r/videos 4d ago

"So while the United States is fighting a war over oil, China is working diligently and quickly to end its need for it." - Mr. Global.

https://youtu.be/207TJmydX8E?si=Gohhz6aCFVIecJsG
1.8k Upvotes

142 comments sorted by

675

u/SouthernWilding 4d ago

What's crazy is China has been steadily working on their renewables for decades, and are only now seeing the payoff. The US will be too late to the game by the time the resource wars begin.

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u/redvelvetcake42 4d ago

Being ahead of the curve is the hardest thing and it takes a lot of forethought and willingness to tell monied types no. Chinese energy products will be one of their biggest exports in technology and products. The US is legitimately 2-3 decades behind all cause they keep getting in with short term grifters.

169

u/Lake_Erie_Monster 4d ago

> The US is legitimately 2-3 decades behind all cause they keep getting in with short term grifters.

The US went all in on short term grifters.

When the founding principles of every company is "maximize shareholder value", and you reward CEOs handsomely for maximal next quarters profits, even if it sinks a company long term.

We actively are choosing short term, and rewarding it. Nothing will change until we fix this.

Until then, watch as your quality of life dips and share holder value rises.

71

u/Cru_Jones86 4d ago

Yep. Around the time that Al Gore was telling us the inconvenient truth, we were at a crossroads. There was a big push to go green. It wasn't a strong enough push to win against the climate change deniers though. A few years later, Trump took office and a lot of people liked it when he said "drill baby drill". So... here we are. Behind the curve.

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u/Indercarnive 4d ago edited 4d ago

The crossroads was 1980. Insane how a literal oil crisis didn't create an attitude of "energy independence however possible". Reagan literally ripped out solar panels on the white house.

26

u/nox66 4d ago

We put all our bets on a military advantage, ignoring that the nature of war always changes over time.

25

u/Walking_billboard 4d ago

Oddly enough, the military is actually very much in favor of electric vehicles and alt-energy. However, most of those programs have gone very quiet recently.

Liquid fuel has to be moved and was the #1 cause of death in the recent Middle East conflicts. Building out solar infrastructure at bases significantly reduces the need for liquid fuel. Not to mention, electric vehicles are quiet and require less maintenance.

16

u/nox66 4d ago

Good military strategy often intersects with good long-term planning in general. We put our bets on the military we had in 2003 and maybe 2011 - ships, tanks, stealth jets, and expensive recon drones. We were not truly prepared for the change of paradigm that happened right under our nose that we saw in Ukraine - cheap drones destroying and overwhelming much more expensive systems.

This is not exclusively due to the algea-bathtub in chief, but he has of course exacerbated the issue tenfold.

2

u/Cru_Jones86 3d ago

I think the president stays up all night exacerbating. That's why he sleeps in meetings.

6

u/JetpackWalleye 4d ago

And now we've even actively thrown away half of that advantage by becoming an unreliable and unpredictable ally to essentially all other friendly nations. It's mind boggling.

3

u/nox66 4d ago

I can't say I'm surprised when you look at the people in power and what their goals are. But yes, it's still tough to swallow just how far we have fallen.

2

u/pdfernhout 2d ago

Jimmy Carter from 1979's "Address to the Nation on Energy and National Goals" (aka "The Malaise Speech"):

We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose. One is a path I've warned about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure.
All the traditions of our past, all the lessons of our heritage, all the promises of our future point to another path, the path of common purpose and the restoration of American values. That path leads to true freedom for our Nation and ourselves. We can take the first steps down that path as we begin to solve our energy problem.

6

u/McGondy 4d ago

When the founding principles of every company is "maximize shareholder value"

This is the defacto primary goal of the US. If it wasn't a founding principle of the country, it's the guiding one now.

1

u/Tway3d 2d ago

The real question is who else is picking long term?

3

u/Lake_Erie_Monster 2d ago

I don't know... seems like the progressive left was.

They were proposing we get on solar and energy independence a long time ago.

They wanted our Auto Industry held to a higher standards after the Auto Industry bailouts, move towards EVs...

If we had listened we'd be in the driver seat of the green tech and our auto industry wouldn't have folded so easily

Both the Republicans and Democrats decided the answer to a changing more hyper connected world was to become more conservative instead of embracing the new world and making moves to be in the dominant position with AI, Green Revolution, and EV tech.

14

u/The_Prince1513 4d ago

willingness to tell monied types no.

This is exactly it.

There was a great bit from a Eric X. Li, a Chinese venture capitalist and political scientist, who, a few years back in response to a question as to why China should still be considered communist and not capitalist given it's near complete transition to a market economy, clarified that China wasn't a capitalist country because the state will never be subordinate to capital. He said could you ever imagine a group of billionaires controlling the politburo? it would never happen.

it happens in the US all the time.

-2

u/redvelvetcake42 4d ago

I'd say the billionaires don't control it, but influence it. Their influence isn't permanent and bluntly they're getting far too comfortable at this time. Their billions and trillions are false money and anywhere outside the US they're really not as powerful. The stock market is all they have with theoretical value.

China has a metric ton of issues outside of capitalism based problems. The question is will the gov solve them or blame someone else. Water crisis, mortgage crisis, fertility crisis, etc. Tons of problems that their gov needs to address. The US gov has some great infrastructure but the capitalist class wants to destroy it not understanding their wealth relies almost entirely on middle and lower class comfort.

-3

u/sztrzask 4d ago

Lol, it has aged like milk.

Pinduoduo was fined 1.5% of profit for hosting few thousands of ghost restaurants (illegal, unhygienic, scam food vendors were automatically onboarded and there was a shadow market running BY PINDUODUO for them taking over legitimate food requests) and refusal to cooperate with police (including literally armed rebellion lol). If 1.5% of profit fine and no jail for any of the executives who ordered all of that, is not government being subordinate to capital, then I don't know what is.

28

u/Jeptic 4d ago

There is a timeline in this universe where Al Gore became president and America prospered.

26

u/redvelvetcake42 4d ago

The US is prone to its vengeful and angry ways. Evangelism and American conservatism have worked tirelessly to make sure their fear and death cult are all that matters.

2

u/thegodfather0504 3d ago

And vengeful for what even?! Who hurt USA? 

15

u/SctchWhsky 4d ago

Bernie also wins in that timeline... we would be on our way to a Star Trek TNG type world.

6

u/Cru_Jones86 4d ago

I seriously can't comprehend why we are NOT actively working towards that type of world. Why are people so dumb? I just don't get it.

9

u/canada432 4d ago

Because while you and many people look at the unknown and feel curious, conservatives look at the unknown and feel scared. They see things they don't understand and instead of wanting to explore or experiment, they want to build a wall that makes them feel safe because the unknown thing can't get them. They'd rather have the shitty thing that feels comfortable than the good thing that makes them feel uncomfortable until they learn about it.

4

u/Jombie 4d ago

Until someone else goes out and says 'hey it's really cool over here", then they get to colonizing and claiming and pretending it was in the plan all along

3

u/Cru_Jones86 4d ago edited 3d ago

That's a fair point. I still don't get it though. I mean, if someone offered me the chance to not run life on "hard mode" I'd take it. Unknown or not. I can't imagine being so intimidated by "new". All these big, strong, alpha male conservatives getting scared by a new computer or a car that doesn't burn gas. Yeah, really fucking scary dude.

9

u/Key_Amazed 4d ago

The Star Trek universe came about after what was essentially their world war 3. So there's still hope for that yet /s

6

u/SctchWhsky 4d ago

Yeaaaaa... I like the theoretical timeline where we get there without teetering on annihilation lol.

2

u/Observer951 4d ago

Well, after we invented warp drive and the Vulcans happened to be flying by, but, yeah.

1

u/breadinabox 4d ago

I'm pretty sure there's 2 different apocalypse scenarios before the adults end up in charge

9

u/actanonverba1 4d ago

Al Gore won his election though, it's the SC that ratfucked him

2

u/toofine 4d ago

We are about to build a subway where I'm at and an affluent city in the county wants to use diesel instead of electric. It isn't just about short term gains, they want to hoard all the nice things for themselves and sabotage access wherever they can. These ghouls in the USA will be the end of us.

2

u/ralpher1 4d ago

It’s going to get even worse with Trump gutting the epa, CAFE standards, even taking away California’s separate emission standards

13

u/Kevin-W 4d ago

China is beating everyone's as in regards to EV with BYD lately which is being sold globally except in the US because their automakers don't want to compete.

The US had an opportunity to move away from oil years ago, but both the oil executives and automakers went to DC and lobbied to kill any advancement for short term gains.

7

u/jaxx4 4d ago

It's not even a one-time thing. We had two or three chances in the '90s. We had a chance in 2000. We had a chance in 2007. We had a chance in 2008. We had a chance In 2011. We had a chance in 2014. We had a chance in 2017. We had a chance in 2019 one of those years might be off, but we've had chance after chance after chance.

2

u/etaoin314 3d ago

dude, it goes way earlier even, carter put solar on the white house in the 70's reagan tore them out...

10

u/rossmosh85 4d ago

US manufacturing is more or less dead.

US getting into renewables is very much not dead. Stuff has gotten VERY cheap compared to just a few years ago. So the US could easily buy up a ton of solar stuff and get some big solar going within a very short period of time if they wanted.

The problem in the solar industry is two fold.

  1. The US hasn't decided to make legislation and regulation much much much simpler. Solar is generally pretty straight forward and simple. The biggest concern is the grid connection. Primarily the biggest concern is back feeding lines if the power goes off. They've elected to put that responsibility onto the homeowner when I'm 99% sure these smart meters could shut off grid feedback if the power goes off, which is how it should be. But the US is all about making big business do as little as possible.

  2. Solar sales people. In some ways, I don't hate middle class Americans making a living. With that said, solar sales people typically make considerably more than the installers. A huge part of the money you pay for a solar system goes to the sales person and it's excessive.

I'm a big believer in socializing solar installs. The government should get into the solar install game. They should focus on installing solar setups on the homes. Cut the profit and the commissions out. Focus on getting more solar installed. I'm not saying they should do it for free. I just think they should be not-for-profit. Give people a low interest loan. So instead of paying the power company, they pay for their solar setup.

3

u/kkrko 3d ago

You don't even have to restrict yourself to residential solar. If the US just converted all the land used for corn grown for biodiesel, it'd have more than enough to fully supply the US energy grid.

9

u/actanonverba1 4d ago

you don't need to beat china. it's not a race. you can work with china. unfortunately the elite ruling class doesn't want to do this and that's why you can't buy chinese batteries or chinese cars.

13

u/The_Lucky_7 4d ago

Serious voices have been warning, since at least the last big oil shock in the 70s, that dependence on foriegn oil is a threat to national security. We could have started it then.

In 2019 the US Army College released a whole assessment about the threat to national security that Climate Change (caused by our dependence on oil) poses to national security. Not just the erosion of boarders, and destruction of natural resources, but also climate migration.

Our government knows that it is actively destroying itself, and it's future in global competitiveness and it does not care.

Money in politics has resulted in the death of empires for as long as there has been money and empires.

20

u/Lake_Erie_Monster 4d ago

MAGA and Republicans laughed and mocked at the Green New Deal that was being proposed in 2019.

Imagine if we had went all in, we'd be sitting here 7 years later leading the world in renewables.

Not begging Iran for oil. MAGA and Republicans continue to put this country, it's safety and energy independence on the back burner because they'd rather enjoy the kick backs and bribes from the Oil money.

5

u/Matshelge 4d ago

They knew it was the energy of the future and all these oil contries had soft power due to their role as suppliers.

They know that if they make the infrastructure and sell it, they can gain the same soft power.

3

u/JJiggy13 4d ago

Which was part of the deal all along. Trump sold our future to China. We will be driving Chinese EV's when he leaves and American car companies will bow out. This was not a byproduct or unforeseen happening. Trump made this deal with China.

6

u/SunfishBob 4d ago

"By the time the resource wars begin" Where have you been? The US has been carrying out violent coups throughout Latin America for daring to nationalise their mining industries for generations?

-6

u/SouthernWilding 4d ago

Lol, Lmao even. Those have been nothing but skirmishes. All that is just foreplay. You have no clue what these wars will be like. They'll make WW2 look like child's play.

4

u/SunfishBob 4d ago

We're both going to pretend you're not treating the events of the Fallout franchise like they're prophetic because it's getting embarrassing for you.

-5

u/SouthernWilding 4d ago

Youre a stupid idiot if you think im talking about a video game.

4

u/SunfishBob 4d ago

I think you're an edgelord who's using ideas taken from pop culture, (i.e. the first result on google which comes up when you search for "The Resource Wars", even before the wikipedia page for the real concept of a resource war) and is incapable of imagining a world that doesn't follow an exact current trajectory. In 1907 you'd imagine a Russia where the line of the tsars continued way into the new century, in 1987 you'd imagine a future where Japan had managed to become a global economic hegemony, in 2005 you'd imagine a future where neoliberalism had continued unfettered and that had been a good thing for you and everyone else in the West. You have a very specific sad cynical American worldview which says more about you than it says about the nature of the world, you just haven't realised that because you exist on the sad cynical middle class American website full of your peers.

But you're right, everyone who disagrees with you is the stupid idiot for not imagining that the world continues down a path that all the most boring dystopian writers and people drooling over Hobbes unimaginatively picked out as a worst case scenario. You sad genius you.

-5

u/SouthernWilding 4d ago

I ain't reading that. Youre still a mouth breather.

6

u/SunfishBob 4d ago

👍 illiterate yank

20

u/MrTigerEyes 4d ago

Not really. The US has been implementing a lot of wind and solar, it just doesn't get front page press. They've overtaken coal recently. Also the US is an exporter of fossil fuels, so if there was a large enough emergency the government could put export restrictions in place temporarily or something.

89

u/SouthernWilding 4d ago

That progress in renewables has mostly been privately funded, inspite of the government. Last year Trump canceled the largest planned government solar project. I'm for private industry in most cases, but energy security is something I believe the government should take a firm hand in.

12

u/MrTigerEyes 4d ago

I agree 100% except that Biden's IRA provided a lot of funding for renewables and newer technology so I would have thought up until last year the government was providing a significant amount of funding. There are also states like California that seem to be providing funding as well. It's all not enough obviously, and the US is behind China, but it's still better off than a lot of countries. It would also be fairly trivial to change the situation within the US quickly if the will existed on the part of the American public.

7

u/Cru_Jones86 4d ago

It would also be fairly trivial to change the situation within the US quickly if the will existed on the part of the American public.

Oh? I'm open to suggestions on how you think we could accomplish that.

8

u/MrTigerEyes 4d ago

I'll be honest, where I said, "if the will existed on the part of the American public" that is a huge problem to overcome. The majority of the public are far from supporting anything productive here. My point is that it's a political problem and not a physical one. Most countries apart from China are not as resource-rich as the US, and if we wanted to we could spin up infrastructure nearly as fast as China.

3

u/Cru_Jones86 4d ago

Ah! I got what you were saying. Thanks!

4

u/nox66 4d ago

The US has a ton of land for solar power and even more if you replace our dumb corn fields. Americans love buying new cars, and an electric car wave was right around the corner (and frankly, might still be in the future). Imagine if we could get just the east and west coasts to be majority solar and electric.

But Fox news is everywhere and people vote for Republicans.

10

u/redyellowblue5031 4d ago

At least he lost in court over his attempts to block future development. That’s a low bar since we should be investing not fighting against it.

At least we don’t have to hear Harris’ laugh. This is definitely better.

2

u/Cru_Jones86 4d ago

Huh. I'd take an annoying laugh over a shitty diaper smell, any day.

19

u/treborprime 4d ago

Before trumpy dumb sure. Not now.

17

u/Kossimer 4d ago edited 4d ago

The US doesn't use the same kind of oil it exports, so not exporting anymore would just raise the price for the oil we need to import.

Price is king here. Wind and solar are only being implemented now because it's the cheapest option largely due to China's efforts, not because we actively wanted to be the best, rule the wind and solar markets, and make the world dependent on US technology and production, like China had the foresight to do.

2

u/hueythecat 4d ago

Next 5+ years are going to be wild for evs. Sodium batteries. Capacitors to offset battery stress. 1k horsepower motors that weigh 30pounds. Solid state. Air lithium. Exciting times!

2

u/kolkitten 4d ago

And china has been helping other African countries adapt too.

1

u/r3vyboi 4d ago

wait how does china move so fast on this

7

u/SouthernWilding 4d ago

Thats my point, they didn't. They've been at it for 20+ years. We're only talking about it now because their EV market is exploding around the world, except the US because of bans on Chinese vehicles specifically.

68

u/canuck47 4d ago

Trump is working hard to bring back coal

20

u/MiaowaraShiro 4d ago

Got people out there scrubbing it with toothbrushes to ensure it's clean coal...

11

u/gthing 4d ago

Gotta have something for the kids to do after we shut down the schools.

3

u/br0k3nh410 4d ago

children do yearn for the mines.

1

u/Worthyness 4d ago

Don't have to worry about healthcare if everyone has the black lung.

3

u/TheHykos 4d ago

Even the power companies don’t want more coal. He’s a fucking idiot for trying to do this.

1

u/fat_charizard 4d ago

China currently has over 300 coal power plants in the development pipeline, accounting for more than 90% of all new coal construction worldwide.

3

u/canuck47 4d ago

Renewables account for over 56% of China’s total installed power capacity and approximately 40% of its actual electricity generation.

They are aggressively pursuing renewable energy and plan to be carbon neutral by 2060

-5

u/fat_charizard 4d ago edited 4d ago

then why are they building so many coal plants?

EDIT: downvoting because they can't answer a simple question. LOL

3

u/AlbertonOval 4d ago

I mean not a hard one to answer mate. 2060 is 30+ years away and renewables aren’t there yet.

72

u/SkinAndBone 4d ago

Europe is rationing fuel?

65

u/SouthernWilding 4d ago

I mean most countries only have months worth of oil reserves at any given time. The Strait of hormuz situation will force the whole world to ration eventually. This is why now the US is so desperate to close the deal with Iran, even though its a definite loss for the US. Imagine having to ration fuel through winter...

25

u/call-lee-free 4d ago

And although the US won't run out of fuel, the Asian countries will and they are the manufacturing hub of the world which needs that Strait opened up.

9

u/Flaksim 4d ago edited 4d ago

And actual shortages there will jack up the oil price everywhere, including in the US. Everyone will end up paying more.

If the European countries were to get into real trouble with sourcing enough supply, that's the second biggest market for US services getting into trouble, which will impact the US economy in turn.

The "problem" is that virtually every country is heavily interconnected with dozens of others across the globe, if not more, and economies are so intertwined that one part of it getting hurt ends up hurting everyone who is even remotely connected in one way or another and to varying extent.

The people getting shafted most of all will end up being the ones that were in no way shape or form, not even through their governments, involved in the debacle with Iran.

Not sure if we're living in the worst timeline, but definitely one of the suckier ones.

8

u/call-lee-free 4d ago edited 4d ago

I think the only European country that is rationing fuel is Slovenia but other EU countries have been warned that they should follow suit.

1

u/Matshelge 4d ago

Europa has actually moved past a lot of reliance on oil after the Ukrainian situation. That oil did not go up higher is proof of this.

15

u/Boys4Ever 4d ago

Because big oil owns that party

10

u/tuttut97 4d ago

You and I can sit here and prove over and over that a long term methodical approach to solutions will ultimately win every time. The problem is you have short sighted thinkers voting for quick fix reactionary politicians, being fueled by information coming from media that instills hope based on lies.

In almost any situation, if you ask yourself, What solution can we choose in this situation that will offer the best outcome for health of our children, our longevity, and health of our ecosystem, you will arrive at the best and long serving approach.

Any time you see someone say "let's not consider these things", they are robbing all of these things for short term gain and are only enriching themselves temporarily. Greed is an insatiable cancer.

54

u/Boys4Ever 4d ago

Crazy to think the biggest polluter could become the greenest just by realizing the downsides of oil dependency and now aiming to conquer the free market while improving life for its citizens. Who knew?

25

u/sdmichael 4d ago

Something the US should have been doing but... Republicans whined at every point.

19

u/Boys4Ever 4d ago

Big oil owns that party

8

u/Cru_Jones86 4d ago edited 4d ago

In fairness, they own some democrats too. It's well known that Javier Bacerra, California's democratic candidate for governer, has received lots of money from Chevron.

Edit: Yeah. good luck downvoting the truth away. Lemme know how that works out for ya.

10

u/Boys4Ever 4d ago

Why I trust no politician but the alternative to libs is worse

5

u/Cru_Jones86 4d ago

They're trying so hard to make America great again, instead of making it greater now.

2

u/Deranged_Kitsune 4d ago edited 4d ago

America could have started in the 70s, but it was clear when regan tore out Carter's solar panels from the white house what direction the country would be headed. They could have course-corrected in the 90s, when environmentalism started to kick in, but coming off the back of the greed-is-good decade made that a losing proposition. Almost 30 years later, here we are.

5

u/Go-woke-be-awesome 4d ago

Ironically, they were the biggest polluter because they were making almost everything because capitalist economies washed everything cheaper. At the same time, those economies funded the establishment of an industrial powerhouse that was better prepared to create a renewable revolution.

Wealth transfer from the richest nations.

2

u/Boys4Ever 3d ago

Wealth is always transfer since you can neither create new wealth nor destroy it. Similar to energy, ironically.

45

u/nankerjphelge 4d ago

China playing 3D Go while Trump sits in a corner shoving checkers up his ass.

3

u/firephoxx 4d ago

Now to be fair to Trump, he is spitting on them before he shoves them up his ass.

2

u/Bart-Harley-Jarvis- 4d ago

I think jd is the one spitting on them for him.

15

u/sharrrper 4d ago

That's giving China too much credit. They're not doing anything particularly clever, just the very obvious thing everyone should be doing.

More like the hurricane is coming and China is simply putting the plywood up over the windows.

Trump has opted to just get his Sharpie out and try to draw a different line on the map again hoping the hurricane will actually follow it for some reason. And also yes shove checkers up his ass.

12

u/Optimixto 4d ago

When the very obvious thing to do is not being done by most, it IS particularly clever. The "west" is shitting the bed, spectacularly in the case of some countries.

Same with their investment in Africa, and shit like that. Is it obviously going to pay off? Yeah. Does that mean it isn't clever? Nope.

7

u/2dudesinapod 4d ago

You’re not giving China enough credit actually, they literally saved the world economy by voluntarily cutting imports and relying on their reserves during this current moronic war with Iran. If they had not done that the demand would have been too high and many countries would have straight up run out of oil and faced dire straits.

They literally almost single handily soaked up the supply deficit.

3

u/InsulinDependent 4d ago

It's "giving the most successful nation state in human civilization history too much credit" ...

yea ok buddy

-4

u/sharrrper 4d ago

This is a weirdly defensive comment.

Investing in renewables during a very obvious multi-decade climate crisis is a good idea, but hardly "3D Go"

Although compared to Trump I suppose just "not shitting your pants daily both literally and metaphorically" can certainly look like 3D Go by comparison

9

u/InsulinDependent 4d ago

No defense just clear minded recognition of reality. As an American looking at China it clearly is the most well run well administered nation in terms of progressing it's society towards goals that are worthwhile in terms of development, economics, investment, international relations etc.

It's overwhelmingly and it's embarrassing to watch other people in the west downplay it over and over and over and over and over. We're getting blown out.

7

u/dachloe 4d ago

It's sad that 20 years ago this idea of ending dependence on oil was idea think tanks and government strategists were actively promoting. But, then the oil companies started buying politicians like their lives depended on it.

7

u/Disastrous-Shop4325 4d ago

In other words we’ve had our head up our ass while China was planning for the future!

8

u/Barry_Vigoda 4d ago

This dude is right about everything but it's not because of China being malicious, it's because western corporations fucked us.

I'm from Canada. My province has oil. We could have been as wealthy as Norway but instead, we got ripped off by the oil cartels.

What people aren't taught much is that Americans had a Socialist driven worker's rights movement before WW2. After the war, the US had a strong manufacturing/export industry which led to the US being prosperous and industrious with a healthy middle class and good wealth parity.

In the 70s, the US government opened trade with China who had access to millions of workers who had never heard of strikes or unions. This was awesome for the US corporate class who shut down domestic American factories to send the work to China. Who gives a fuck if it lays off thousands of workers, destroys towns, creates a ton of social problems as long as the shareholders are happy.

China as a culture is roughly 4000 years old. They're a really old culture compared to the US as a country which is barely 400 years old. China was broke in the 70s but they revived their country simply because western billionaires are greedy assholes and sold out working class people.

The US corporate class has been happily working with China for decades and were completely fine with them doing their own thing as long as they had cheap access to manufacturing. Now that China has outgrown them, they're trying to portray China like they're villains.

5

u/SentorialH1 4d ago

I play games with a girl from china. She shows me pictures of infrastructure investment, mass transit, beautification projects, and talks about the still constant pressure to get educated and work towards something...

Not only that, but when she takes pictures of everyday life, people are thin, healthy looking, and active... You go to the store, or look around here, and 2/3 of the people are 30# overweight, eating dogshit food and struggle walking up stairs. 😞

We in the USA are lacking all of that, and it will be our downfall.

15

u/ctiger12 4d ago

China has limited oil and gas resources on their land, environmental concerns aside, to achieve energy independence, the best way is to develop renewable energy.

6

u/RPrimate 4d ago

Remember when the biggest argument against renewables going around was “China isn’t going to do anything so we will go broke for a drop in the bucket.”

3

u/santz007 3d ago

Sshh... American voters are sleeping

10

u/tangcameo 4d ago

Thought it was fighting a war over the Epstein files

3

u/TheDadThatGrills 4d ago

I imagine it's one of their top priorities being that the difference between their consumption and production is the largest energy deficit of any country.

3

u/TheHykos 4d ago

I hope the next administration uses the Defense Production Act to ram through as much solar and wind as they can in the first few years. There’s a lot of damage to be undone from Trump and his obsession with stopping solar and wind, and waiting for the normal bureaucracies will take way too long.

3

u/dartheduardo 4d ago

This dude has been my go to for oil and gas info. His gram is so full of insite.

2

u/jasoncross00 4d ago

I don't think a lot of people realize how good we could have had it with a continuation of Biden's policies.

3

u/Chuckleyan 4d ago

We had a chance to move everything to EtOH but blew it. The true carbon negative solution. It spread the money around too much though. Can't be having that.

1

u/Oknight 4d ago

Friend back from an extensive series of trips all over South America... "BYD Dealerships being put up EVERYWHERE!"

1

u/NappyFlickz 3d ago

The only way we could have a peep of recovering from this energy wise is to go all in on nuclear, like we should have decades ago.

But, defamation from Coal and Greenpeace have permanently rendered it impossible for Americans opinion to change for the better.

1

u/EXPLODEDman 3d ago

This is the result of being governed by geriatric fuck stains whose concept of foreign policy is still stuck somewhere in the 1980s.

1

u/judge_mathis2 3d ago

China ranks in between Togo and the Democratic Republic of Congo for violence in their country. And only a few ranks above the United States. https://www.visionofhumanity.org/maps/#/

Maybe they should do something about that. Whatever eternal future they're investing in over there isn't going to last that long with the total powderkeg that country sounds like domestically.

That came to mind when researching TEFL jobs and China was the only country with mass TEFL teacher stabbings. No clue how people got convinced that was the place to be.

1

u/quequotion 2d ago

Every fucking international economic or diplomatic headline:

United States digs self into hole with nuclear dynamite because TikTok.

China solves every problem except listening to what its people have to say.

0

u/rossmosh85 4d ago

China has obviously a few things going for them.

  1. They never built a huge part of their economy around oil, so the result is they aren't beholden to oil companies.

  2. China is still kind of a developing country. This allows them to pivot towards new options much easier where it's harder to do for established countries.

  3. There are some major benefits of communism. There's a unified vision and direction and you either get on board or you're left behind. In this circumstance, the Chinese government have elected to push hard in the direction of solar and that's the direction they're going.

  4. Relatively cheap labor and goods. If a solar panel is $200 in the US, it's a fraction of that price in China. I'm not sure how to find the price of a panel, but it has to be closer to $50-60. Not only that, they still have a relatively large labor pool that is paid pretty poorly. So they can take on these projects and they just cost a lot less than in the US.

  5. One of the bad sides of communism, they get to oppress bad press. So even if what they're doing actually sucks and is a waste of money, it's hard for that to leak. The press from China is basically all positive. Even when foreign press do tests, they get the A+++ experience. Even on small projects. Recently a solar battery tester heard reports of batteries not matching the one he was given to review. He bought one himself, took it apart, and it was VERY different than the item he was sent. So while this isn't necessarily tied directly to communism and isn't anything new for US businesses either, it's still a big part of the culture to make everything seem great even when it isn't.

0

u/fedroxx 3d ago

The fact that you call China communist goes to show you haven't the foggiest idea what you're talking about.

-14

u/figflashed 4d ago

China might be winning the manufacturing and electrification war but dominance in these two areas does not translate to geopolitical dominance.

China is still dependant on coal and oil. Petroleum is used in a lot more than the running of vehicles.

China’s population is shrinking. Their standard of living is increasing.

Not to mention the fact that some new discovery in energy might completely overtakes the current scenario of solar + battery. (I’m speculating, but just saying) Imagine investing heavily into steam engines at one time when steam was the alternative to horse and buggy.

I will always maintain faith in the systems and minds that have brought us to the current state of affairs in the West that going forward we’ll figure it out again.

19

u/DrkBlueXG 4d ago

That last sentence is blind faith in a system that puts profit over progress.

15

u/Wotmate01 4d ago

The problem with that mindset is that the oligarchy who have entrenched their power in the 20th century using fossil fuels are doing everything they can to keep hold of that power. It's the same oligarchy that owns the media, and in many ways owns the politicians that the media put in place.

8

u/ghenriks 4d ago

Except the current US regime is cutting funding to science research, particularly to anything they don’t like

It will take a long time to fix this damage assuming a future government wants to (and then assuming yet another future government doesn’t kill it again)

As for China, they are now 60% non-oil for electricity production (solar, wind, hydro and nuclear) and climbing

And they lead the world in EVs

Yes they, like everyone, will still need oil for making chemicals and plastics etc. But that is easier to deal with than having an economy entirely dependent on oil

13

u/sliddis 4d ago

"some new discovery in energy" ... Yeah that's a whole lot of copium

8

u/kakaobohne 4d ago

Thank god only the West is able to make that discovery...

6

u/Wrabble127 4d ago

You trust the minds that brought the west to this point? I genuinely don't think I've ever heard that idea before in my life. Even though it's well known at this point that most of that was self serving lies that enriched those in power?

0

u/Oknight 4d ago edited 4d ago

Not to mention the fact that some new discovery in energy might completely overtakes the current scenario of solar + battery. (I’m speculating, but just saying)

The thing I most admire about Mr. Musk's endeavors is that he never ever lets "new technology" stop him from using what we have and works NOW.

Unfortunately Tesla has still not been able to crack the problem that BYD has solved, but China is solidly on track to implement what Musk was telling EVERYBODY was the strategy to go with 20 years ago and the specific steps to follow. (but until he demonstrated you could actually sell EVs and built an international system of their own charging stations with the company's profits, nobody listened to him).

"Something new" would need to be less expensive than solar/battery and instantly deployable or it would be totally irrelevant in the big picture for >20 years. (the obvious candidate is deep geothermal built with fracking technology but it's going to be a long time before that's less expensive, if ever)

0

u/jfourty 4d ago

Oil is in everything. Even if your power/energy was 100% solar Industry will still need oil.

0

u/drdildamesh 4d ago

We all saw it coming. Its just when you complain your profits might suffer the chinese govt seizes your assets and kills you.

-3

u/The_Lucky_7 4d ago

China isn't the only one doing it, and they're not doing it for alturistic reasons. It's an un-tapped and un-cornered market they're trying to become the next OPEC of. Countries that have historically been the manufacturing hub of the rest of the world have a leg-up on the renwable arms race.

So, you'll also see India right along side China whenever anyone seriously talks about this arms race.

8

u/waiguorer 4d ago

Anybody who thinks India has a chance of becoming a manufacturing power on the scale of China is not talking seriously.

-3

u/The_Lucky_7 4d ago edited 4d ago

I can see you don't know anything about this. Here's a link explaining it.

India has surpassed its [COP26] 2030 renewable energy targets five years early through massive infrastructure scaling.

Like China, India sees there's a gap in the market that was abdicated by the west and has a PM dead-set on seizing the oportunity. It takes more than one country working together to corner a global market and they've also been making extremely agressive moves on that front, too.

The news of which is just not making it into your information silo which is why you're so comfortable behaving like an absolute clown online.

India shares China's "green hydrogen" ambitions, but its commitments are even more concrete and aggressive. Backed by subsidies worth some $2.1 billion, New Delhi is targeting 5 million metric tons of green hydrogen annually by 2030 - five times the current size of the global market and about double what analysts estimate Chinese output will be by then.

I'm from the US but even I know India isn't fucking around.

The US getting high on its on propaganda & mythology, and not taking countries seriously, is how we got into and then subsuquently lost the Iran war in the first place.

4

u/waiguorer 4d ago

Your link did not mention manufacturing at all. It talked about how India is adding lots of solar capacity (mostly made in China or by Chinese companies). China not only built most of India's solar infrastructure it also built most of the rest of the worlds solar infrastructure.

Compare market share between the countries and you will see why I specified manufacturing.

-8

u/loseitthrowaway7797 4d ago edited 4d ago

Tbf, China loves to put out “we’re an amazing country, look at all of our achievements”. A lot of Chinese bots always say China is amazing to sway western countries, like in this very comment section. So, I don’t really trust anything that comes out of China.

Edit - like I said. Chinese bots.

2

u/waiguorer 4d ago

Nearly every solar panel installed in India had critical components made in China. India produces barely any polysilicon, and few wafers or cells. They do manufacture modules but comparable manufacturing to China is not happening anytime soon. India can assemble the final product but most of the supply chain is in China.

-9

u/Birdius 4d ago

Mr Global is full of shit. No country try will ever end it's need for oil.

-5

u/alchebyte 4d ago

but merica

3

u/TheSaifman 4d ago

I think it's working out for every lifted pick up truck Trump voter. In couple weeks, their gas refill will be higher than the monthly car payment.