shit about percentages. Volume matters.
The crazy thing about coal energy production is it is also water intensive. To extract, process and then in the power generation phase. Another aspect of coal is that it’s also an industrial input outside of energy, it’s used in steel production as a source of carbon.
2/n
Ah fekking hell
“ In October that year, the then Premier Li Keqiang reacted to the crisis, signaling an adjustment to China’s approach to climate policy. Economic growth, he said, was the key to lowering emissions in the long term and “energy security should be the premise on which a modern energy system is built.” China soon announced a new lending facility to support the “clean and efficient use of coal.”
3/n
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Ah fekking hell
“ In October that year, the then Premier Li Keqiang reacted to the crisis, signaling an adjustment to China’s approach to climate policy. Economic growth, he said, was the key to lowering emissions in the long term and “energy security should be the premise on which a modern energy system is built.” China soon announced a new lending facility to support the “clean and efficient use of coal.”
3/n
The government of China is working to preserve the interest of the nation in the manner of speaking.
But they are just as obsessed with “growth” as the west is. They are on the same insane, globally, destructive economic pathway as the west just with Chinese characteristics.
You never hear any discussion about security coming from not needing to burn energy, how to shape the economy, so everybody is well fed well housed where everybody gets what they need without burning down the planet.
4/n
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The government of China is working to preserve the interest of the nation in the manner of speaking.
But they are just as obsessed with “growth” as the west is. They are on the same insane, globally, destructive economic pathway as the west just with Chinese characteristics.
You never hear any discussion about security coming from not needing to burn energy, how to shape the economy, so everybody is well fed well housed where everybody gets what they need without burning down the planet.
4/n
In effect, there is no discussion of modernizing all the methodologies that humanity has used since the beginning of time to feed clothes and house themselves, which lived within the ecological boundaries of the region a human population inhabits.
And largely when the discussion is brought up, people who have been indoctrinated like all of us our entire entire that the modern world brought us out of living in mud huts, covered in filth they collapse into a emotional panic
5/n -
In effect, there is no discussion of modernizing all the methodologies that humanity has used since the beginning of time to feed clothes and house themselves, which lived within the ecological boundaries of the region a human population inhabits.
And largely when the discussion is brought up, people who have been indoctrinated like all of us our entire entire that the modern world brought us out of living in mud huts, covered in filth they collapse into a emotional panic
5/nBecause what they hear because of their indoctrination is that everybody has to go back to being a medieval peasant, when the idea is absurd. Today we are all closer or even much worse off than medieval peasants because of what billionaires are trying to do: strip us of all economic and political decision-making power and reduce us to a permanent under class.
6/n
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The government of China is working to preserve the interest of the nation in the manner of speaking.
But they are just as obsessed with “growth” as the west is. They are on the same insane, globally, destructive economic pathway as the west just with Chinese characteristics.
You never hear any discussion about security coming from not needing to burn energy, how to shape the economy, so everybody is well fed well housed where everybody gets what they need without burning down the planet.
4/n
@GhostOnTheHalfShell Agreed. And yet, according to the New Greens, China is THE model for a green and clean future. It's China this and China that. These New Greens are so super-excited about the mega solar and wind factories. The bigger these are--the more of wild nature they destroy--the happier the New Greens are. This happy, sunny uplands of a rosy clean and green future, all built on solid coal foundations and the destruction of nature. If you wrote this as fiction, you wouldn't be believed
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Because what they hear because of their indoctrination is that everybody has to go back to being a medieval peasant, when the idea is absurd. Today we are all closer or even much worse off than medieval peasants because of what billionaires are trying to do: strip us of all economic and political decision-making power and reduce us to a permanent under class.
6/n
The idea that eminently walkable cities like Amsterdam and especially the direction Paris is taking where cars are being made irrelevant to daily life is met with people having emotional meltdowns over quite literally a life that is safer quieter, healthier, less expensive in more commercially abundant.
Instead of building around the cannibalistic global economy that by the way is completely dependent on plastics, we could turn ingenuity to local economies anchored in their bio region.
7/n -
@GhostOnTheHalfShell Agreed. And yet, according to the New Greens, China is THE model for a green and clean future. It's China this and China that. These New Greens are so super-excited about the mega solar and wind factories. The bigger these are--the more of wild nature they destroy--the happier the New Greens are. This happy, sunny uplands of a rosy clean and green future, all built on solid coal foundations and the destruction of nature. If you wrote this as fiction, you wouldn't be believed
Yeah, anytime you see a corporation produce an illustration in bright saturated colors the kind that infants are drawn to of blue skies and greenfields with one person in it, you know they’re selling poison and destruction.
Big oil, big tobacco, and big mining are all the same animal: planet, destroying cannibals
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The idea that eminently walkable cities like Amsterdam and especially the direction Paris is taking where cars are being made irrelevant to daily life is met with people having emotional meltdowns over quite literally a life that is safer quieter, healthier, less expensive in more commercially abundant.
Instead of building around the cannibalistic global economy that by the way is completely dependent on plastics, we could turn ingenuity to local economies anchored in their bio region.
7/nThe conceptual shift has to be moving from ingenuity applied to global scale of production to local scale of production, where everyone is well fed well housed well closed and well taken care of and health for example. These are the basics and the purpose of the local focus is lead with by finding what we need locally first
This means that the focus changes you can still have machinery and shit like that but the need to produce at volume evaporates.
8/n
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The conceptual shift has to be moving from ingenuity applied to global scale of production to local scale of production, where everyone is well fed well housed well closed and well taken care of and health for example. These are the basics and the purpose of the local focus is lead with by finding what we need locally first
This means that the focus changes you can still have machinery and shit like that but the need to produce at volume evaporates.
8/n
But the other hook in the global economy, addiction that we’ve all been indoctrinated into is that volume equals low price. The lie in this is that volume means consolidated wealth consolidated. Wealth comes from scale and scale, always demands energy intensity.
The global economy is by definition planet, destroying because it clause resources from around the world ships it across the planet consuming tons of energy that by definition require immense amounts of resources to produce
9/n -
But the other hook in the global economy, addiction that we’ve all been indoctrinated into is that volume equals low price. The lie in this is that volume means consolidated wealth consolidated. Wealth comes from scale and scale, always demands energy intensity.
The global economy is by definition planet, destroying because it clause resources from around the world ships it across the planet consuming tons of energy that by definition require immense amounts of resources to produce
9/nLook at that lovely fruit cup in the store the next time you’re there. It’s peaches or something in a syrup in a little plastic cup. The fruit are grown, maybe in Chile and they are grown with pesticides and herbicides and all that shit and all that fruit is packed up and shipped to say Vietnam where it’s put into diced up and put in the little cops with the syrup with the plastic that was manufactured by the petrochemical industry then shipped around the world
10/n
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Look at that lovely fruit cup in the store the next time you’re there. It’s peaches or something in a syrup in a little plastic cup. The fruit are grown, maybe in Chile and they are grown with pesticides and herbicides and all that shit and all that fruit is packed up and shipped to say Vietnam where it’s put into diced up and put in the little cops with the syrup with the plastic that was manufactured by the petrochemical industry then shipped around the world
10/n
All that for a fucking food cup. Leaving behind it all the energy burnt all the resources spent shipping fruit around the fucking world to be chopped up, put into syrup and into a plastic container with a bit of aluminum, stuck on top, and then shipped globally, and we’re all told the message but this is a economically efficient way to do it. It’s cheap.
It’s cheap because energy and plastic was cheap. What do we focus on? Let’s replace the plastic cup with bio plastics.
11/n
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All that for a fucking food cup. Leaving behind it all the energy burnt all the resources spent shipping fruit around the fucking world to be chopped up, put into syrup and into a plastic container with a bit of aluminum, stuck on top, and then shipped globally, and we’re all told the message but this is a economically efficient way to do it. It’s cheap.
It’s cheap because energy and plastic was cheap. What do we focus on? Let’s replace the plastic cup with bio plastics.
11/n
We can completely ignore the total absurdity of shipping fruit to Asia to be processed, packaged into a little plastic cups, and then distributed globally, so some rich fat, fucking asshole can make people work in the worst conditions imaginable for pennies while they have more money than God.
12/n
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We can completely ignore the total absurdity of shipping fruit to Asia to be processed, packaged into a little plastic cups, and then distributed globally, so some rich fat, fucking asshole can make people work in the worst conditions imaginable for pennies while they have more money than God.
12/n
“ The following year there was a new energy crisis: A severe drought in Sichuan caused output to drop from the province’s hydroelectric plants, normally the source of 80 percent of its electricity. Factories were ordered to close or reduce their output to save households from power cuts, and applications for permission to build new coal-fired power plants reached record levels as provincial authorities worried about having the energy to meet their economic growth targets.”
13/n
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All that for a fucking food cup. Leaving behind it all the energy burnt all the resources spent shipping fruit around the fucking world to be chopped up, put into syrup and into a plastic container with a bit of aluminum, stuck on top, and then shipped globally, and we’re all told the message but this is a economically efficient way to do it. It’s cheap.
It’s cheap because energy and plastic was cheap. What do we focus on? Let’s replace the plastic cup with bio plastics.
11/n
@GhostOnTheHalfShell Hello friend, could you please help me by sharing my post? My children are waiting for your support and kindness.
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“ The following year there was a new energy crisis: A severe drought in Sichuan caused output to drop from the province’s hydroelectric plants, normally the source of 80 percent of its electricity. Factories were ordered to close or reduce their output to save households from power cuts, and applications for permission to build new coal-fired power plants reached record levels as provincial authorities worried about having the energy to meet their economic growth targets.”
13/n
Do people understand how insane it is to throw ourselves onto things like hydroelectric, where, by the way entire bio regions are drowned for the reservoir, which then becomes an intense source of methane because of all the organic matter that is killed or that washes into it and then rots. Plus the intense amounts of concrete and steel used to make these mega dams they are now building.
We live in a world of higher climate volatility.
14/n
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Do people understand how insane it is to throw ourselves onto things like hydroelectric, where, by the way entire bio regions are drowned for the reservoir, which then becomes an intense source of methane because of all the organic matter that is killed or that washes into it and then rots. Plus the intense amounts of concrete and steel used to make these mega dams they are now building.
We live in a world of higher climate volatility.
14/n
The flow of water into these dams can’t be predicted in the long-term, how can you build a dam without understanding the environmental conditions it’s supposed to operate in?
The world we live in now makes long-term large skill infrastructure economically in solving because in two decades, the project may not be suited for the operating environment, as China is finding out. And its reaction is burn more coal. They will keep doing that in order to protect the economic pathway they chose
15/n
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The flow of water into these dams can’t be predicted in the long-term, how can you build a dam without understanding the environmental conditions it’s supposed to operate in?
The world we live in now makes long-term large skill infrastructure economically in solving because in two decades, the project may not be suited for the operating environment, as China is finding out. And its reaction is burn more coal. They will keep doing that in order to protect the economic pathway they chose
15/n
So I think this rant of mine is winding down, but I’m going to point out just the kind of conundrum China is stuck in. In order to build more coal plants they probably need to build more water management system systems that is more dams, but the entire process assumes stable, hydrological psychos in other words, a stable climate of predictable water supply. We don’t live in that world anymore.
16/n
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So I think this rant of mine is winding down, but I’m going to point out just the kind of conundrum China is stuck in. In order to build more coal plants they probably need to build more water management system systems that is more dams, but the entire process assumes stable, hydrological psychos in other words, a stable climate of predictable water supply. We don’t live in that world anymore.
16/n
They can build the dams they can build the aquifer, but they can’t rely on water coming through them to mine, process and supply a coal power generation plant and they can have rely on stable climate to manufacture all the alternative energy either. All that stuff requires raw material materials that have to be produced assuming a stable climate
17/n
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