Peak Oil is You
Donate Bitcoins ;-) or Paypal :-)
Page added on November 1, 2017
China and the New Energy Economy
There is an increasingly inescapable sense that an energy transition of enormous proportions is taking place. The number of ‘bans’ announced on Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicles is growing, even if governments are placing them relatively far out on the political horizon.
More and more car manufacturers are taking note and shifting R&D spending into Electric Vehicles (EVs), a move which has profound implications for the development curves, and thus future cost, of EVs versus ICE vehicles.
In October, US automaker General Motors said that it would launch two new pure electric models in 2018 and a further 18 by 2023.
Its competitor Ford announced the creation of a new internal team to “think big and move fast” in order to accelerate the electrification of its auto production. Both are some way behind their European counterparts.
It is not hard to see why such decisions are being made now. While the number of EVs on the road remains just a fraction of the total parc, global sales are growing by about 40% year-on-year, making EVs the biggest growth story in the auto market in decades.
And, if governments are going to regulate against ICE vehicles and subsidize EVs, thereby changing the consumer choices which otherwise might be made, then what other path is there to tread?
CHINESE WHISPERS
What has rocked the car world most has been a potential ban on ICE vehicles in China. Talk of such a move may be overblown as nothing has been said yet by the country’s top policy-making body, the National Development and Reform Commission, but just floating such an idea in China is significant.
The country is both the world’s largest car market and the world’s biggest maker and consumer of EVs — not just passenger cars, but also electric buses and trucks.
Moreover, there is some meat behind the speculation. Beijing has promoted EVs heavily to date.
It is cutting back on passenger car subsidies, but has also announced that car makers in China producing or importing more than 30,000 cars a year must ensure that, by 2020, 12% of them are all-electric, plug-in hybrid or hydrogen powered.
If a company wants a stake in the world’s largest car market, then, at the very least, it will have to offer consumers a choice of both EV and ICE vehicles.
KEY DRIVERS
Urban air pollution and security of supply are key issues in this equation.
Coal stands alone among the fossil fuels as the only one for which China has avoided a burgeoning import bill, owing to the expansion of a huge domestic mining industry.
But this has come at the price of chronic urban air pollution, the three primary ingredients of which are coal-fired power generation, heavy industry and ICE vehicles, the latter being particularly noticeable given China’s rapid urbanization over the last 20 years.
China’s leaders therefore have a series of tough, interlinked problems to resolve.
They need to reduce the country’s reliance on heavy industry as the engine of economic growth and on coal-fired electricity generation as the backbone of the electricity system; and they need to deliver on the growing demand for transportation that the process of urbanization promotes while at the same time reducing air pollution.
CHINA’S RELATIONSHIP WITH OIL
The idea of an ICE ban in China is clearly at odds with some aspects of Chinese industrial policy and observers have been quick to note the obvious tensions with the country’s massive expansion of its refining capacity.
China has thrown billions of dollars into this industry over the past two decades, just as it has into becoming the world’s largest ICE car manufacturer. Chinese refining capacity rose from 4.2 million b/d in 1996 to 8.5 million b/d in 2006 and 14.2 million b/d in 2016.
Yet the expansion of Chinese refining has been a game of constant catch-up; refinery throughput has never quite matched oil product consumption, and domestic crude output has fallen far behind demand, owing to the country’s limited domestic oil reserves.
The success of Chinese refining is that it has minimized the bill from oil product imports, capturing within the domestic economy the refining margin, but this will only ever be a modest gain given the expense of growing crude imports.
These imports cost China somewhere in the region of $134 billion in 2016 and a whopping $1.9 trillion over the past decade in 2016 dollars.
It is a massive outflow of capital, and the supply chains involved leave China vulnerable to price and physical supply shocks that can have serious repercussions for its export industries.
Moreover, the country is quickly heading in the same direction with natural gas, imports of which rose from next to nothing in 2006 to 72.3 Bcm in 2016.
FOSSIL FUEL DEPENDENCE
Dependence on fossil fuel imports is an economic vulnerability, but more often than not a sign of economic strength rather than weakness.
It reflects the capacity of an economy to add value to raw material inputs through manufacturing and processing.
The world’s strongest and most diversified economies are all net fossil fuel importers.
But the outflow of capital spent on fossil fuel imports must be balanced by the export of value-added goods.
An economy dependent on raw material imports must also be an export economy, and China has long recognized that this creates a second weakness; it is dependent on extended international raw material supply chains on the one hand, and the health of export markets on the other.
Both are factors beyond China’s control, as it discovered with the rise in oil and other commodity prices from 2004, and then, in terms of export demand, during and after the global financial crisis of 2007/08.
Beijing has gone a long way to rebalance its export-oriented economy over the past decade, boosting domestic consumption and services at the expense of further expansion in export-oriented industry.
Services accounted for 51.6% of Chinese GDP in 2016, compared with 44.1% in 2010, while industry’s share fell from 46.4% in 2010 to 39.8% last year.
However, it wants to go further and at the same time address the problem of air pollution.
It can only do this by embracing the New Energy Economy, based upon renewables and the electrification of transport.
Developing EVs and renewables in tandem cuts pollution and redresses the issue of capital outflows and supply insecurity, while at the same time capturing more value-added internally, strengthening the domestic economy vis-a-vis the export-oriented economic model of the past.
SOLAR SUCCESS
Solar power has been an extraordinary success for China.
The industry has benefited from what has in effect been multiple layers of subsidization — at home through state assistance for building and deploying production capacity, as well as R&D spending, and abroad as governments in a number of Western and other countries have sought to incentivize renewables as a growing part of the energy mix.
These subsidies are being reduced, but largely because they are no longer needed — solar is competitive with fossil fuels for power generation in an increasing number of countries.
Moreover, the reduction of subsidies spurs innovation in what has become a cut-throat business.
As a result, China’s solar industry is entering a new phase in which it is focused on innovation and making its huge solar deployment capacities more economically efficient.
A number of recent studies, such as Stanford University’s The New Solar System, show that the West has misconceived the nature of the solar industry in China.
It is not a subsidized monolith on the verge of financial collapse, and it is increasingly innovative.
Notably, Trina Solar has achieved the world efficiency record for laboratory scale multicrystalline-silicon solar cells.
This technology dominates the global market for solar power, making up 70% of global PV production in 2016.
However, in terms of the New Energy Economy, it is the direct link that has been created between manufacturing and energy generation that is significant, challenging supply chains based on mining and oil and gas extraction.
China is now able to leverage its manufacturing capacities and low wage costs in the generation of energy.
RARE EARTH ELEMENTS
China’s venture in to the New Energy Economy is backed by its natural resource advantage in Rare Earth Elements.
REEs are used in multiple applications from medicine and defense to electronics, but some are specifically used in batteries for hybrid and fully electric cars.
Their use in permanent magnets also means they are required for wind turbine generators, as well as numerous electrical and electronic components. Like lithium and cobalt, they are key ingredients in the New Energy Economy.
REEs are not, despite their name, that rare, but they are distributed in low concentrations, which makes economic recovery difficult.
However, China is far and away the world’s number one producer of REEs.
The concentration of REE production in China may be a cause for concern for other countries, as is the concentration of cobalt production in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but for China it means that an important part of the new supply chain is kept in-house.
ELECTRIC VEHICLES
Similar factors apply to EVs. Here again the idea that Chinese industry is not innovative is misguided.
According to research by McKinsey, Chinese consumers can already choose from about 75 different EV models made by both domestic and foreign manufacturers, more than any other country in the world.
As with solar, some foreign observers have concluded that China’s EV industry is unsustainable because of the level of subsidy — China currently subsidizes about 23% of the total EV price in various ways.
However, as with the solar market, increased competition and a reduction in subsidies will force more efficient use of resources and increase the focus on innovation and manufacturing gains.
China is already a significant innovator in this sphere. BYD, China’s principal EV manufacturer, uses its own lithium iron-phosphate (LFP) technology, underlining that China’s EV industry is not dependent on Western technology or intellectual property.
Moreover, by many measures BYD is far in advance of iconic US EV maker Tesla, which uses lithium nickel cobalt aluminum-oxide battery technology.
BYD has twice the battery production capacity of Tesla and more than eight times the battery storage technology deployment.
Its passenger car sales are higher and it has already commercialized e-buses and e-trucks, which Tesla only hopes to do around 2020.
While LFP batteries have lower energy density than Tesla’s, their stability allows faster charging and greater durability.
According to Wood Mackenzie, BYD recharges its buses at 300 kW without cooling, faster than Tesla’s superchargers, formerly the fastest recharging system in the world.
EVS AND SOLAR COMBINED
China’s investment in EVs is as significant as its investment in solar power, where it dominates the market.
According to Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute, China and Taiwan accounted for 68% of solar PV module production in 2016, compared with 4% in Europe and 6% in Canada and the US combined.
For China, EVs and solar are both policies designed to strengthen the domestic economy and combat air pollution.
In combination with other renewables, such as wind and hydro, they are designed to create a New Energy Economy, which retains maximum value within the domestic economy and reduces its exposure to external shocks.
Despite China being the biggest market for solar power and EVs, both are still small in terms of electricity consumption and generation.
However, the number of EVs on the road in China now exceeds 1 million, according to www.EV-volumes.com, split between 634,794 passenger vehicles and 362,120 heavy vehicles, mainly buses.
The figures include both pure EVs and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.
According to S&P Global Platts calculations, China’s fleet of EVs consumed about 20-25 TWh of electricity in 2016, accounting for less than 0.5% of total electricity generated in China that year.
China’s solar power generation in 2016 was 66.2 TWh, about 1% of electricity generated, so in a slightly surreal sense China’s EV fleet was powered entirely by solar power.
EV electricity consumption rose by 143% (15.7 TWh) in 2016, while solar power generation grew by 72% (27.7 TWh).
China’s EVs will also be displacing close to 300,000 b/d of oil products demand, primarily diesel, by end-2017, assuming continued growth in e-HDV sales, which reached 205,886 last year, and about 40% year-on-year growth in light-duty EVs.
At end-2016, China’s EV fleet was displacing just over 180,000 b/d of oil products, more than 90% of which was accounted for by e-HDVs.
EXTERNAL CHANGE
China is by no means alone in pursuing change, but it is better positioned and more motivated to achieve it than most other countries because of its reliance on fossil fuel imports, huge manufacturing capacities and air pollution problems.
There are concerns that the implied rise in electricity demand as a result of transport electrification will overwhelm the capacity to deploy and integrate thousands of gigawatts of additional renewable generation capacity into China’s electricity grid.
China may be forced back into reliance on coal to power its growing fleet of EVs, thereby offsetting the impact of reduced vehicle emissions with higher power plant emissions.
This could prove a self-limiting factor that encourages more gradual change in what will, in any case, be a decadal process.
However, the lesson to be drawn from China’s massive refining expansion is not that it represents an immovable barrier to the uptake of EVs, but that when Beijing puts its mind to a vast industrial endeavor, it generally delivers.
Nonetheless, the implications for oil exporting countries of a gradual decline in Chinese crude oil imports are major.
China has been by far the single largest factor in oil demand growth over the last 15 years.
It is far more important to international markets than the US, which has managed to increase its own oil production and reduce its import bill — effectively keeping the hydrocarbon economy in-house, which itself may prove a barrier to change in the US.
A peak in oil demand, which has been predicted before 2040 by some oil companies and forecasters implies a concentration on only the cheapest oil production, which remains the Middle East. Higher cost producers will suffer.
There would be little incentive, for example, to develop the remaining reserves of the North Sea, or to head off further into the Barents and Arctic, a direction still thought inevitable only a few years ago.
Declining stakes in oil and gas production might reduce the barriers to change in other countries, which may, as in Europe, be more highly motivated to adopt EVs by the desire to combat global climate change.
Europe, like China, is dependent on fossil fuel imports and therefore has every reason to pursue economically viable alternatives.
Certainly other countries would seek to emulate China’s lead. India notably is leaping into renewables generation, although primarily as a means of reducing its own reliance on coal-fired generation, but it is also pursuing industrial policies to redress its relative lack of manufacturing capacity.
Emulation of China would provide Chinese companies with new opportunities for the export of EVs and other renewable technologies, just as it has with e-buses and solar panels.
China’s adoption of the New Energy Economy would be a win for both its domestic economys and its export industries.
–Ross McCracken, [email protected]
71 Comments on "China and the New Energy Economy"
makati1 on Wed, 1st Nov 2017 8:45 am
Interesting. We shall see. But, once again it is a propaganda piece for the US: “It is far more important to international markets than the US, which has managed to increase its own oil production and reduce its import bill — effectively keeping the hydrocarbon economy in-house,” It ignores the huge oil imports the US still has and needs.
Cloggie on Wed, 1st Nov 2017 9:29 am
http://gas2.org/2017/10/03/electric-car-sales-rise-norway-tesla-sales-soar/
Norway: 29% new sold vehicles were e-vehicles in September. Will be 100% in 2020.
1. Volkswagen: 2.083 (- 0.0 percent)
2. Tesla: 2.003 (+ 136.2 percent)
3. Toyota: 1,355 (- 25.7 percent)
4. Volvo: 960 (+ 25.8 percent)
5. BMW: 872 (- 26.9 percent)
Cloggie on Wed, 1st Nov 2017 9:31 am
Make that 2025.
My apologies.
Davy on Wed, 1st Nov 2017 9:49 am
Mad Kat, why is everything that agrees with your POV correct and the truth and everything that disagrees propaganda? Does that sound logical or foolish?
Go Speed Racer on Wed, 1st Nov 2017 10:56 am
If the government will ban my 460 V8 Lincoln
Continental with A/C and power everything,
then I am banning their cocaine, their heroin
and their $1200 a night prostitutes.
Eye for an eye.
Kenz300 on Wed, 1st Nov 2017 11:59 am
The future.
Clean energy production with solar panels / tiles and battery storage.
Clean energy consumption with electric vehicles. No emissions.
A new solar roof, battery storage, an electric car charger and an electric vehicle.
Solar panels are now being projected to have a much longer life and lower cost than just a few years ago.
Electric cars, electric trucks, electric lawn mowers, electric snow blowers, electric tools, no emissions.
Apneaman on Wed, 1st Nov 2017 12:44 pm
Kenz300, you and the other mindless cheerleaders been puking up the same lines for years, yet the CO2 climbs.
dave thompson on Wed, 1st Nov 2017 1:07 pm
The refining of crude oil produces a whole bunch of different products.
Just because some place or city is proposing a ban on the ICE does not mean that the crude oil products such as gasoline and diesel will not be burned elsewhere.
For that matter the crude oil products will most likely be burned that much faster in the developing countries because the proposals of going green in one place will make it cheaper to just keep BAU.
This will be all due to demand and the FF industries grip on the global economy.
MASTERMIND on Wed, 1st Nov 2017 1:21 pm
Madkat post oil and limits to growth collapse. I will be breeding your daughters and grand daughters….You will see my nuts in your girls mouth!
rockman on Wed, 1st Nov 2017 2:09 pm
More EV’s on the road, if the bulk of the new electricity demand is provided by non fossil fuel sources, would obviously be a big plus. But as Dave implies that doesn’t necessarily mean global motor fuel consumption will decrease. Just that it won’t increase as much. And if much of the new Chinese EV fleet is powered by coal sourced electricity it takes much of the shine off its transition.
Folks are free to predict as they wish but it won’t guarantee it will materialize. Might as well just wait to see what happens over the next 10+ years and reserve the enthusiasm for when we have actual statistics.
Boat on Wed, 1st Nov 2017 2:53 pm
mak,
China > 8 mbpd
US < 3 mbpd
When you lived here wasn't the US 12 mbpd?
MASTERMIND on Wed, 1st Nov 2017 2:59 pm
Rockman EV’s are horrible unreliable cars. And only around 40% of all drivers in the US have garages to charge them…And even less then i Asia and elsewhere.You don’t save any money on gasoline because you have to buy an expensive battery. And it jacks up your power bills..And if EV’S knock off some of the demand for oil the price will come down for everything. Including gasoline and airline travel. So more people will buy more oil and the price and demand will rise again…Duh..
Boat on Wed, 1st Nov 2017 3:00 pm
rock,
The debate is how long EV penetration will take to cause consumption of oil declines. Most of us have moved past the if.
Boat on Wed, 1st Nov 2017 3:10 pm
mm,
“And if EV’S knock off some of the demand for oil the price will come down for everything. Including gasoline and airline travel. So more people will buy more oil and the price and demand will rise again…Duh.”
Or there is an excess of oil and the higher cost producers get pushed out. Supply and demand.
Boat on Wed, 1st Nov 2017 6:33 pm
Even electric cars powered by the dirtiest electricity emit fewer emissions than diesel cars, says new study
As you can see on the chart below, even on an extremely polluting national grid, like Poland’s, a battery-powered vehicle still emits 25% less CO2 over its lifetime than a diesel car:
https://electrek.co/2017/11/01/electric-cars-dirty-electricicty-coal-emission-cleaner-study/
makati1 on Wed, 1st Nov 2017 7:15 pm
Ah, yes, Muddledmind. Once again you prove your IQ and maturity with your reply “…You will see my nuts in your girls mouth!” You are a 12 year old, potty mouthed child. And you want readers here to believe you have a doctorate degree. LMAO.
makati1 on Wed, 1st Nov 2017 7:31 pm
Boat, the US Gross National Debt in that year was $10,610,000,000,000. ($10.6 Trillion)
It was the year of the big crash that almost killed capitalism and globalization.
The US Gross National Debt is now $20,450,000,000,000. and rapidly increasing.
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
Your ‘domestic’ oil production was the cause of most of that added debt because it is NOT profitable and the charade cannot last much longer. The next collapse will end fraking and the like but it will also kill off much of the demand for oil. Inability to purchase. You have to look at the TOTAL picture, not the part you like.
Davy on Wed, 1st Nov 2017 8:04 pm
We are fine Mad Kat. You are barking up a tree. We are
No worse off than Asia or Europe. Have you added
Up China’s debt for 2017? You should it blows the US debt figures out of the water. Check out the debt in the EU and tell your new boyfriend what you think.
makati1 on Wed, 1st Nov 2017 8:04 pm
In more important Chinese news:
“China Has Practiced Bombing Runs On Guam”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-11-01/china-has-practiced-bombing-runs-guam
The US does not belong in the Asian region. It has no business there except trade. The Chinese can now target all of its bases easily and destroy them on the first day of conflict.
https://www.defensenews.com/flashpoints/2017/10/31/china-has-practiced-bombing-runs-against-guam-us-says/
This article is full of US bluster and patriotic bullshit. Nothing more.
Davy on Wed, 1st Nov 2017 8:12 pm
So what Mad Kat their planes will be easy to shoot down.
MASTERMIND on Wed, 1st Nov 2017 8:27 pm
Boat we know how long we have studied this before..
UC Davis Study: It Will Take 131 Years to Replace Oil with Alternatives (Malyshkina, 2010)
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es100730q
University of Chicago Study: predicts world economy unlikely to stop relying on fossil fuels (Covert, 2016)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.30.1.117
MASTERMIND on Wed, 1st Nov 2017 8:45 pm
Madkat1…I don’t care if you doubt my education or not…Knowledge is what I find important. And I was a state chess champion in high school as well… I can see the board many moves ahead and I know what is coming…I have facts and evidence to back up my assertions. You have fake news. and bogus evidence free rants..You are just an ignorant blowhard..Nothing more…
makati1 on Wed, 1st Nov 2017 10:11 pm
Keep bragging about yourself if it makes you feel important MM, but your immaturity speaks volumes about your character and intelligence.
You cannot face the real world so, like Davy, you try to kill the messenger. Never works. Reality is reality. You are nothing more than a brainwashed American serf.
makati1 on Wed, 1st Nov 2017 10:17 pm
BTW MM, I served my country for 11 years as an armor/artillery officer during the riots of the 60s. Have you served or do you hide in the corner expecting others to protect you or to die for your worthless hide? I bet the latter. No guts, just mouth? Typical American.
MASTERMIND on Wed, 1st Nov 2017 11:28 pm
makati1
How am I brainwashed or delusional exactly? Can you explain that argument for me? I believe we are headed towards a global collapse because of four peer reviewed scientific studies done within the last decade by top experts.. If they concluded just a western collapse or just an asian collapse I would believe that as well…I am not biasing either way…I wish they concluded just one region because unlike you I dont wish death and misery on anyone..But I change what the science says. And science is the best method we have for explaining the world we live in. You are the one who is deluded and thinks just the US will collapse and have ZERO evidence to support your argument…You are the one who doesn’t want to face reality..And like I said before i am a very opened minded person if you had some evidence like a study that concluded just a western collapse. You should share it and prove me wrong..But you don’t so you have NO REASON to believe that…I have a question for you Madkat do you believe in the UFO’S? No i doubt it. But why? Because there is no evidence of any..See that is called logic and we naturally don’t believe things without evidence…Unless we are deluded…
Boat on Wed, 1st Nov 2017 11:50 pm
mm,
Replacing oil 100 percent is kinda a silly concept to begin with. How long will it take renewables to kill coal and keep up with EV penetration over the next 30 years is more interesting and relevant. How much will nat gas have to ramp up vrs. battery storage is also a question. Transporation oil will take a huge hit in the process but my guess is there will always be a market for oil and a host of other products derived from oil.
makati1 on Thu, 2nd Nov 2017 12:09 am
It is obvious to anyone outside the USMSM Iron Curtain. How do you explain insanity to the insane? They think it is normal, so I will not even try. Ditto for brainwashing. If you cannot see it on your own, no one will be able to show you. It took years and moving outside the USMSM Iron Curtain to open my eyes. You are surrounded by it 24/7/365.
UFO’s? How did that get into the conversation? I believe that in a universe with billions of systems, there is the probability of intelligent life in some form, somewhere. Maybe even more than one, but it could have existed and gone extinct a billion years ago. Or may not be to the intelligent stage now. Or may exist in the future. So what?
You are like most “career professionals” that think only in the small box of their specialty. You assume that a degree makes you special. It only makes you arrogant and stupid in most other fields. Just look at the supposed ‘educated professionals’ are doing in your colleges today. Brainwashing snowflakes and causing the US to disintegrate because they think they know it all.
You can claim to be ‘open minded’ but your words say otherwise. Needing others to verify what you want to believe is one of them. I don’t need someone to say what I see is real. I see it. No peer reviews required. I see the US suffering much more than Asia when the SHTF. The higher the fall, the harder the landing. THUD!
You deserve what is coming because you deny that anything is wrong with the acts committed in YOUR name,* by YOUR government, paid for with YOUR taxes. Blow-back is a bitch and some deserve to be torn apart by it.
BYW: A degree will not save you from the mobs. It may just be your death warrant. Thank about that.
Apneaman on Thu, 2nd Nov 2017 12:15 am
mak, at every turn you bash the empire and call anyone who does not hate it as the worst thing to ever exist a brain washed sheeple, then turn around and boast how you served it’s killing machine. How do you square that circle exactly? You gave 11 years of your life to the evil empire’s military? Which ones are the sheeple again?
Why did you sign up and stay for so long?
makati1 on Thu, 2nd Nov 2017 12:25 am
Ap, Yep! Guilty as charged. So?
I was also a brainwashed serf for most of my life but that does not mean I have to ignore what is happening now. I am outside looking into the zoo. Huge difference. I see the brainwashing in everything that comes out of the US. Movies, TV, news, magazines, etc. Everything is part of the washing and has been for decades. Americans don’t even feel the water getting hotter because they are still in the pot. I’m not. It seems to be reaching boiling point.
I did not “sign up”, it was called the draft. No choice. I joined the National Guard over serving in the military in Vietnam. I was not stupid, just had few choices at the time. I served during the 60s riots when they were burning the cities here in the States. A kind of police force for the state.
Sissyfuss on Thu, 2nd Nov 2017 12:25 am
And in 5 years they will have changed the name of the site to “Peak Lithium.Com.”
makati1 on Thu, 2nd Nov 2017 12:39 am
BTW AP, I stayed for the money as I was an officer and liked the change from civilian life occasionally. I got out when I married and she didn’t like me using my vacation time to go to summer camps every year. So we started taking the family to the shore instead. Just one of my various experiences in life.
Anonymouse1 on Thu, 2nd Nov 2017 1:15 am
Farticle claims…
“Urban air pollution and security of supply are key issues in this equation.”
In truth neither of these are ‘key’ issues at all. Urban air pollution IS a problem to be sure, but EVs wont do anything more than (possibly) slow the rate at which air pollution increases. And while EVs might appear less-dirty on the surface(to some), they leave practically every other single problem cars create-unresolved. The world simply does not have the room, or money really, in its overflowing cities to keep building out more cars-only transportation infrastructure, regardless of how the cars themselves are powered. THAT is what I would call, a ‘key’ issue. Whether it is China or the uS of guns and NASCAR, officials are loathe to admit the car itself, is the problem. Nor can they admit, replacing (some) gas burners with electron burners won’t really solve anything either.
As far as ‘security of supply’, that is amerikan code for controlling the world’s oil, and the uS and friends have been working that file overtime for decades now. AKA the Global War of Terror, AKA the ‘Russian threat’, and so on. The idea being peddled is that ‘unreliable 3rd worlders are trying to take over the worlds (read uS’s) oil supply, and EVs are just the thing needed to throw a big wrench in their sinister plans. LoL. Sure.
The retards at Platts forgot to mention something though.
No oil = no EVs, No roads for all those EVs, to drive to…(where again?), no solar panels, none of those nice low(ish)-carbon options. ANd not just oil, but cheap oil preferably, because the more oil costs, the more those EVs, panels and green-tech are going to cost as well. And in a world where a lot of people incomes are stagnant at best….
I guess there always the more debt option AKA BAU. Unlike reservoirs of new, cheap HQ oil, finding new reservoirs of debt to fund even more car-dependency, never seems to be a problem, does it?
Cloggie on Thu, 2nd Nov 2017 1:50 am
“mak, at every turn you bash the empire and call anyone who does not hate it as the worst thing to ever exist a brain washed sheeple,”
Ap doesn’t believe anymore that a US global empire (=Global Zion)…
https://goo.gl/images/MxpAZk
…will ever materialize, but still gets irritated over defectors and empire traitors like makati.
Last week the Emir of Qatar spilled the beans in publicly admitting that the US was responsible for the “civil war” in Syria by paying and arming jihadist thugs to go on a killing spree resulting in 500,000 killed, for no other reason than that Assad-Syria was not yet member of the US empire. And never will.ROFL.
Now that is bad news for despicable hardcore imperialist apneaman and his little no less despicable water carrier davy. Nananana!
Now all that remains for this comical Anglo-Zionist duo is to descend in face-saving but absurd hyper-doomerisn and watch videos from the real McCoy. I have to take care not to wet my pants for laughing. Mind the step on the way out, toodeledokie! And greetings from Adolf.ROFL
TheNationalist on Thu, 2nd Nov 2017 2:23 am
As a briton I agree totally with you Cloogie. We are not all pro zionist and anti white europeans!.
What the Anglo zionist – zionist U.S. Empire has been doing in Syria is beyond criminal.
Worse than Vietnam and the “Husseins WMD’s” combined.
Anyone who can’t see this daily reality needs a free consultation with a good physchologist and some Prozac.
I am surprised the yank media hasn’t blamed Mr Putin in Russia for theGFC in 2008. Yet…
Davy on Thu, 2nd Nov 2017 5:37 am
“mak, at every turn you bash the empire and call anyone who does not hate it as the worst thing to ever exist a brain washed sheeple,”
Ape man has more brains in is left little toe than dumb n dutch and mad kat combined. When he calls out mad kat he is seeing that his anti-Americanism is actually counterproductive. If you try too hard to make something look bad it becomes suspect. If you try too hard to make yourself look good at the same time you really become suspect. It is better to be objectively critical. This is something intellectually dishonest people like dumb n Dutch and mad kat do regularly because they are peddling an agenda. No wonder they are best of friends now. They are always whoring around looking for anyone to support their extremism.
Cloggie on Thu, 2nd Nov 2017 5:53 am
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GygmGSwvcI
I watched this video last night. Is it true what McCoy says that 45% of the Australians would prefer an alliance with China over America?
Very senior Australian politician Malcolm Fraser has expressed his fear that America could get embroiled in an armed conflict with China in the South China Sea and could lose that conflict and that Australia, as an ally of the US, could lose its independence and end up in Chinese hands:
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2015/01/02/america-australias-dangerous-ally/#more-22005
Australia could end up with a fourth overlord: Holland, Britain, US, China.
Fine Australian folks like the TheNationalist, who repeatedly called himself a Briton, and who once again illustrate that (in this case English) identity is a matter of centuries and not a matter of getting a new (Australian) passport handed over, have a plan B: Europe. OK, the weather sucks, but at least you are among your own folks and perhaps, in the light of climate change, in the end British weather could become preferable over an expanding Australian desert:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5ZeJvXTL68
Britain will need folks like TheNationalist and Antius to survive the devastating consequences of the multicult ideology of the US empire. It is the task of right-wing continental Europeans to bring that ideology down, to let Russia into Europe, set up an expedition army and liberate those European Americans who want to live European lives, like in America’s best century, the 19th century. In that constellation (Paris-Berlin-Moscow + Heartland USA = 800 million) we can hope to successfully contain the coming #1 super power China. And once America will step down from hegemon position and balkanize, there is no choice for Britain other than to become European in a rapidly darkening world.
Davy on Thu, 2nd Nov 2017 6:09 am
“Very senior Australian politician Malcolm Fraser”
Dumb n dutch believes what politicians say. LOL. BTW, dumb n dutch, what di he say you did not reference what he said you just said what you wanted him to say. No words for your assertion means you are peddling agenda.
“let Russia into Europe, set up an expedition army and liberate those European Americans who want to live European lives, like in America’s best century, the 19th century. In that constellation (Paris-Berlin-Moscow + Heartland USA = 800 million) we can hope to successfully contain the coming #1 super power China.”
Folks can you see the fantasy here? Dumb n dutch, you are so far off into fantasy land you can’t even operate in reality. That is why I call you dumb. You do realize smart people can be dumb. You can’t even field an army now that projects power outside of Europe unless you consider France and Africa. You can’t even protect yourself. You need a large American support system. Russia is massed on your eastern borders ready to invade if given the opportunity and you are calling them to come to your aid. China is not a #1 superpower but in your mind they are. You live in the future with a revised past. How far from reality is that! LOL. This is why you and mad kat are best of friends. You two live in fantasy worlds of agendas and conspiracies. Reality is too harsh for either of you old men to handle. You can’t handle the truth so you manufacture your truth.
Cloggie on Thu, 2nd Nov 2017 6:58 am
Clogmeister believes what politicians say. LOL.
I do not believe politicians. But I am far more inclined to believe retired politicians, like Malcolm Fraser, who are much more inclined to speak the truth as they see it.
Like former Italian president Francesco Cossiga, who shortly before his death, while suffering from terminal cancer, told the largest Italian newspaper that every intelligence agency on the planet knew that 9/11 was the work of CIA and Mossad.
Cloggie on Thu, 2nd Nov 2017 7:10 am
Folks can you see the fantasy here? Dumb n dutch, you are so far off into fantasy land you can’t even operate in reality.
Vladimir Putin in his own words, after Euromaidan:
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2014/09/19/putin-confirms-ambition-paris-berlin-moscow-alliance/
Francois Mitterrand spoke of a European confederation with Russia as a member. I think this opportunity still exists. We will have it in the future.
Vladimir Putin, as we all remember, was the great European statesman who kicked US imperial ass in Syria (to the enjoyment of most of the world that hates the US empire), openly says that we will have Paris-Berlin-Moscow in the future. He is absolutely no crotcheteer.
He can calmly say that out of simple geopolitical logic (too difficult to follow for our not too bright Last Imperial Man Standing, Davy the trailer park thug): if China will become the #1 super power, than Europe and Russia have no choice but to unite. Even the Chinese think it will happen, as expressed by THEIR New Silk Road Map:
http://www.inpraiseofchina.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Map-China-New-Silk-Road-EAU.jpg
Worryingly, the Chinese leave open as to who they think Siberia belongs to.
Davy on Thu, 2nd Nov 2017 7:17 am
“Clogmeister believes what politicians say. LOL.”
Dumb n dutch reprints his avatar to clogmeister. LOL. I pegged him
“I do not believe politicians.” You just referenced one so I am wondering if you are confused with what you believe. You squirm are around like a snake.
Davy on Thu, 2nd Nov 2017 7:20 am
“Vladimir Putin in his own words, after Euromaidan:”
Dumb n dutch, put down Vlad’s words and use a proper 3rd party link not your personal accumulator of crud. You are intellectually dishonest.
TheNationalist on Thu, 2nd Nov 2017 10:00 am
All this U.S. Inspired anti Russia hysteria is just the yanks trying to delay the inevitable Cloggie.
You have nailed it and I think the French foreign policy towards Russia over the last 20 years has been much more rational than the UK and the U.S.
I guess they just keep clinging to the multi-cult fantasy (whilst there is still money to be made from empire),but in the end all the Scotch-Irish and
indigenous European nationalists will be ready when they finally break down and come into the fold. This is not fantasy but forces of nature in the next GFC I would think.
Sorry Davy etc but you can’t seriously be looking south to mec’ico (with their 2500 murders this year so far)or towards your Saudi and Qatari “friends”?
I don’t think those shitholes gives white americans any comfort or reassurance of a better future.
Australia is 90% European (mostly UK or dutch/german) but needs Chinese money for now, our politicians are quite rightly promoting peace as much as possible (like old Malcolm Fraser.)
We just had another report here highlighting the massive cost of living increases and declining wages for all but the rich. Australia has taken another “step down” this year in my opinion through the U.S. inspired globalisation. Most Europeans only came here in the first place because life was cheaper and less crowded! We might as well go back to the motherland now!
It really has become ridiculous here with endless political scandels, rapid urban growth and an obvious decline in “the aussie way of life”. We have none of your luck in U.S.Davy, for example36c a kw compared to your 11c!
Americans will quickly realise that the worlds greatest retrograde force will attempt to swamp and kill them like the millitant scum in Europe, only then will they look in the mirror and be honest with themselves. Zionism is slowly killing America and they need to awaken.
Davy on Thu, 2nd Nov 2017 10:19 am
How am I looking south, nationalist? Explain please?
World inspired globalization is better than US inspired. The world bought into it or it would not have been inspired. It was a product of the Cold War IMA.
Bs, nationalist, Zionism is so 20th century. It is still a force but not worth basing ones world ideology on like the board jew baiters do. It is an intellectually lame way of reaching simple answers for complex problems.
rockman on Thu, 2nd Nov 2017 10:24 am
Mak – “Your ‘domestic’ oil production was the cause of most of that added debt because it is NOT profitable and the charade cannot last much longer.” You seem a tad confused. None of the $10 trillion increase in the debt under discussion involved what the petroleum industry borrowed: it’s what the federal govt borrowed. And given that the DOD is the single largest fossil fuel buyer on the planet and it transfer a big chunk of the govt’s budget to us fossil fuel sellers some of the $10 trillion actually represents revenue for us. IOW it actually was part of our profit margin.
Cloggie on Thu, 2nd Nov 2017 11:25 am
Most Europeans only came here in the first place because life was cheaper and less crowded! We might as well go back to the motherland now!
If impoverished Dutch could go to Australia/Nieuw Zeeland in the fifties, after being… um… liberated (read: being colonized by the US empire)…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uei8phhIAhw
…folks from “Down Under” could consider returning “home” to the Northern Hemisphere, if the Australian army of 40k turns out to be no match for the Red Army of several millions.
The globalist emancipatory libtard values of the modern West (feminism, third world-ism, fast-track divorce, breakdown family, holo-guilt, etc) have ensured that we as a people are tremendously weakened. We simply can’t hold all the lands we still possess. Candidates for scuttling: Down Under (can’t be defended), US-SW, US-SE, parts of West-Canada. We have to start all over again in making the 21st century a “conservative century” or possibly even reactionary for reasons of survival in a world where we will be a tiny minority (8%) by 2100.
Davy on Thu, 2nd Nov 2017 11:41 am
I know Europe well and I find their way of life great but they are a lazy pampered people. They want off work more than they work. A Mexican immigrant will do double the work of a European in those fields these Mexicans are good at. When I say this I mean white Americans too. An American will work harder than a European but for stupid reasons. Americans like toys so they work long hours to buy stupid things. We have a lot of cultural strengths from our multicultural population along with many negatives. Do I want more immigrants ,No, especially Muslims. Until Muslims get their act together they are not welcome. I am mainly
Against immigration becuase of overshoot. Almost all locals in this world today are in overshoot.
Cloggie on Thu, 2nd Nov 2017 1:17 pm
I know Europe well and I find their way of life great but they are a lazy pampered people.
Sure Davy, we are all in awe:
http://www.oecd.org/std/productivity-stats/
US 68
DE 67
FR 67
Figures 2016, no significant difference:
http://time.com/4621185/worker-productivity-countries/
They want off work more than they work.
There is more to life than just acquiring shekels in order to buy “stuff”.
Do I want more immigrants ,No, especially Muslims. Until Muslims get their act together they are not welcome.
No shit Sherlock, but if I say the same I get the Natzi-epithet launched against me. You are such a nasty little hypocrite.
Furthermore I can assure you that Muslims have their act very well together, namely exploiting the humanitarian weakness of white folks and take over their territory. But Davy the Progressive insists that someday, somehow the Mussels will become like Americans and mindlessly acquire stupid stuff and that’s it.
THEY NEVER WILL!
Davy on Thu, 2nd Nov 2017 1:32 pm
Dumb n Dutch, you guys work half days and take whole months off to be idle. It is impressive but hardly lends itself to a work ethic. Look at you. I bet you haven’t done shit today but lay on your nuts. Today I have worked the animals, service the skid steer, and cut a rank of wood.
Cloggie on Thu, 2nd Nov 2017 1:54 pm
Today I have worked the animals, service the skid steer, and cut a rank of wood.
Your level.
Sympathetic, low-skilled, intellectually non-demanding work, in line with the quality and trailer-park depth of your posts.
I programmed today in preparation for working for a very demanding client, with global reach next week that only takes the very best, for shit loads of money.
Apneaman on Thu, 2nd Nov 2017 2:01 pm
Davy, what’s the difference between “work ethic” and “play ethic” and “eating ethic” and “sleeping ethic” and all the other versions of “whatever ethic” I can make up same as the econ 101 think tanks made up that ridiculous notion of “work ethic” out of whole cloth?
The difference is that untold millions have been thoroughly convinced there is such a thing as a work ethic. There isen’t.
Hey them death camp Nazis were very efficient and put in tons of hours – they had a great work ethic when it came to genocide.
Looks great on the resume too.
I don’t have any work ethic, but I have a great fucking and sucking ethic – highly motivated and all that.
Looks great on the resume too.