Deregulated energy markets accelerate solar adoption

The most significant US regulations in the area aren't even mentioned in this article: the prohibitively high tariffs on Chinese solar modules and electric vehicles, which at least double the cost of solar panels and EVs in the US compared to much of the rest of the world.

Current US elites grew up in the energy crisis that started with the Arab oil embargo of 01973 cutting off US energy imports, and they seem determined to perpetuate that crisis, if necessary by cutting off US imports of energy production infrastructure themselves now that the foreigners won't do it for them anymore.

The article vastly understates the rapidity of the change. It projects 3 TW of new renewable generation capacity in China over the next decade (02026-02036, I suppose), attributing that to an unpublished report from a consultancy that seems to protect its projections from criticism with an NDA. Given that the PRC installed 373 GW in renewable generation capacity last year (https://english.www.gov.cn/archive/statistics/202501/28/cont...) this seems like an implausibly low figure; linear extrapolation of installing that same amount every year would give us 3.7 TW installed over that period. But in fact it has been growing exponentially, so 20 TW of added capacity over the next decade seems like a more likely ballpark.

That's nameplate capacity, so it's closer to 4 TW of actual energy generation.

Because we cannot afford, geopolitically, to have a hostile rival nation with whom we may in the next decade be at war control our energy. There is no if, and, or but about that.

Of course, most of said solar and battery tech was originally developed by Americans; chinese bought old patents, bought companies out of bankruptcy, and threw obscene amounts of state capital at developing it further. and now we're stuck with crap like CATL owning a huge amount of the advanced battery market. The implication that this is "just what the market decided" and that we must concede to the artificial scenario beijing has constructed, likely with the express intent of gaining leverage over more nations, is ridiculous.

Instead, we should mass-invalidate every single chinese-owned patent. She built her economy on stealing ours anyhow. Do it ourselves, or rely on allied/subordinate nations for manufacturing.

You can't afford to go to war with an industrialized nation whose energy is immensely cheaper than your own, nor with a nuclear-armed nation. Solar panels are different from oil in that their producers cannot turn them off, so importing them now would increase your energy security, not decrease it. For EVs the situation is more complex because of potential backdoors in firmware, but PV modules do not have any firmware; they are just large diodes.

I strongly disagree with both your master-race theory of technical innovation and your imperialist rhetoric. Americans, and in particular people from the US, did contribute greatly to solar and battery technological innovation. But a great deal of it was carried out outside the US, or inside the US by non-Americans, and in particular by Chinese grad students at US universities. Technological and scientific progress is inherently an international effort on behalf of all of humanity.

In terms of bringing utility-scale battery storage and PV energy production to mass production, US elites have basically opted not to participate. Unfortunately I expect that situation to continue.

Withdrawing international intellectual-property monopolies en masse is an interesting suggestion; I think it would probably promote progress, in particular because it would free other countries around the world to do the same with US patents and copyrights, which have been among the most significant obstacles to progress and even simple preservation of knowledge.

> Solar panels are different from oil in that their producers cannot turn them off

Uhh they don’t last forever. So yeah. They can be controlled like oil if you are unable to make or source replacements.

> Uhh they don’t last forever. So yeah. They can be controlled like oil if you are unable to make or source replacements.

They last for decades, and the resources (unlike with oil) to produce, repair, and rebuild them are readily available in the US (if through no other resources than recycling failed panels).

The biggest risk is that the US stops training engineers, scientists, and technicians who would be capable of doing that work.

Just pointing out that they are not forever. And the use of it in reasoning if flawed. We can but 20 years of oil too. It being a long period only lessons the affect not removes it.