this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2024
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Science Memes

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Know thy enemy (mander.xyz)
submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 66 points 1 week ago (1 children)

the fact that developing countries will industrialize in the same way western countries have and will start to produce similar environmental emissions

That's not a fact. It makes more sense for developing countries to skip directly to renewable energy sources.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 week ago (2 children)

You're right it's not a fact. But I would say large percentage of developing nations aren't pursuing such options because it's easier to use things like coal. If you take a look at the new coal plants under construction as the moment, the top 15 are from developing countries. https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-just-15-countries-account-for-98-of-new-coal-power-development/

China and India account for 3 billion people alone and they're still building new coal plants to account for their growing energy needs despite using renewable energy.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Water/wind/solar is cheaper now, and it's not even close. It's electrifying communities that never had any sort of electrification before since they can buy a few panels and bypass the (often corrupt) power utility in the country. The intermittency is a problem, but it's still better than not having it at all.

So yes, it looks like they'll skip carbon-based energy entirely. This is similar to what's happened with landlines in these regions; they skipped straight to cell phones.

That said, you know where 95% of new coal power plants are being built? China.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 week ago

That's because those plans and policies were drafted 10 years ago when coal was cheaper. These days the plans being made are based on solar, because solar is the cheapest.