John Hinderaker:
Of course, the U.S. was never reliant on Russia for energy, at least not during the Trump administration. A sensible policy would be to maximize production of U.S. oil and gas so that our allies can rely on us, not on the Russians and not on the Chinese. But that approach is not on the table.
In this article, at least, the focus is on solar energy, but China dominates the market for wind turbines, too. More important, China controls the market for processing the minerals that are needed for these products, no matter where they are manufactured. No word on how, exactly, the U.S. and Australia will ramp up mining on an unprecedented scale to avoid this bottleneck.
The press conference included a brief reference to “long-duration energy storage,” which of course would be required to make wind and solar energy even remotely viable, if prohibitively expensive. But no such storage capacity exists, and it is not on the horizon. And—by the way—what country do you think controls the minerals and mineral processing that are necessary for the giant batteries the “greens” contemplate? Yes, that’s right. China.
# posted by Ranger @ 10:12 AM
