Comment by kibwen
Comment by kibwen 17 hours ago
For reference, China installs about 1 GW of solar per day. By this time next week, they will have surpassed the output of this entire project.
Comment by kibwen 17 hours ago
For reference, China installs about 1 GW of solar per day. By this time next week, they will have surpassed the output of this entire project.
Which leads to a shrinking nuclear share in their grid. It peaked at 4.6% in 2021, now down to 4.3%.
Compared to their renewable buildout the nuclear scheme is a token gesture to keep a nuclear industry alive if it would somehow end up delivering cheap electricity. And of course to enable their military ambitions.
The US, in 2024, installed ~0.13 GW of solar per day.
https://seia.org/research-resources/solar-market-insight-rep...
6 GW Nuclear is either a tech company getting ahead of bad PR with a token gesture. Or its maybe? the start of something real.
Two years ago we were installing 1/10th of Chinese solar today?
Where are we at today? Can we catch up under this administration?
Where do we compare on a nuclear basis? I know my state installed nuclear reactors recently, but I'm not aware of any other build outs.
In a war game scenario, China is probably more concerned about losing access to oil and natural gas than we are. Not that we shouldn't be building this stuff quickly either.
1GW at noon, maybe 20% of that average.
China's building a bunch of nuclear too.
There are multiple measures, as generating technologies are complex. "Nameplate capacity" (given above) is one, "capacity factor", which is (roughly) the time-averaged output is another, and for solar averages about 20%, though that can vary greatly by facility and location.
Nuclear has one of the highest capacity factors (90% or greater), whilst natural gas turbines amongst the lowest (<10% per the link below). This relates not only to the reliability of the technologies, but how they are employed. Nuclear power plants cannot be easily ramped up or down in output, and are best operated at continuous ("base load") output, whilst gas-turbine "peaking stations" can be spun up on a few minutes' notice to provide as-needed power. Wind and solar are dependent on available generating capability, though this tends to be fairly predictable over large areas and longer time periods. Storage capability and/or dispatchable load make managing these sources more viable, however.
It's close enough to how it's measured. China's terawatt of solar power capacity isn't producing 9000 terawatt hours in a year. Their total electricity use is 9000 terawatt hours.
It is how individual power generation projects and measured though. If you install a GW of solar generation, it means you installed solar panels capable of generating 1 GW peak. If you install a 1 GW of coal generation, then same thing. If you install 1 GW peaker gas plants etc.
The coal plant will have a capacity factor of 80% though. Solar will be 10 to 20%. And the gas plant could be very low due to usage intent.
Battery projects are the same (since they're reported as generators). Whatever nameplate capacity...for about 4 hours only.
Yes. Meta's matching a whole month of China's solar growth, which I would call a lot.
Solar and Nuclear energy are different energy products. China is also bringing on an insane amount of nuclear energy.
In absolute terms, China installs about as much nuclear as the US does solar. So I can only assume you agree with the statement "the US is bringing on an insane amount of solar energy"? Because, once again in absolute terms, the US's solar buildout is trounced by China's. The US is losing the energy race, and nuclear isn't going to save it. The US will run out of fissile material before China runs out of sunlight.
There's really no risk of running out of fissile material. We can create it.
Depends if they start seeding clouds and doing geo engineering.
Nuclear and solar are different energy products that are complementary. This solar vs nuclear narrative is basic and anti progress.
For example china invested in solar so they can transition their energy system and get it paid by selling globally via subsidized cell manufacturing.
I don't think they will be able to sell export their nuclear tech globally since it is essentially repackaged US tech.
But yeah Im all for solar - more solar the better but it cant do firm power well.
Renewables crash the money making potential of nuclear power. Why should someone buy ~18-24 cents/kWh new built nuclear power excluding backup, transmission costs, taxes, final waste deposit etc. when cheap renewables deliver?
https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Renewable-Energy/Wha...
China is barely building nuclear power, in terms of their grid size. It peaked at 4.6% in 2021, now down to 4.3%.
Compared to their renewable buildout the nuclear scheme is a token gesture to keep a nuclear industry alive if it would somehow end up delivering cheap electricity.
Again they aren't the same product. Everyone always thinks power is only about $/kwh especially in hackernews. That is a strong proponent of the product but most definitely not all of it. Solar just does not work for large scale industrial uses cases (99.99% uptime). Even with massive energy storage to try and cover the edges. Its a great combo but not comparable.
How does your "large scale industrial use case" deal with 50% of the French nuclear fleet being offline?
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/15/business/nuclear-power-fr...
Or 50% of the Swedish fleet two times this year being offline?
The problem is that western new built nuclear power costs 18-24 cents/kWh when running at 100% 24/7 without backup, transmission fees, taxes etc. based on Vogtle, HPC, FV3, Polish Ap1000s, EPR2s etc.
We can create imaginary renewable scenarios as well.
For example: "Assuming renewables and storage costs get an 80% price reduction (like you just gave nuclear power) then YY will happen".
China is a country with over a billion people, Meta is a private company with under 100k employees, it doesn't really make sense to compare the power output of their investments.
China is the world's largest electricity producer and installs a lot of generating capacity of all types. For example, China has 29 nuclear reactors with 31 GW of capacity currently under construction:
https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/CountryStatistics/CountryDetails....