The China Thread

[Admiral Yi]

The leverage that control of rare earths grants I can see.  The case for panel production is not nearly as clear.  the case for energy *use* is baffling.

[Jacob]

If you can (economically) devote 10 times the energy (arbitrary number) to your economy (and military) than your competitors can, that seems to be a pretty big advantage in industry and manufacturing (at least the bits that are require significant energy inputs) as well as any data-related industries (AI is famously energy intensive, as is the internet).

Or did you mean something else?

[The Minsky Moment]

But at the same time, China is doing it and making genuinely astonishing progress which might be good for the world but also building in dominance in key sectors that is bad for the West and our order.

The astonishing progress needs to be put into perspective. Solar is growing fast in China but (as elsewhere) from a small base. And in the context of still growing overall energy consumption.

In 2023, coal still accounted for over 60% of energy production in China.  That share was down somewhat on the year but in absolute terms energy from coal production increased on the year. That is, all that massive investment and build out in solar still wasn't enough to absorb the entire absolute increase in energy demand, much less displace existing plant.

[The Minsky Moment]

The leverage that control of rare earths grants I can see.  The case for panel production is not nearly as clear.  the case for energy *use* is baffling.

If the US reached the stage of 25%+ of energy from solar generation, that would require a very large and steady supply just to maintain and replace existing capacity. If the sole source of panels was a single country foreign supplier, that would put the US energy infrastructure at risk. In the case of an embargo there wouldn't be enough time to replace with domestic capacity - the economic damage would be severe.