One consequence of the transition to renewable energy and electrified transport, is that oil imports will start to decline. And the dollar is of course the currency of choice for that. The US economy and other countries that export fossil fuels will feel the impact over the next decade or so. The energy transition might go a lot quicker than people seem to expect. Currently about 20% of global car sales is electric.…
What's good in electric cars? If a large power plant is destroyed how are you going to charge your electric car to escape?
What's good in Gasoline cars? If a refinery is destroyed how are you going to fuel your gasoline car to escape? It's not like you can charge it from a standard wall outlet or rooftop solar like a regular EV.
* Ask the people in Crimea how they are dealing with this exact scenario.
* Petroleum refineries are large, fixed, and highly flammable by nature.
A reasonable scenario might be a cyberattack taking down large portions of the grid for a prolonged time. It's not impossible to achieve something like that, Stuxnet proved the concept of corrupting PLCs driving powerplants ages ago. Alternatively, even outside a cyberwar scenario, bad weather has been shown to take down power grids for entire regions for days, sometimes weeks.
Meanwhile the oil supply system is immune to outside threats https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonial_Pipeline_ransomware_a... https://shippingtelegraph.com/shipping-news/adnoc-reports-15... https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/08/1168121
If you're talking about "outside threats to oil supply" then this has to be a major and current example:
> repairs potentially taking up to six months. The strike adds to Kyiv’s escalating campaign against Russia’s oil industry and a growing fuel crunch across the country.
But search again tomorrow and there will be new examples. Refineries and other oil infrastructure are large, located in well-known fixed locations and are highly flammable. This campaign demonstrates what a weak spot they are for a petrostate.
Following Hurricane Sandy, many were left without power and ultimately even gas was strictly rationed. So it's not out of the ordinary to imagine an event like that happening. https://www.nj.com/news/2012/11/sandy_gas_ration_12_counties...
This is a good point, Florida EV drivers have already found that EVs are more resilient in a natural disaster because the grid infrastructure supporting the fast chargers comes back online much faster than service is restored to gas stations.
EVs that have Vehicle-to-Load (V2L) capability are also useful in a natural disaster: You can use the EV as a big battery on wheels to power some electrical appliances - e.g. keep a fridge going or a light on, until the grid is back.
> China with [EVs|Solar|BESS|Turbines] will replace all of the fossil fuel countries (US, middle-east, Russia) I dont agree with china having the same position as the FF exporters. Simply because with renewables, you export the means to produce energy rather than the energy itself. So in terms of monetary value, china will be selling alot less panels than the FF countries sell oil. And other countries can also manufa…
But you can get soft power by being humanitarian. China delivers a second donation of 5,000 photovoltaic systems to Cuba: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrvjyZ76Z5w Panels cost nothing, the balance of system costs and labor will be borne by the recipient. People will remember for 25 years.
People will remember but they wont submit. The US got countries to submit to them becuase of the economic sanctions made possible by cornering the energy trade. I dont think we'll see that again given renewables becoming the meta
In yiur example, cuba will remember china's help, but china will have to keep being nice to keep that loyalty, which means conprimising with cuba rather that forcing it like the US could do
> China with [EVs|Solar|BESS|Turbines] will replace all of the fossil fuel countries (US, middle-east, Russia) I dont agree with china having the same position as the FF exporters. Simply because with renewables, you export the means to produce energy rather than the energy itself. So in terms of monetary value, china will be selling alot less panels than the FF countries sell oil. And other countries can also manufa…
ACtually no , even with the export of primary goods that go into the manufactue of renewables like solar the price differential still favours China. A recent example is the boom of local solar manufacture in India whil relies on solar modules imported from china.The assembled panes are still 2X the price of a similar fullly aseembled one from China. And not due too subsidies of labour - a lot of the value chain is hi…
Im sure theirs still market dominance to be had. But it wont be at the level that the US has with oil. This isnt just market dominance, its complete economic dominance. The US can controll all money because oil is sold in dollars. That wont be true for solar panels, simply because a country couldnt afford to go a week without oil imports, but a country could go years without solar panel imports, given how existing panels will still work and new panels can be manufactored domestically if needed (even if they are expensive). You cant jist manufactor oil, you meed to buy it
Innovator's Dilemma for the US. Any alternatives to fossil fuels impact the big energy companies, who want to preserve their cash cows.
From one of the GP comments, it's about preserving the petrodollar and reserve currency status as a whole. That's a way wider scope than a few companies. P
Theyre holding on for dear life but its futile i think. Renewables will be the future and they wont have that political leverage attached. Geopolitics is about to become more equitable. Itll be interesting to see what that looks like. Idk if itll more or less peaceful. I'd bet less honestly
It’s very unlikely that the USD will lose its status particularly to the Yuan. You can do that mental calculation yourself. Would you convert all of your lifesavings from USD to Yuans today or in the next 10 years? The answer is probably “not a chance”. The reason is simple, liquidity and trust. China has no comparable open and independent financial institutions international central banks can trust, nor can they hav…
Just checked. The last 2 years yuan was way more stable than USD compared to CHF and the last 5 years about similar. I don't see why I would prefer USD Especially, realistically speaking i buy WAY more from china than the US
Economic stability alone is not enough for a currency to be an important store of wealth. China doesn’t have a free floating exchange, it has very strict capital controls and lacks political and legal predictability. You need very specific institutional foundations to have a currency like the USD, which the Chinese political system rejects. The US has an independent legal system. If you have a dispute with the US government you can take it to an independent court. In China, you have no way to sue the CPP. China is a single party socialist republic with all the political authority concentrated at the top, so one high impact event like the sudden dead of Xi Jinping could send its economy into fallout because of political uncertainty. In the US the system is explicitly designed to absorb this type of shocks. So for these and many other reasons the Yuan under the current Chinese political system will never be a serious contender to the USD as global currency, it’s just way too much institutional risk for foreign investors. It’s also very unlikely the CPP will ever pick a Yuan rivaling the USD vs political control over their domestic policy. They can’t have both.
The US wields incredible negotiating power and hegemony because the dollar is the world’s reserve currency. Like the British pound and the Dutch guilder before it, if that loses reserve currency status it will be harder to borrow on favorable terms, which would affect the entire US economy. This is a big step in that perhaps starting to happen over the next few decades.
Grow up man, we need people to grow up and see the world for what it really is before we can fix it You go against the government (for real) in ANY country you get a bullet, simple as that... That is everywhere... In USA, China, Russia, Paraguay, Laos, or wherever you go look...
False equivalence. Also funnily you left out Europe, why? For instance, you can mock Trump and question the US all day. You can’t do that in China. Even this website is banned in China.