Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

While the US is busy trying to revive the oil-soaked 20th century, places like Namibia are leapfrogging straight into a distributed, solar-powered future with YouTube tutorials... It's like watching the fossil era get out-hustled in real time.

“The Innovator's Dilemma” by Clayton M. Christensen described how big companies fail when against new startups because they can’t let go of their fat margins for a new technology that (at first) appears to be inferior, even a toy. (His examples are Japanese motorbikes and hard disks)

Seems the United States is now trapped in the same dilemma. It can’t let go of those fat oil profits to embrace the new —but rapidly improving— renewable tech, even if it’s clear that that’s where the market for energy is heading. I.E., the big company (or nation) must sabotage some of their current profit centers in order to remain long term competitive.

(Reposting a comment I made on nytimes article: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/06/30/climate/china... )

Check out Paul Kennedy's "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" for an interesting take on this dynamic for nation-states and political economies. His core thesis is that dominant powers rise as new players leverage new technologies (especially energy technologies), build complex interdependent economies centered around those technologies, but then wither and fall as they spend increasingly more on military power to monopolize and defend the chokepoints of those technologies. When a new more efficient technology comes along, they are doomed to irrelevance as they fail to capitalize on those technologies, and new players swoop in for dominance.

He gives examples of the Dutch and wind power (sailing); Great Britain and coal; and America and petroleum. He also predicted China's ascendency as the next player willing to leverage new technologies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_and_Fall_of_the_Great...

Thanks for the tip! It seems obvious now, but its been interesting for me to realize how much of human history can be understood as a quest for energy, full stop. Even going back to the invention of farming, which at its core was way to reliably source more calories per person. Fun to think of your examples of sailing, coal, and petroleum empires as further chapters in this ongoing quest.

absolutely.

energy is a time accelerator. You can do more, produce more, using energy.

all of our "wealth" is due to our application of energy. Maintaining and increasing wealth both require energy.

Some people look at the relationship between wealth and energy. And there's more than one way to look at it. I found this interesting for a really big picture perspective.

https://esd.copernicus.org/articles/13/1021/2022/