Australian Politics Forum

Sprintcyclist

Gold Member

Offline

OzPolitic

Posts: 41788
Gender: male

China
Jun 7^th, 2026 at 8:52pm

is far ahead of the rest of the world

China invented a gravity battery the size of a skyscraper — and it stores enough energy to power a city district for an entire night.
The Energy Vault system deployed in Rudong County, Jiangsu Province in 2023 uses a deceptively simple principle: when electricity is cheap and abundant, use it to lift heavy weights. When electricity is expensive and scarce, let the weights fall and recover the energy through generators. Gravity never takes a day off. It never degrades over charge cycles. It requires no exotic materials, no lithium, no cobalt, and no temperature management. It is physics, scaled into a 100-metre tower filled with custom composite blocks weighing 35 tonnes each.
The Rudong installation stores 100 megawatt-hours — enough to power approximately 100,000 Chinese urban households for one hour, or 10,000 households for ten hours. The round-trip efficiency is approximately 80-85%, comparable to lithium-ion batteries but with a projected operational life of 35 years and no capacity degradation over time. A lithium battery that stores 100 megawatt-hours today will store 70 to 80 megawatt-hours in fifteen years. The gravity tower will store exactly the same in fifteen years as it does today, because physics does not wear out.
China has approved five additional Energy Vault installations across Jiangsu and Guangdong provinces, with a combined storage capacity of 1,500 megawatt-hours. The technology attracts investment because its cost structure is the inverse of batteries: high upfront capital but near-zero ongoing costs, with an operational lifetime that amortises that capital over decades rather than years. In a country building renewable energy at the scale China is building it, storage that lasts 35 years without degradation is worth paying more for upfront.

Back to top

Modern Classic Right Wing

IP Logged

Leroy Gold Member Offline Australian Politics Posts: 5107 Gender:	Re: China Reply #1 - Jun 7^th, 2026 at 9:20pm No different to hydro power.
Back to top	Trump derangement syndrome Fareed Zakaria defined the term as "hatred of President Trump so intense that it impairs people's judgment" IP Logged

Ai_Took_Our_Jobs Gold Member Offline Australian Politics Posts: 792 Gender:	Re: China Reply #2 - Jun 8^th, 2026 at 4:24am Advantages: Unlike lithium-ion batteries, this technology requires no rare earth metals, uses local materials, and avoids complex chemical cycles. We should replicate this method across Australia, so to pay roof solar a decent return while complimenting big battery storage. Far better method than the far right's nuclear wet dream.
Back to top	IP Logged

Leroy

Gold Member

Offline

Australian Politics

Posts: 5107
Gender: male

Re: China
Reply #3 - Jun 8^th, 2026 at 8:07am

Ai_Took_Our_Jobs wrote on Jun 8^th, 2026 at 4:24am:

Advantages: Unlike lithium-ion batteries, this technology requires no rare earth metals, uses local materials, and avoids complex chemical cycles.

We should replicate this method across Australia, so to pay roof solar a decent return while complimenting big battery storage.

Far better method than the far right's nuclear wet dream.

Not like China's wet dream.

Quote:

China possesses the world's third-largest nuclear power fleet, with over 60 operable reactors generating more than 450 TWh annually. Accounting for nearly half of all global nuclear reactors currently under construction, China aims to aggressively expand its capacity to 110 GWe by 2030 to meet climate commitments and ensure energy security.

Back to top

Trump derangement syndrome
Fareed Zakaria defined the term as "hatred of President Trump so intense that it impairs people's judgment"

IP Logged

Ai_Took_Our_Jobs

Gold Member

Offline

Australian Politics

Posts: 792
Gender: male

Re: China
Reply #4 - Jun 8^th, 2026 at 9:10am

53 times the population plus China carries the global economy :

China is the world’s largest exporter and a top-tier importer, having overtaken the United States as the primary trading partner for approximately 70% of global economies (145 countries) as of 2023–2025. This dominance is driven by its role as the central hub in global supply chains, holding dominant export positions in 730 product categories (accounting for over 50% of global exports in each) by 2023, far exceeding the EU, US, and Japan.

Australia only has dig it up and sells/give away for free, without any value adding
plus
a real estate ponzi scheme.

Renewables are more than enough, without debt crippling the country more with white elephant uranium nuclear.

If the hard right was peddling thorium, then that would be a far easier sell. Dumbarses !

Back to top

IP Logged

lee Gold Member Offline Australian Politics Posts: 20923 Gender:	Re: China Reply #5 - Jun 8^th, 2026 at 1:01pm Ai_Took_Our_Jobs wrote on Jun 8^th, 2026 at 9:10am: Renewables are more than enough, without debt crippling the country more with white elephant uranium nuclear. So if renewables are more than enough, why the increasing use of fossil fuels?
Back to top	IP Logged

Ai_Took_Our_Jobs

Gold Member

Offline

Australian Politics

Posts: 792
Gender: male

Re: China
Reply #6 - Jun 8^th, 2026 at 2:03pm

lee wrote on Jun 8^th, 2026 at 1:01pm:

Ai_Took_Our_Jobs wrote on Jun 8^th, 2026 at 9:10am:

Renewables are more than enough, without debt crippling the country more with white elephant uranium nuclear.

So if renewables are more than enough, why the increasing use of fossil fuels? Roll Eyes

Bad / short sighted / self interest governance on all levels.

Centralised journalism that pedals propaganda over fact based news, so to push the owner's politics.

Corrupted political parties that are owned by multinationals, fossil fuel lobby groups, and moguls, such as Gina owning the gnats and in the process of buying 1nation.

Back to top

IP Logged

aquascoot Gold Member Offline Australian Politics Posts: 37879 Gender:	Re: China Reply #7 - Jun 8^th, 2026 at 2:08pm China understands energy security is economic security Sure China loves solar and wind. They also love hydro They love coal, they love batteries, they love gas. The more the merrier. You can never have too much cheap energy. It's the foundation of all prosperity
Back to top	IP Logged

freediver Gold Member Offline www.ozpolitic.com Posts: 53184 At my desk.	Re: China Reply #8 - Jun 8^th, 2026 at 2:10pm Leroy wrote on Jun 7^th, 2026 at 9:20pm: No different to hydro power. But a lot more expensive I expect. With hydro power, the storage amount is only limited by the dam size, which can be huge with a relatively small dam wall. With a gravity battery, you have to double the size of the building to double the storage.
Back to top	People who can't distinguish between etymology and entomology bug me in ways I cannot put into words. IP Logged

Ai_Took_Our_Jobs Gold Member Offline Australian Politics Posts: 792 Gender:	Re: China Reply #9 - Jun 8^th, 2026 at 2:23pm Snowy Mountain 2 shows the pitfalls of hydro. An ecological nightmare, cost blow out, vulnerable to droughts, and only have low potential in a few geography areas. Heading into a super el Nino, I would rather rely on gravity over heavy rainfall, to power my air conditioner.
Back to top	IP Logged

lee

Gold Member

Offline

Australian Politics

Posts: 20923
Gender: male

Re: China
Reply #10 - Jun 8^th, 2026 at 2:49pm

Ai_Took_Our_Jobs wrote on Jun 8^th, 2026 at 2:03pm:

Bad / short sighted / self interest governance on all levels.

Really/? Globally Wind and solar about 14%, fossil fuels about 80%. Even China, despite news touting 52% renewables and others fossil fuel about 60%

There are still no large renewables projects running solar panel manufacturing..

Ai_Took_Our_Jobs wrote on Jun 8^th, 2026 at 2:03pm:

Centralised journalism that pedals propaganda over fact based news, so to push the owner's politics.

So you mean China is being dishonest? China has more centralised journalism than anywhere. Wink

Ai_Took_Our_Jobs wrote on Jun 8^th, 2026 at 2:03pm:

Corrupted political parties that are owned by multinationals, fossil fuel lobby groups, and moguls, such as Gina owning the gnats and in the process of buying 1nation.

Oh dear. The conspiracy theory strikes again. Roll Eyes

China's fossil fuel use is increasing. So much for being held captive by Fossil fuel interests.

Back to top

IP Logged

tallowood

Gold Member

Offline

Израиль Навсегда

Posts: 8113
Gender: male

Re: China
Reply #11 - Jun 8^th, 2026 at 4:20pm

⚡️☁️ China has launched a special operation to enforce maritime law in waters east of Taiwan, Chinese media report.

The escalation occurred amid negotiations between Japan and the Philippines over the delimitation of maritime boundaries east of Taiwan, which China views as a serious violation of its territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests.

Back to top

עַם יִשְרָאֵל חַי

IP Logged

tallowood

Gold Member

Offline

Израиль Навсегда

Posts: 8113
Gender: male

Re: China
Reply #12 - Jun 8^th, 2026 at 4:58pm

tallowood wrote on Jun 8^th, 2026 at 4:20pm:

⚡️☁️ China has launched a special operation to enforce maritime law in waters east of Taiwan, Chinese media report.

The escalation occurred amid negotiations between Japan and the Philippines over the delimitation of maritime boundaries east of Taiwan, which China views as a serious violation of its territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests.

Back to top

עַם יִשְרָאֵל חַי

IP Logged

Sprintcyclist

Gold Member

Offline

OzPolitic

Posts: 41788
Gender: male

Re: China
Reply #13 - Yesterday at 9:31am

China's grid transmission sector produced a physics result in 2024 that power engineers worldwide had classified as beyond near-term commercial feasibility — its ±1,100 kV Ultra High Voltage direct current transmission line from Xinjiang to Anhui demonstrated transmission losses of only 1.5% across 3,324 km, breaking the previous efficiency record for long-distance electricity transport by 28% and delivering the equivalent energy of 40 nuclear reactors to China's eastern seaboard with minimal loss.
The 1.5% loss figure over 3,324 km is almost physically implausible by conventional transmission engineering expectations. Conventional 400 kV AC transmission loses approximately 8-10% per 1,000 km. The Changji-Guquan ±1,100 kV DC line — operating at the highest voltage level ever achieved in commercial power transmission — achieves its extraordinary efficiency through a combination of superconducting-adjacent technology: ultra-pure aluminium conductors with resistivity 40% lower than standard cable, vacuum-impregnated insulation systems operating at precise temperatures, and converter stations using AI-managed multilevel modular converters that minimise harmonic losses at the point of AC-DC conversion.
The AI managing the converter station operations processes 600,000 switching events per second at each end of the line, optimising the multilevel modular converter switching sequences in real time to minimise harmonic content and conversion losses. Conventional converter stations lose 0.6% of transmitted power in conversion; the AI-optimised converters at Changji and Guquan lose 0.18% — a 70% improvement in conversion efficiency.
The practical consequence: every percentage point of transmission efficiency improvement across China's 40 UHV lines saves the equivalent of several large power stations' annual output — electricity that would otherwise need to be generated.
China built transmission lines so efficient they make generating more electricity unnecessary.

Back to top

Modern Classic Right Wing

IP Logged

lee Gold Member Offline Australian Politics Posts: 20923 Gender:	Re: China Reply #14 - Yesterday at 1:48pm Ah yes. DC transmission. So they have to convert AC to DC with the attendant losses. Transmission in DC with losses, but fewer. And then reconvert to AC with those attendant losses. The question then becomes are all those losses less than the previous AC loss? The story carefully doesn't say.
Back to top	IP Logged