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Seaver Wang

@wang-seaver.bsky.social
2.6K followers 374 following 1.2K posts

Director, Climate and Energy at the Breakthrough Institute. 王思維. He/him. Oceanographer turned solution seeker. Ecomodernism is the way. PhD in Earth and Ocean Sciences.

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Reposted by Seaver Wang
Heatmap News @heatmap.news · 28/04/2026
Democrats need a real critical minerals policy — beyond just opposing Trump, @wang-seaver.bsky.social and Peter Cook of @thebti.bsky.social argue in an op-ed. Read more: heatmap.news/ideas/democr...
heatmap.news
Democrats Need a Critical Minerals Policy Beyond Anti-Trumpism
Party orthodoxy is no longer serving the energy transition, the Breakthrough Institute’s Seaver Wang and Peter Cook write.
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Reposted by Seaver Wang
Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
Efforts to cut lead times for US mineral projects must go beyond NEPA reform. New white paper by @cookpj.bsky.social and myself lays out a menu of options: enhanced mineral mapping $$, reforms to General Mining Law, improved BLM + Forest Service regs, and more. thebreakthrough.org/issues/energ...
thebreakthrough.org
Reducing Critical Mineral Project Lead Times
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Reposted by Seaver Wang
Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
Statement by @thebti.bsky.social with my remarks applauding the newly introduced SECURE Minerals Act of 2026 by Rep. Wittman, Rep. Moolenaar, Sen. Shaheen, and Sen. Young establishing a U.S. Strategic Resilience Reserve Corporation with $2.5B in initial capital. thebreakthrough.org/press/releas...
thebreakthrough.org
RELEASE: The SECURE Minerals Act Equips U.S. Critical Minerals…
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Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
Efforts to cut lead times for US mineral projects must go beyond NEPA reform. New white paper by @cookpj.bsky.social and myself lays out a menu of options: enhanced mineral mapping $$, reforms to General Mining Law, improved BLM + Forest Service regs, and more. thebreakthrough.org/issues/energ...
thebreakthrough.org
Reducing Critical Mineral Project Lead Times
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Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
Statement by @thebti.bsky.social with my remarks applauding the newly introduced SECURE Minerals Act of 2026 by Rep. Wittman, Rep. Moolenaar, Sen. Shaheen, and Sen. Young establishing a U.S. Strategic Resilience Reserve Corporation with $2.5B in initial capital. thebreakthrough.org/press/releas...
thebreakthrough.org
RELEASE: The SECURE Minerals Act Equips U.S. Critical Minerals…
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Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 22/12/2025
Given today's absurd U.S. Greenland envoy news, re-upping an older thread by me on why Greenland's mineral resources simply wouldn't be useful to the U.S. anytime in the near-to-medium term. That's on top of the sheer idiocy of continuing to pester European allies with such stunts, of course.
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Reposted by Seaver Wang
Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 19/12/2025
New work from my colleague @cookpj.bsky.social as the year winds down: what unconventional mineral resources could help take the US from import dependence to surplus in certain critical commodities? Byproduct recovery, waste mining, new deposit types: www.breakthroughjournal.org/p/could-the-...
breakthroughjournal.org
Could the U.S. Unlock a Shale Revolution for Critical Minerals?
Tapping new critical mineral resources with technology and innovation
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Reposted by Seaver Wang
Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 20/12/2025
"Beautiful clean coal" with Chinese characteristics: "Environmentally leading, towards the green future" (环保先行绿色未来) is painted over the carbon anode furnaces at Xinjiang Qiya Aluminum & Power--powered by 6 onsite coal units (2160MW) with another 2x660MW on the way.
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Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 20/12/2025
"Beautiful clean coal" with Chinese characteristics: "Environmentally leading, towards the green future" (环保先行绿色未来) is painted over the carbon anode furnaces at Xinjiang Qiya Aluminum & Power--powered by 6 onsite coal units (2160MW) with another 2x660MW on the way.
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Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 19/12/2025
New work from my colleague @cookpj.bsky.social as the year winds down: what unconventional mineral resources could help take the US from import dependence to surplus in certain critical commodities? Byproduct recovery, waste mining, new deposit types: www.breakthroughjournal.org/p/could-the-...
breakthroughjournal.org
Could the U.S. Unlock a Shale Revolution for Critical Minerals?
Tapping new critical mineral resources with technology and innovation
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Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 18/12/2025
Kudos to @ember-energy.org for rapidly fixing an error in their widely-read China Energy Transition report. A key graph on industrial electrification had an error making electrification look *far* larger: really a 8.1 EJ reduction in coal final energy, not an erroneous >23 EJ drop.
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Reposted by Seaver Wang
Sophie Richardson @sophiedrich.bsky.social · 17/12/2025
Required reading on #China #climate—facts to displace fictions, propaganda, “greenwashing”—from @wang-seaver.bsky.social @tednordhaus.bsky.social @vijramachandran. thebreakthrough.org/issues/energ...
thebreakthrough.org
Greenwashing With Chinese Characteristics
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Reposted by Seaver Wang
Sarah Sax @sarahlsax.bsky.social · 16/12/2025
The second is a deep dive into the numbers - and lives - behind China's renewable energy surge by @wang-seaver.bsky.social and @tednordhaus.bsky.social. --> www.breakthroughjournal.org/p/greenwashi...
breakthroughjournal.org
Greenwashing With Chinese Characteristics
China's "Green Electrostate" Is Neither
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Reposted by Seaver Wang
Sarah Sax @sarahlsax.bsky.social · 16/12/2025
Two great pieces just dropped that lift the veil on the story of China as a "green" saviour. Worth the read! First one by @sophiedrich.bsky.social @climaterights.bsky.social on what China showed - and obfuscated - at the most recent COP. climaterightsinternational.substack.com/p/china-cop3...
climaterightsinternational.substack.com
China COP30 Cop Out
By Sophie Richardson
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Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 15/12/2025
A partial industrial revival in Weirton, West Virginia. In 2003, Weirton Steel declared bankruptcy, shutting down its blast furnaces by 2005. Today, US iron-air battery manufacturer Form Energy has built its first factory on the same site, with plans to expand. 40.418, -80.593
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Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 03/12/2025
New piece from me: Fish larvae are not a good reason for the California Coastal Commission to delay approval of a key permit California's Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant needs to continue operating. thebreakthrough.org/articles/why...
thebreakthrough.org
Why California’s Coastal Commission Should Let Diablo Canyon Keep…
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Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 26/11/2025
In a testament to the speed + boldness of Chinese companies in rapidly expanding beyond their "core competencies", my grandma is still working her way through a stash of BYD face masks from August 2020, when BYD quickly became one of the world's largest mask manufacturers.
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Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
An interesting observation: Japan + Germany are about tied for the 4th + 5th most solar PV capacity globally at ~91+GWdc each, but Japan only has two PV farms >200MW and Germany only one. Relatively few superlarge deployments. Land-abundant countries have it easier I guess. 🧵
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Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
A friggin exciting breakthrough in clean aluminum smelting. Reducing the power consumption of this new cell technology is more straightforward. The daunting obstacle is that this cell type is not drop-in compatible for existing facilities, so we're talking all-new plants globally (or more tweaking).
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Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 23/11/2025
"Wetlands? Who needs those?" For all the China infrastructure simping on here among ex-China climate/enviro folks, y’all don’t have the guts to actually copy it. Ezhou Huahu ('flower lake') Int’l Airport, "China's 1st cargo-focused int’l airport" east of Wuhan. 30.331, 115.036
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Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 21/11/2025
Hearing that Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in Japan has received approval from Niigata prefecture to restart, re-upping my recent thread on the status of Japan's reactors under construction + awaiting restart: (K-K Units 6 + 7 already have safety approvals to restart)
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Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 21/11/2025
This morning's quick research dive: as best as I can tell, large reservoir hydroelectric dams require on average ~5x the concrete per GW of generation capacity that nuclear does. The variation among dams is also remarkable. Baihetan and Xiluodu relatively efficient.
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Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 21/11/2025
LNG tankers + storage tanks use thin foil layers of a special alloy called Invar with a low coefficient of thermal expansion, 36% nickel with some grades ~5% cobalt. Anyone know if liquified hydrogen tanks use Invar, or is a different alloy needed? I'm seeing different things.
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Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 21/11/2025
"China builds the world's biggest energy projects" with a twist. Unless Chinese firms have started selling them abroad, I believe China is the only country operating the world’s largest 270000 cubic m LNG storage tanks, now built at a few new terminal phases all <2 yrs old.
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Reposted by Seaver Wang
Commercial Solar Guy @commercialsolarguy.com · 18/11/2025
‘Corning’s Michigan facility began producing silicon ingots & wafers Q3’2025…plans to ramp daily production to 1 million wafers in Q4…first domestic production of ingots/wafers in nearly a decade…publicly announced 10/2024 - construction likely commenced prior…remarkably fast by U.S. standards’
solarbeglobal.com
Corning Leads U.S. Domestic PV Wafer Supply|Manufacturing|Solarbe Global
By the end of October 2025, Corning announced that its Michigan facility had begun producing silicon ingots and wafers in the third quarter of 2025, with pl ...
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Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
Crystalline silicon solar doesn't use cadmium. None. Zero. This myth arose from confusion over different solar techs 15 yrs ago but won't die. Electric connex in panels may use some lead-tin solder, but one should worry more about lead/solder/brass fittings in home/local water pipes. And paint.
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Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 17/11/2025
I don't suppose anyone is aware of a database or resource that records the brand and model of solar PV modules used in specific big utility-scale solar installations? I expect no global database exists, but curious if there is one for the EU, US, other countries, or states.
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Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 17/11/2025
Korea is flexing here with this highly artistic floating solar farm, newly commissioned days ago. 47.2 MW of capacity located near the 50 MW Imha hydroelectric dam. The modules are arranged into the shape of Korea’s flag and the Mugunghwa, Korea’s national flower.
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Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 16/11/2025
Chatting with many international peers in recent months (Taiwan/JPN/Indonesia/range of EU) and many feel geothermal is desirable as an idea but see their domestic potential as limited to a few 100s of MW/maybe a GW... Geothermal may have to challenge those conceptions to grow globally?
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Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 15/11/2025
350 may not have been particularly relevant for the past several years now, but nevertheless this feels like the end of an era. subscriber.politicopro.com/article/eene...
subscriber.politicopro.com
E&E News: Green group 350.org suspends US operations, cuts global staff by 30 percent
The group will keep three U.S. positions open in hopes of reviving operations in the future.
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Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 13/11/2025
We happen to have some satellite images for office decor (not my idea actually!) We have one of the Mt Whaleback iron ore mine in the Pilbara, Western AUS. Largest single surface iron mine globally, part of 3rd largest iron ore complex by output. Note 2km scale. -23.36 119.66
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Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 11/11/2025
Regular reminder: we have many reasons to conserve the Amazon or ocean algae, but "the air we breathe" isn't really one of them. Just hypothetically, burning all biomass on Earth only shifts atmospheric oxygen from 20.9%➡️20.4% and CO2 from 400➡️900ppm. www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...
theatlantic.com
The Amazon Is Not Earth’s Lungs
Humans could burn every living thing on the planet and still not dent its oxygen supply.
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Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 08/11/2025
Remarkable how cavalier China's industrial ecosystem can be with large capital projects. Weiqiao starts building a 470,000 tons/yr aluminum smelter in Binzhou, Shandong in 2014 It's built by Feb 2017 By 2020 it's being torn down 2024: a totally new workshop is using the site 🧵
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Reposted by Seaver Wang
jae holzman @jael.bsky.social · 07/11/2025
someone went up to sarah mcbride in front of the u.s. congress, hurled her deadname at her loudly and called her a pedophile repeatedly, posted video of the exchange to x, and it is now going wildly viral i will not share the video but if you’re not speaking up about this, you’re hurting yourself
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Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 07/11/2025
That a detestable so-called "Christian" activist recording himself harassing Rep Sarah McBride in public has gone so grotesquely viral is unnatural. I feel we're being botted + pushed towards hate. Simultaneously such identity-based persecution is clearly real, intensifying and terrifying.
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Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 06/11/2025
Our new report explores potential future US + global nuclear fuel supply chain needs, from uranium enrichment to mining. If the US really wants to expand nuclear to 400GW nationwide by 2050, the US must secure enrichment ~5x-10x of current domestic capacity.🧵 thebreakthrough.org/issues/energ...
thebreakthrough.org
Abundant Fuel for Abundant Reactors
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Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 05/11/2025
“Enviro groups are gravely mistaken if they think they can promote better mining/refining/manufacturing of renewables + EVs while ignoring the elephant in the room. Globally many unethical supply chains leverage China as a chief refuge from accountability” www.breakthroughjournal.org/p/six-things...
breakthroughjournal.org
Six Things the Climate Movement Gets Wrong About China
The China conversation we all keep dodging
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Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 04/11/2025
No reason a society shouldn’t have both! And I worry that we risk ending up with neither… but at the end of the day if you could only pick one, some things are worth more than 50,000 km of high-speed railway.
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Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 02/11/2025
Grand plan to end opposition to transmission projects: Romanticize the heck out of transmission. Loving shots of transmission in backdrop/enviro shots of every movie, TV show + commercial until people subliminally get warm fuzzy feelings every time they see high-voltage pylons.
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Reposted by Seaver Wang
Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 31/10/2025
People want a fast energy transition but also talk about one that's fair + just. The prevailing selective discourse re: China risks a future with neither. New by me: 🧵 www.breakthroughjournal.org/p/six-things...
breakthroughjournal.org
Six Things the Climate Movement Gets Wrong About China
The China conversation we all keep dodging
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Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 31/10/2025
People want a fast energy transition but also talk about one that's fair + just. The prevailing selective discourse re: China risks a future with neither. New by me: 🧵 www.breakthroughjournal.org/p/six-things...
breakthroughjournal.org
Six Things the Climate Movement Gets Wrong About China
The China conversation we all keep dodging
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Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 29/10/2025
I do personally believe workers at mines, metallurgical plants, and electric utilities should possess union membership. - difficult working conditions - unique workplace hazards - limited alternative local employers offering same work - value of specialized skills/training
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Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 24/10/2025
Great @bradplumer.bsky.social @harrystevens.bsky.social piece on China's nuclear ambition. I'm biased but I think a good satellite comparison is worth 1000 words. Incidentally, the score for aluminum smelters built since 1990 would be ~50-60 for China, 0 for the US. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
nytimes.com
How China Raced Ahead of the U.S. on Nuclear Power (Gift Article)
The United States was once the undisputed leader in atomic energy. Now it is trying to catch up.
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Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 21/10/2025
Supremely unhelpful. "These projects had missed milestones" smacks of an excuse and a misguided hope for unicorns. Rather, US supply chain policy needs commitment + grit to do hard things--like start up synthetic graphite production (e.g. Anovion)! www.utilitydive.com/news/departm...
utilitydive.com
DOE cancels $700 million in battery and manufacturing project grants
A DOE spokesperson said the projects had missed milestones and would not provide a positive return on investment of taxpayer dollars.
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Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 21/10/2025
Catching up on reading. I recommend @kyleichan.bsky.social's fresh piece on this new phase of Chinese export controls + its historical policy origins. Some misc. thoughts on popular comparisons to the 2010 China-Japan Senkaku Islands rare earths episode: 🧵 www.high-capacity.com/p/chinas-eme...
high-capacity.com
China's emerging export control regime
China is trying to build a "unified export control system" that's about much more than just leverage in the latest negotiations with the US
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Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 20/10/2025
New piece by colleague @cookpj.bsky.social argues that while most folks jump to negative enviro + safety assumptions about mining, we should recognize the major progress U.S. mining has achieved since the 1970s on safety, pollution control + oversight. www.breakthroughjournal.org/p/mining-is-...
breakthroughjournal.org
Mining Is Not What it Used to Be
U.S. mining doesn’t need fixing to help the world decarbonize
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Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 18/10/2025
"It just keeps spreading, doesn't it?" "It's been hard to contain..." Gen Z straw hat pirates spotted at the No Kings rally in D.C. today.
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Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 17/10/2025
Possibly under-appreciated context to Chinese rare earth export controls: mining/trade data are opaque, but researchers + NGOs still think Myanmar heavy rare earth ore mining activity has slowed following the Kachin state's 2024 takeover of mining areas. news.mongabay.com/2025/09/sate...
news.mongabay.com
Satellite data show burst of deforestation in Myanmar rare earth mining hotspots
Myanmar’s Kachin state, near the border with China, is a global hub for rare earth minerals. But the dearth of regulations over mining these resources has come at a steep cost to the area’s subtropica...
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Seaver Wang @wang-seaver.bsky.social · 16/10/2025
Forget export controls. A big threat to U.S. critical minerals Trump faces is self-inflicted--his culture war on university funding + federal science. Funding cuts especially hurt hard sciences/engineering, throttling a future workforce needed for scaleup over next 5-10 yrs.
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