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Comment by epistasis | Hacker News Reader

The peak for combustion engines was nearly a decade ago now:

https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/global-sales-of-com...

The propaganda machine in the US has tricked a huge number of Americans into sabotaging their own industrial future, merely to give fossil fuel infrastructure stocks a few more years of slightly higher profits.

When large corporations fail to adapt to changing technology, it gives smaller companies a chance to break in and take over markets.

We are seeing exactly the same thing happening right now with China catching up to the US economy. And by refusing to adapt to better technology that saves us money, we are seriously handicapping our future.

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In my opinion, the dramatic change coming isn't just about combustion. The economics of electricity and energy are about to change profoundly over the next 20 years.

We are simultaneously witnessing the potential demise of the Western economic empire and the rise of the Eastern economic bloc (specifically China, Southeast Asia, and India), alongside the global shift to a new electricity age.

I frequently hear people argue that solar power isn't feasible for their specific location, but this perspective may soon render them economically uncompetitive. Trends clearly show that the production of almost everything is transitioning to electricity. Crucially, solar and battery storage are rapidly becoming the cheapest forms of electricity and continue to drop in price.

We will soon reach a critical inflection point where we produce new solar panels and batteries using the very solar energy they generate. At this stage, subsequent generations of panels and batteries will become cheaper purely through the energy input cost reduction, even without new technological breakthroughs. Consequently, countries lacking significant investment in solar or wind resources are highly likely to become energy poor and economically uncompetitive.

> rise of the Eastern economic bloc

the exact same thing was said for japan when their economy boomed. Whether china falls to the same fate, or actually sustain and overtake the west, is yet to be determined. However, trump's policies aren't really helping (but in fact, is actually enabling them). By removing the US as a large consumer, the CCP could be forced to switch to internal consumption model instead, which both increases the standard of living of the people there, as well as decrease the reliance on exporting (so lower economic leverage).

Not to mention the west's economic policies are disparate between supposed allied countries - with friends like that, who needs enemies?

A key benefit of being the world's factory is that factories are easier to convert to war time uses than banks and software offices are. Some kinds of software is clearly going to be important for the next world war, but a lot of the service economy is essentially dead weight. If China switches to an economy based on internal consumption it's likely that its industrial capacity will decline.

I've been hearing that China will hit a plateau, like Japan, for at least 20 years now... Meanwhile, China is now pumping out BEV trucks, affordable electric cars, sixth generation military jets, and nuclear aircraft carriers.

> China is now pumping out ... sixth generation military jets, and nuclear aircraft carriers.

They are not. They have some initial versions.

The thing about long distance navies is that they require lots and lots of oil. No matter if you have a nuclear powered aircraft carrier or not.

The most damage China can do to western interests is that they start some local war, which we disapprove of, and so we end up sanctioning and embargoing them, which means we lose their production. The end of mass production from China. This is how we killed the USSR and a bunch of smaller wannabes. It's just geography. USA and Europe have the most productive land and port access. Most access to oil to give us long reach. China is practically land locked because of the first island chain. Think of it as being surrounded by a thousand aircraft carriers with infinite fuel. They don't have enough oil domestically. Middle eastern oil is trivially interdicted.

> This is how we killed the USSR

i doubt that - the USSR killed themselves with their poor economic policies (as well as expensive wars they cannot really afford).

China on the other hand, hasn't made the same mistakes. They posture, they build military installations (such as those in the south china sea), but they haven't committed much, if at all, to an actual war. Not to mention their economic policies are vastly superior to the USSR's - sucking in western capital at the beginning, and now, to overtaking them.

China's lack of oil is an achilles heel, but not a very big one. And every day, they're closer to diversifying away from oil as an energy source. Not to mention having pipelines through russia and the much of asia minor to have land routes that aren't blockade-able.

The economic modal of china is irrelevant to how their geography makes them easy to blockade. I think you might have just misread what I was saying here. I was saying how they don't have a viable long game _if_ they choose to start a war that the west doesn't approve of. Because they are practically land locked like the USSR when compared to the west.

Nothing replaces oil as an energy source for military reach.

China is decades away from having any pipelines to north siberia where most of the russian oil is. There's really nothing practical even on the drawing board atm.

Pipelines are the easiest transport of oil to stop. Look at ukraine.

> I've been hearing that China will hit a plateau, like Japan, for at least 20 years now...

Chinese growth is slowing permanently.

GDP growth trend in 2000s was 10-12% p.a. In the 2010s it was 6-8%. In the 2020a expected to be 3-4%. This slowdown is structural, not cyclical.

China is aging faster than the west.

Real estate in China at one point represented 25-30% of GDP, but this model has collapsed.

Manufacturing remains strong, but is shifting upmarket, eg EVs, batteries, solar panels, robotics, semiconductors. China’s strategy is to move up the value chain faster than competitors can catch them.

Consumption is weak, but has strong potential.

China had high technological innovation, but political constraints are rising for them.

China’s growth will be more state driven, less entrepreneurial, but formidable in industrial capacity.

> The propaganda machine in the US has tricked a huge number of Americans into sabotaging their own industrial future, merely to give fossil fuel infrastructure stocks a few more years of slightly higher profits.

It's instructive to compare and contrast the countries, and I think the driving forces are actually quite simple.

Both countries desire energy independence and thriving domestic industry. Who doesn't?

But while the USA is a net fossil fuel exporter, China is a net importer. While the USA has a long-established automobile industry and shown willingness to bail it out more than once, China is a relative newcomer to this industry.

China is for better or worse prepared to set industrial strategy more rigorously and over longer time periods than others.

A while back China took a bet on non-fossil fuel technologies as a source of both energy independence and a way to get early into a new industry. This is now paying off hugely. It's not purely a green ideological choice, they still use coal heavily. It was strategic - to reduce dependence on imported oil, and "leapfrog" into being a major player in an emerging industry, rather than trying to catch up with ICE engines.

Meanwhile the USA continues to shore up the fossil-fuel chain from extraction to consumption in ICE automobiles. I find this short-sighted and unwise in many ways. And the negative consequences are likely coming soon. but it is not a very surprising choice given where they are and how they make such decisions.

One thing I always find fascinating is, if you look at global warming denialism globally, it largely only exists as a political force in oil (or occasionally coal) producing nations. In terms of big-ish democratic countries, it's a mainstream right-wing stance pretty much only in the US, Australia, Canada, and Indonesia.

The US is essentially embracing a delusion which happens to (arguably) financially benefit it _right now_, but will be dreadful for its future.

(It's broadly popular with fringe far-right groups like Reform and the AfD, granted)

The US has huge oil supplies from Texas and Canada so there was never a real need to invest in EV. All paid for with American dollars.

IMHO that missed big parts of the picture, because it's kind of like saying that because we have an ample supply of trees for punch cards, there's no need to invest in magnetic tape and hard drives. There are big differences in the fundamental capabilities and costs of renewables versus fuel based economies.

Not only is an electrified economy powered by renewables a far cheaper future, it is also the difference between renting your energy infrastructure and owning it. With fuel based systems, the US is still susceptible to global fuel prices, as long as we participate in the global market, which leads to highly unstable prices. With renewables, you buy and then own, and don't have to worry about price instability; you have 30 years of stability from a solar panel. And when it reaches end of life, it continues working, giving more than a decade of opportunity to buy at the most convenient time and price.

Countries that switch earlier will have advantages. Countries that base their economy on being providers for panels and batteries may or may not see similar benefits, but renewables, even when purchased from other countries, give cheaper and more secure energy supply than even oil fields in your own country.

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