More garbage from China

[okeydokey]

Slightly off original topic but..... Interesting the Honda 50 has a "proper name" of Super Cub. My first motorbike was a Triumph Super Cub or was it just the Tiger Cub? Anyway 199cc of power, great machine I changed the valve lifter cam to increase performance. Probably worth a bit nowadays

 

[Amateur]

I worked for a company that made newspaper printing presses.
Loads of huge steel rollers were made.
So it went like this.
Roller came in and rough turned on a huge lathe.
Final turning.
Turned Under size.
Roller sent to welding shop for a layer to be put on the roller.
Roller back to turner.
Turner machines it correctly.
Goes to grinder.
Grinder sets up and grinds it under size.
Roller goes out for powder coating.

The main problem was the age of machinery in both instances. Anyone that's worked on a long lathe with a dip in the carriage and years of age wear, knows the problem.
We never invested enough at the time.

 

[Britman]

I've had plenty of tat that was made in China but also had some top quality stuff with the most recent purchase being the mitre gauge, very well made and very reasonably priced.

Just keep in mind that any dealings with Chinese manufacturers that are allowed to export, they can only so with the express permission of the CCP. They have a stake in every business that deals with other countries.

 

[JohnPW]

That's going well, isn't it? From today's Times -


China — by far the world’s biggest producer of greenhouse gas — has held back from a commitment to cut emissions within five years, in a step that has dismayed environmentalists.

The country accounts for 26 per cent of global emissions, compared with 15 per cent for the US and about 1 per cent for the UK.

President Xi Jinping said last year that China would reach net-zero emissions by 2060, and climate experts hoped his new five-year plan, which sets out the nation’s strategy from 2021 to 2025, would reveal how that would be achieved.

Li Keqiang, the prime minister, was widely expected to announce that it would reach peak carbon emissions by 2025 when he unveiled the five-year plan to the National People’s Congress on Friday. Instead he gave details of an industrial strategy that leaves China reliant on burning coal.


It has consumed more coal than the rest of the world put together every year since 2011. While it has committed huge investment to wind and nuclear energy, it is still building enough coal power plants to provide 247GW of power — enough to supply the whole of Germany.

Can you get a more skewed article than that?

China has more than 4 times the population of the US and also produces most of the world's manufactured goods.

The US per capita in fact produces several times more emissions than China.

China has about 18% of the world's population.
The US has about 4% of the world's population and yet still produces 15% of the world's emissions, going by those figures.

 

[Lefley]

People tend to forget. Most people expect inferior products from China as they want to pay ultra cheap prices. China also produces over the top high end products also, but you have to pay for them, ie Tesla cars coming from China. If you send quality control people over to there factories and then use there lower wages you have a win win situation.

 

[Lefley]

Can you get a more skewed article than that?

China has more than 4 times the population of the US and also produces most of the world's manufactured goods.

The US per capita in fact produces several times more emmisions than China.

China has about 18% of the world's population.
The US has about 4% of the world's population and yet still produces 15% of the world's emmisions, going by those figures.

Very easy to fix. I believe China buys most of there coal from Canada and Australia. If these countries are so worried about cutting world wide emissions in 5 years, then cut coal exports in 5 years so China has no coal and has to follow.

 

[D_W]

I'd imagine whoever the largest industrial power is, that'll be the greatest polluter. Would guess that in total emissions, it was the US for a while, and probably Russia and England/European countries.

China has a rising middle class, and industry won't be the only group bringing on demand for power - the middle class folks literally increased demand for rosewood more than 10 fold in less than a decade (rosewood furniture being a sign that you can afford rosewood furniture, and chinese sources exhausted).

I see things two ways:
1) we're in mature economies, and the UK, Europe and US have cleaned up emissions enormous amounts in the last 60 years. I'd bet we *still* use far more BTUs per individual than we did 60 years ago, but what goes into the air is much cleaner
2) we forget what it was probably like when our economies were finding their identity and growing faster than we could grow them "clean".

I'd also be willing to bet that we entered into agreements (both the UK and US) and then acted in our own interest after the fact. China is in that stage. When we tell them we want them to make stuff for us, then we're just fueling the fire, so to speak.

There's an old saying here (For marriages) - "you can tell me what you want me to do for you, or you can tell me how you want me to do something, but you can't tell me both".

 

[paulrbarnard]

Slightly off original topic but..... Interesting the Honda 50 has a "proper name" of Super Cub. My first motorbike was a Triumph Super Cub or was it just the Tiger Cub? Anyway 199cc of power, great machine I changed the valve lifter cam to increase performance. Probably worth a bit nowadays

That would have been a Tiger Cub.

 

[D_W]

Can you get a more skewed article than that?

China has more than 4 times the population of the US and also produces most of the world's manufactured goods.

The US per capita in fact produces several times more emissions than China.

China has about 18% of the world's population.
The US has about 4% of the world's population and yet still produces 15% of the world's emissions, going by those figures.

We're about double them per capita right now - surprised they're even that close. Also surprised to see that the aussies and canadians (and several others) "out-carbon" is per capita. Never would've guessed that. Residential heating and sparse population plus the oil sands probably does the trick for canada - what's AU - dependence on coal?

Figure as means become available with more individuals in China, it's going to be awfully hard to go the opposite direction. When their GDP per capita is a fifth or 7th of ours in the state's, it's hard to tell them to start making sacrifices.

 

[TominDales]

I worked for a company that made newspaper printing presses.

The main problem was the age of machinery in both instances. Anyone that's worked on a long lathe with a dip in the carriage and years of age wear, knows the problem.
We never invested enough at the time.

The industrial revolution was powered by innovation. Then whole industries in the UK just stopped innovating, not only did they stop investing in up-to-date equipment, but seemed to get stuck in their ways, not realised that there is always a better way to do things. At least now, innovation is seen as key, so hopefully we will start to get some manufacturing back again..

 

[TominDales]

That's going well, isn't it? From today's Times -

China — by far the world’s biggest producer of greenhouse gas — has held back from a commitment to cut emissions within five years, in a step that has dismayed environmentalists.

That Times article seems rather selective, the UK and the Times have had the scales come off their eyes regarding China as the great trading partner of yesteryear and are far more critical than they were. However China's climate commitment is far more nuanced than this article gives credit. China is the largest producer of renewables, has the most wind and solar and huge hydro stations. Most of the worlds silicon solar is made in furnaces powered by Chinese hydro and sold a rock bottom prices to monetise the electricity from the 3 gorges. Per capita China emits much lower co2 than US and EU. China is vulnerable to climate change, the central government is concerned about it for self interested reasons and doing more than most to tackle it. Part of the problem is regional governments and cities have built and are building coal fired stations contrary to national policy - a paradox of china is despite the top down party control, it is such a massive country that regional towns and provinces have a lot of local power. It wont be long before the center exerts control over regional policy. China, not un-like most countries needs to maintain economic growth to pacify its population, so has to balance its priorities - and as an oligarchic state, its leaders are always feeling vulnerable to their population turning against them. They can face down the odd protest but are fearful of mass unrest.
My guess is that China will de-carbonise faster than most developed countries, but will be cautious to not upset economic growth as that is the party's main selling point to it population post communism.

 

[JoshD]

As regards China's carbon footprint, don't forget that by outsourcing our manufacturing to China we've also outsourced a significant portion of our carbon production, ie, some of their carbon footprint is actually our carbon footprint.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Per capita China emits much lower co2 than US and EU ...

Certainly - but I can't see what that has to do with the price of fish.

 

[Fergie 307]

These days a lot of high quality castings are imported, yes we do have a few foundries left but our H&S makes life very difficult so it is easier to get them made abroad where they don't care if they are working in sandles and straw hats. I believe this is what finished Record, again to expensive to comply with the safety aspects so gone, now made abroad.

This was what led to the demise of Myford, they outsourced production of beds and other castings to Chine. Pretty soon they found the Chinese selling copies of their machines for a third of the price. Harrison also briefly made lathes in China, although in their case they stopped after a few years owing to quality problems that they apparently couldn't overcome. So a new Harrison M300 is about £15,000. A Chinese machine with similar spec is around £5,000. Is the Harrison a better machine, undoubtedly. Is it three times better ?? Have to say though that I find it difficult to understand why people buy the £5k Chinese lathes when for the same money you can buy a good used English or American machine.

 

[TRITON]

We had a big laser cutter from China, which was about £4k as opposed to £12K and when it came in the damn thing didnt work. Thankfully we also had a maker whose previous profession was in electronics and computers(cisco) and he took it mostly to bits, rewired sections, replaced some of the servos and reprogrammed it and got it working, and its been working ever since and thats about 8 years.
Of course it could have become damaged in transit and its a big bloody thing about 5' long, and maybe turning it on caused some of the problems, but it is a case of you get what you pay for.

 

[MarkDennehy]

That's going well, isn't it?

Actually, yes. Lots of people would prefer it to go faster but this was the policy equivalent of jumping off the empire state building - it might take a little time to get to ground level, but once you jump, it's rather hard to change direction and there's a certain inevitability to the process

 

[Phil Pascoe]

China has held back from a commitment to cut emissions within five years ...

Where does "slowing down" come into that?