Almost two dozen Chinese cities forced to ration electricity after Australian coal ban

[UpInArms]

Source: News Au

Two dozen cities across China’s industrial heartland are rationing electricity.

Homes and businesses are having to cope with shutdowns and extreme heat.

And politically-motivated bans on Australian coal are to blame.

... snip ...

Attempts to punish Australia for advocating an international investigation into the origins of Covid-19 included restrictions on coal imports.

... snip ...

Lakes and dams in Taiwan are drying up. And that’s hurt more than just hydro-electric generation. Power stations and heavy industries – including silicon chip manufacturers – are struggling to get enough cooling water to stay operational.

Read more: https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/almost-two-dozen-chinese-cities-forced-to-ration-electricity-after-australian-coal-ban/news-story/af4c8fa8205b111ba7427b5953800b59

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Lots to unpack in this article ...

[oldsoftie]

1. Suck it, China. Lets help Japan & Taiwan though

And Taiwan now "reviewing its earlier decision to close all its nuclear power plants.."
Smart idea.
Weather is fickle. Trying to produce whats needed cleanly, without nuclear, is just not going to work. That goes for the US too, weather anyone likes it or not. Its reality.

[Haggard Celine]

2. We need more nuclear power here, too.

It's the best option we have in order to stop burning fossil fuels.

[Gore1FL]

3. The problem with Nuclear remains the cost.

Rent to store the waste adds up over the few billion years it takes.

[oldsoftie]

5. But today, most nuclear waste can be recycled

and make even MORE energy. Something that wasnt possible decades ago

[Warpy]

13. That must by why they're burying so much of it in Nevada and NM

and that's only a stopgap solution.

And if that wasn't bad enough, nuclear power is a water hog and that's something in short supply in a lot of the country.

Plus, I should mention nature always sides with the hidden flaw. In TMI, it was a stuck pressure relief valve. In Chernobyl, a bad design combined with a staff that hadn't been told a lot of the details about plant operation. In Fukushima, it was an earthquake and tsunami bigger than any seen before.

Power generation never was and never will be one size fits all. Nuclear power won't work here because the water source is the Rio Grande--to thick to sail, too thin to plow. We have plenty of sun and wind.

[oldsoftie]

28. Plenty of sun & wind but no way to store it

Use it, yes, of course. As much as possible. But even solar presents a problem when you have too large a concentration of panels, believe it or not.
The good thing about nuclear is it doesnt NEED to be out there where you are & little water available. Power can be moved. And the burying of waste is older school. Newer designs produce less waste and that waste is in many cases recyclable. You can find plenty of articles on it. And even with the older units, a persons lifetime use is a soda can size of waste.
Chernobyl was a design built to fail. Fukishima; built on the ocean AND near a fault line. 3 Mile island was shut down before it released any large amounts of radioactive steam. Current designs are far safer, just like so many other technologies. We cannot truly get to where we want with emissions without nuclear playing a large part. Unless you want to live like its 1940 again. That wont fly in the cities

[Warpy]

31. Use the excess to fuel hydrolysis

Burn the oxygen and hydrogen in fuel cells. The larger the fuel cell, the more efficient it is. Such a system will work here in the desert southwest., where wind and sun are abundant but water is not.

Some of the thorium/molten salt designs looked more promising and less prone to accident, but I note that line of research doesn't seem to be producing many tangible results. China appears to be concentrating on fusion.

You are vastly underestimating the waste problem, since it extends to protective clothing, maintenance equipment, and the reactors, themselves after a few decades of use. And nature will still side with any hidden flaw.

[hunter]

35. China just opened two big conventional nuclear power reactors, Tianwan 5 & 6...

... and they are building more.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianwan_Nuclear_Power_Plant

That will avoid the burning of 5.17 million tonnes of standard coal per year, cut CO2 emissions by 13.6 million tonnes, and sulphur dioxide emissions by 44,100 tonnes.

[progree]

36. 19 nuclear units under construction in China. Worldwide: 52 (May 2021)

https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/Two-More-Nuclear-Reactor-Construction-Starts-in-China.html

[hunter]

10. Cost compared to what?

Fossil fuels are destroying the natural environment we depend upon.

How much is it going to cost to relocate people living in cities that become uninhabitable because of rising oceans, drought, or deadly temperatures and humidity?

What is the value of people maimed and killed by air and water pollution caused by fossil fuels?

What is the value of biodiversity?

[Gore1FL]

11. My favorite form of nuclear energy is the fusion reaction happening eight light-minutes away. nt

[hunter]

12. Too bad the sun goes away at night and on cloudy days.

A solar and wind powered economy would look nothing like the high energy industrial consumer economy many affluent people now enjoy. It might not even be able to support a human population of five billion people or more. Who should die?

Anybody can drop off the grid and quit fossil fuels anytime they like. Walk over to your home's main breaker and turn it off. Smash your car if you've got one.

Then what?

If you can afford solar electricity and batteries you'll soon see backup power is a necessity. That problem is the same at any scale, from a small shack in the desert to a national electric grid.

Here in the U.S.A. we burn gas to support the solar fantasy.

At this moment we're doing pretty well in California, only 15% of the energy I'm using to post this is coming from gas.

http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.html

When the sun goes down that will change.

[Gore1FL]

17. It's still there powering the other side of the world.

All nuclear energy and fossil fuels are simply glorified batteries. Hydrogen might be one answer as a replacement.

[Sgent]

33. Hydrogen

might eventually make it into grid scale projects as a liquid, but even an accidental helium meltdown from an MRI destroyed electronics within a large building -- and that's a well known technology. I don't see hydrogen gas ever being viable for widespread use.

[Gore1FL]

48. My point is, we need better batteries

Hydrogen is but one example.

[Mr.Bill]

25. I worry about the potential

if it becoming a terrorism target.

[Elessar Zappa]

8. Agree that nuclear is our only hope.

Unless and until some kind of super efficient energy extraction method is invented, nuclear is much better than things like solar and wind.

[Mysterian]

15. I agree

In the US, we need to designate a county that will be the waste site and evacuate it with proper payments for any property taking. Then build plants to the maximum level of safety that is possible. It's the only way to slow down/reverse the damage to our atmosphere.

[ancianita]

19. Here's some new nuclear energy innovation.

[eppur_se_muova]

4. So ... less coal is getting burned ? Hard to see a downside to that. nt

[oldsoftie]

6. The downside is in the article; no production

no electricity
Not very desirable

[paleotn]

9. Like it or not, US and European manufacturing...

is reliant on Chinese manufacturing, which is reliant on Australian coal. Intricately intertwined supply chains, already roiled by Covid.

[Mr.Bill]

26. The map of the world

is a web of inter-dependency. Which makes it all the more stupid for republicans to be against the UN, NATO, WHO, etc.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

16. No downside at all, if "someone else" is living with power rationing.

There's a big downside if "my" power is cut.

[oldsoftie]

29. In a nutshell, nail on the head!

[MrModerate]

7. On the one hand, Chinese citizens and Australian coal barons are suffering alike...

On the other hand, a hunka-hunka burning coal, isn't.

[Maxheader]

14. Wow..that's a long ways to bring in coal...

Wonder if that's the norm in certain areas that have no mines....

[roamer65]

18. If we want less nuclear, less coal, less water consumption, less GHG's...

There is only one solution.

Population reduction.

Time to start actively discouraging having children...worldwide.

[ancianita]

20. "Time to start actively discouraging having children...worldwide." Except China's doing the opposite

with the new three-child policy.

[roamer65]

21. Most Chinese balked at it.

I read some responses like, “Ok, are they going to pay for them?”

Smart people. 👍

[ancianita]

22. Cool.

[AZLD4Candidate]

23. Most in China don't listen to what the government says

They ban something, VPNs pop up to go around the firewall.

Government decrees something, old people still play Chinese Chess and dou-di-zhu on the street without a care in the world.

It's only the 共产党 members and their brainwashed 小粉红 internet trolls.

[Javaman]

39. as long as no one memorializes the Tiananmen square massacre all is good, right? nt

[AZLD4Candidate]

40. It's not even taught

[Javaman]

41. I guess you missed what happened I Hong Kong this past week.nt

[AZLD4Candidate]

42. I live in the US now. My wife is over there trying to get her Green Card

Is there a reason you are trying to be aggressive with me?

Hong Kong isn't the mainland.

[Javaman]

43. If you think I'm being aggressive the I apologize

I just don’t care for China at all and how they treat their population, the ethnic population, the press, the environment, their atrocious human rights record and the bullying tactics involving Taiwan and the area of the South China Sea. I don’t like that they are a quasi facist government (control the population when pushing capitalism at the expense of the people for the benefit of the ruling elites)

And regarding Hong Kong not being part of the main land, thinking that somehow helps Hong Kong, those days have been over for a very long time.

Protests break out in Hong Kong as first arrest made under new security law
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/07/01/china/hong-kong-national-security-law-july-1-intl-hnk/index.html

Hong Kong's Tiananmen Square vigil banned for 1st time as China cracks down

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/hong-kong-tiananmen-square-vigil-china-banned-2020-06-04/

That started last year and the same happened this past week

[AZLD4Candidate]

44. My wife is part of the population, being born and raised there

I lived there and own a home there.

I am as big a critic of the CPC and their pervasive nature as one can be, experiencing it first hand.

But the people in China are wonderful people if they don't submit to the CPC's sexism, bigotry, racism, xenophobia, and outlook, my wife being one that hasn't.

[Javaman]

47. I hope everyone you know in China stays safe...

And I have no issue with the average Chinese citizen. I do and have always had an issue with those that govern China as I have stated.

[progree]

24. It's allowing people to have a MAXIMUM of 3 children. It's the only country in the world

that I know of that has a maximum number of children policy. It is very definitely NOT a decree that everyone (or every reproductive-capable female) have 3 children.

[Mr.Bill]

27. I've done my part.

I have no biological children. That's because I relied on my looks and personality for birth control.

[roamer65]

37. ..

I’ve relied on sexual orientation.

[lagomorph777]

38. Same here.

[oldsoftie]

30. Well, THAT plays right into the RW conspiracies

They already say both Covid & the vaccine is for "depopulation"

[hatrack]

45. As opposed to say, opioids? 495,892 US deaths by prescription opioids 1999-2019 . . .

Yeah, but let's worry about a SARS virus vaccine as a "tool of depopulation".

https://www.drugabuse.gov/drug-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates

[oldsoftie]

46. Thats not a conspiracy theory

Might as well count auto deaths too

[Duppers]

32. YES! +1000

Been advocating that for decades, since I read Zero Population Growth (Population Bomb) by Stanford entomologist Paul Ehrlich.

It's the only bottom line solution.

The Chinese wisely enforced a one child limit beginning in 1978 but changed the limit to two children in late 2015.

If the world does not limit our population growth, nature will do it for us.

[hunter]

34. It's less about "discouraging having children" and more about empowering women.

When women are educated and achieve some level of economic power, when sex education is honest and birth control is freely available, then family sizes are greatly reduced. Any demographic crisis evaporates when nations become accepting of immigration and diversity.

My parents and my wife's parents both came from cultures where having lots of children was celebrated for both religious and practical reasons. Patriarchal religious leaders saw it as more children to spread the faith, but the practical aspects were grim -- in my great grandparents' generation half the children died or were crippled in some way.

Historically, if there were not enough adults in an extended family to support the elderly people and others who couldn't do hard labor, those people died. Having lots of children was an insurance policy.

It doesn't have to be that way in the twenty-first century.