Hacker News Reader

Comment by bamboozled | Hacker News Reader

I have a theory. China is leading in solar and making it dirt cheap to undermine the USA and any other resource based economies without actually saying they're doing it.

It's a perfect weapon really, make energy so cheap, reliable and efficient that it destroys the petro-dollar.

As someone concerned about climate change, it's a wonderful thing but I think the hegemony should watch it and adapt.

View on HN

Yours is in the class of theories that presumes that some large group is perfectly organised, communicates perfectly and able to keep that ability secret.

Like a single autocratic government.

It's an autocratic government that banned hiring Norwegians and then paid me to write open source code, which necessarily isn't an activity you can expect to keep secret. That's how well the government is able to impose its policies on its own branches.

Don't expect magic feats from autocratic organisations.

Does it really even need to be a secret? I mean technically there is nothing to really cover up except encouraging or incentivizing manufacturing for "green tech". There's nothing even sinister about it.

It could be as simple as China just sort of stumbled into this situation and realized what's happening and now they just have to foster and grow their solar and wind industries.

The US is not really a resource based economy (though it less dependent on external resources than many others). Gulf countries are.

They gain a lot of power from oil being bought and sold in USD.

The only hole in this theory is that solar currently doesn’t help with car and automobile usage.

If I drive to my office and use their solar charger to charge my EV (which conveniently comes from China) while it's there, or if I'm lucky enough to have a wfh job and then charge it during the day while I'm working, why wouldn't it?

Though the other thing to note is that Texas and thus the US is now a net exporter of oil, the opposite of the 70' oil crisis.

Regardless of their intentions, energy independence is a huge thing for a country's sovereignty.

It's simpler to assume several Chinese based business are pursuing profits and the consequences of this particular pursuit are seen as beneficial by bureaucrats so it's encouraged.

Capitalism requires no conspiracy. People will do anything to increase their wealth.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com