Is China really so much more advanced than the States?

A correspondent shared a glowing article about the massive 1,000 MW hybrid solar powerplant recently turned on in the Gobi Desert by the People’s Republic of (Red) China:

One commenter wrote: Many still look at China as a somewhat backward nation, and with respect to culture and treatment of the individual, it is. But they are increasingly announcing scientific and knowledge developments that seem to be ahead of ours, unless we are suppressing information of our own developments as well. Instead of fighting endless wars with ghost enemies, would we not be way ahead if we focused on doing something good instead?

The article does indeed seem to indicate that China is “ahead of” the States. And no doubt, various groups and power-brokers are suppressing information. But the article starts out with the lies from the git-go: Molten salt does not “generate” a single watt of electrical power: it functions as a giagantic (and freaky, even dangerous) battery for electrical power. Solar electrical power, which as always, is only produced when the sun is up at the location, and in places like the Gobi and similar American and European locations, there are no clouds (such as dust clouds generated by the wind) and conditions are just right.

But are we Yankees really so backward compared to the estimable technocrats and brave, bold, and wise vanguard of the proletariat ruling wisely from Bejing?

Americans built something like this near Ivanpah, California. It was smaller, 392 MW versus this claimed 1,000 MW: so only about 40%, but was supposed to be expanded. It wasn’t. The California plant was approved in 2009 and constructed between 2010 and 2013 and began operating on a limited basis then, and fully connected to the grid in 2014.

We understand it has been pretty much a total disaster, costing much more than it was supposed to and with operating costs between 5-8 times what they were supposed to be (according to various sources). It was supposed to have an indefinite lifetime but its owner/operators (who have a huge number of creditors, including the FedGov) have never achieved any of the production, it has a very low capacity factor, and its environmental impact is far, far worse than initially reported. Starting in 2025, the owners/operators tried to shut it down (and among other things, stop hemorraging money). But the State of California has forced it to remain open, despite all of the problems and costs.

All told, it was and is a disaster. For ratepayers, taxpayers, the environment, and more. And it’s not just California to blame for it.

Spain also has had some catastrophic failures of similar, if much smaller scale, projects, as touched on in the artlcle: the molten salt technology sounds neat but it not anything close to a mature engineered technology. Any physicist or engineer can explain why: it has to do with thermodynamics and waste heat, and the “fun” of mechanical systems, their operation and maintenance. Last we heard, a similar project in Dubai is still running, unless the IRGC has wiped it out.

This Gobi plant may have learned from the mistakes in California and Spain, but we can be pretty certain that it was NOT Chinese homegrown technology used. We have no idea if they actually paid for the technology or just stole it from the US and the EU (“industrial espionage”) as they are wont to do.

And the Gansu Province station, with its planned 1.8 billion Kw-Hr per year of generated electricity? It cost much less than the reported $2.18 billion that Ivanpah did, even with inflation, Beijing claimes a total cost of only $480 million. Slave labor and sidestepping environmental, safety, and health requirements we take for granted in the States can help do that! To say nothing of “quality control” that is a total joke. Like the Ivanpah attempt, we have no reason to expect it to actually live up to Beijing’s claims.

Meanwhile, it isn’t the money being spent stupidly on wars that is harming American power production. Bad as that is, it is at best an indirect impact on American electrical power production. What is hurting the States power-wise? A combination of incredibly bad regulatory processes at the FedGov and the State and local levels, the constant drumbeat of propaganda about the evils of nuclear power, natural gas, coal, and other “non-renewable” energy sources.  That, and the refusal of politicians and the public to let engineers do what makes sense from an engineering point of view and not based on fads, lies, and fearmongering.

American and Western technology in this and other fields is genuinely far more advanced than what China is using, just as was the case with the Soviets. But we are our own worst enemy, as we force the abandonment and dismantlement of massive power stations, try to centralize and connect more and more of the States (and Canada and Mexico) into a dangerously unstable, massive, and very expensive grid, because our politicians and their transnational conglomerate allies want more and more control.

It is not technology that prevents us from generating electrical power in “micro” nuclear power stations producing power from thorium, uranium, and even plutonium: it is bureaucratic madness and fear.

Which is largely what drives the stupid military adventures and incredible costs of wars in Ukraine, Iran, and elsewhere: a fear that people cannot do a reasonably good job of governing themselves in freedom and with liberty. Not perfect, mind you, but much better than the parasites do and have done. Whether they are in DC, NYC, Brussels, Moscow, Kiev, London, Tehran, or Jerusalem.

Until we do something about them, this will go on.

(See also the next commentary, a follow on to this one.)

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Source: https://freedombunker.com/2026/07/18/is-china-really-so-much-more-advanced-than-the-states/