• Flyberius [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    2 days ago

    When I was driving in Xinjiang I saw this thing on the horizon and thout it was an inland sea. It was only as I drove nearer that it resolved into solar panels, but even then the illusion that it was actually a body of water continued. I swear it took 20-30 minutes to drive past.

    Of course this pales in comparison to the literal forests of wind farms that cover huge swathes of Xinjiang and which take hours to drive past and consist of the biggest wind turbines I’ve ever seen.

    The green energy infrastructure in Xinjiang is genuinely one of the most jaw dropping things I’ve ever seen in my life. Possibly the most.

    • Shezzagrad@lemmy.ml
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      2 days ago

      Be genuinely honest, what did it seem like for the local uguyrs? Do you think the west interpretation of what’s going on there true or an exaggeration?

      • Flyberius [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        1 day ago

        They are doing fine. I spoke with many of them, and in the rare occasion when politics came up and I mentioned the western line about the genocide there reactions ranged from laughter to outright horror. I ate their food. Danced with them in the public squares as Chinese people of all ethnicities are prone to doing. Their culture is celebrated in China, not suppressed. People come from all over China to experience it. China is very proud of the (I think) 56 ethnicities that compromise their country. It is enshrined in their laws that they are to be protected. The idea that they would just casually decide to snuff one of them out is absurd. And why now? Why didn’t they do this when they founded the state?

        There is a high security presence in Xinjiang. The state borders multiple countries and has been subject to American backed Arab spring fuckery.

        • Shezzagrad@lemmy.ml
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          1 day ago

          I can absolutely believe in America using groups to try to cause chaos within china, they did literally everywhere else, and now somehow china is the big bad genocidal nation? I hope to see it for myself as my ethnic homeland of Pakistan borders xinyang and I can cross it without a visa i think. Often time the west is projecting the things they very much did and propagandise that’s what china or Russia or whoever is GOING to do. When their best buddies Israel, Saudi Arabia and UAE all cause more problems in the world.

  • Nakoichi [they/them]@hexbear.net
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    2 days ago

    what the fuck you were not kidding that is fucking wild. Way to go China.

    I’ve slowly been slipping more pro china talking points into the myriad political conversations I have with libs and I sense that the grip of western propaganda is slipping. Like the whole green belt around that desert. Sometimes you can break through the thought terminating cliches by showing them something as awesome as this. Like they are literally trying to save us from ourselves and our stupid capitalist bullshit.

  • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    2 days ago

    That’s absurdly cool. But my doomer alarm went off when it says this farm feeds 2 million households- that means they’d need 300 of these to satisfy residential energy demands alone negative

  • MF_COOM [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    2 days ago

    I have a dumb question - on windy days do the cells get covered in desert dust and sand? Is there a way to clean them off if that happens?

    • Barabas [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      2 days ago

      Cleaning them is a lot less important with the new generations of solar panels, but if they wanted to they could always use a hose or a brush or whatever. I’ve managed a couple of smaller solar farms where they don’t get touched at all unless you need to pick off a dead seagull or something and the yield is pretty constant.

      Most of the sand and dust will also be blown away by the wind.