While a lot of that generation has been coal in the past, lately China has been almost exclusively focusing on adding renewables and nuclear:
this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2025
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It’s a climate thing, hydro worldwide decreased because there was just less water passing through dams this year.
That's sad.
China also dismantled hundreds of dams and hydro plants on Red River for ecological reasons since they build so much solar it offsetted it plus way more.
Ok. To me this seems a bit premature, but i have to trust that China knows what it's doing. If they think it's necessary for the ecology of the river and they calculated that they can offset the loss with other renewables, who am i to second-guess them?
It still makes me sad to see hydroelectric dams shut off and dismantled. Hydropower dams are in a lot of ways the ultimate expression of human engineering prowess.
It's too bad some waste water can't be somehow cleaned while also providing power. I'm neither scientist nor engineer, but I'm imagining how spring water is naturally filtered through sand, sediment, and rocks, or activated charcoal. If we had dams built to filter, it could alleviate or solve some problems.
It actually takes energy to clean waste water. Just filtering is not always enough. Chemical and other methods of treatment are often required. The purification process takes time and can't easily be done on flowing water.
Also, in order to produce hydroelectric energy you need water to flow from higher to lower elevation, but most waste water tends to be produced where people live, and most people tend to live at lower altitudes.
Glad I qualified myself as neither scientist nor engineer! Thanks for the brief lesson. I appreciate learning in small bites when busy. 🫡
Glad to hear it! I'm a big advocate of communicating scientific concepts to people in simple, easy to understand ways, and i try my best to do my part just a little each day.
I believe anyone can understand these things, and if they don't it's the fault of the teacher not the student.
And by the way, i wasn't saying that your idea is impossible. It's a good idea. I was just pointing out some practical difficulties. I'm sure someone smart enough can figure out a way to implement something like it.
Lol. It should have been plain in the beginning that at best, the water would need several passes, and I wasn't thinking of bacteria like fecal matter may contain, so of course chlorine may need to be used (I was actually thinking of industrial waste water, but that's what I get for being tired and in a hurry). At any rate, I'm happy it happened because I learned something worth knowing! Maybe others did, too.
Thanks again, comrade! 🫡