[ExI] Trump Is Obsessed With Oil, but Chinese Batteries Will Soon Run the World

[spike at rainier66.com]

From: John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> 
Sent: Thursday, 22 January, 2026 9:09 AM
To: spike at rainier66.com
Cc: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] Trump Is Obsessed With Oil, but Chinese Batteries Will Soon Run the World

 

On Thu, Jan 22, 2026 at 10:52 AM <spike at rainier66.com <mailto:spike at rainier66.com> > wrote:

 

> Those who write articles should focus on the means to charge the batteries. 

 

>…It's clear you have not read the article that you're complaining about because it says that  "54% of new cars sold in China were either battery-powered or plug-in hybrids….

 

I saw that and it contributes to conflation.  Battery powered cars are powered by whatever is the prime mover, which isn’t a battery.  Plug in hybrids are powered by gasoline.  Those are two different things, but markets depend on consumers being a little confused on that.  The American market for EVs has cooled.

 

 

>… These vehicles are powered not by oil…

 

Plug in hybrids are powered mostly by oil.  A small percentage might be powered by electricity for some of the models, but in the recent car show, I noticed those were absent.  

 

>… but by domestically generated electrical power that comes from coal, nuclear, hydropower, solar and wind". The article also mentions that China has 40 new nuclear power reactors under construction, the US has zero….

 

JA!  That shows the article gets something perfectly right.  Nuclear power is our friend.  Those huge funnel-shaped cooling towers upset a lot of people.  So… put them in Greenland, power AI from there.  Put the data centers right there next to the plant, so the huge power cables are short.

 

>…And  China is building a dam in Tibet that will produce three times as much electricity as the Three Gorges Dam, currently the largest single power generating facility in the world. It also says that China is on track to reach peak oil consumption next year…

 

Ja, as our environmentalists are pressuring the US to not just build no more dams but to remove the ones we already have.  They are bad for fish.

 

 

> the current conflict over Greenland becomes clearer:

 

Indeed, things have become very clear, Alzheimer's disease has taken hold and our 80 year old king has become mad….

 

But investors have not, and there is PLENTY of investment capital realizing that power production is the most promising investment available. 

 

 

>… And Spike, doesn't it get exhausting making excuse after excuse for that petty little man?

 

John, everything isn’t about the current POTUS.  Doesn’t it get exhausting to make everything about him?  It isn’t.  Everything is now about power production and wealth production. 

 

 

>…Our Mad King has ordered the construction of all wind farms be stopped even if they are financed completely with private funding, he claims he has the legal authority to do that because of "national security concerns" … John K Clark 

 

 

Solution: don’t put wind turbines out at sea.  Put them on privately-owned land, privately financed.  Done.  There is pleeeeenty of privately-owned land.  Take a cross country trip on a clear day, dat a window seat, look at it.  Wide open, not much to break up the wind, vast stretches of mostly flat, dry, open land, used mostly to raise cattle now.  The wheat and corn production is perfectly compatible with wind power.  Well, the wind turbines won’t hurt the feelings of any of those cows, and take very little footprint away from the wheat and corn.  Federal government has no jurisdiction on wind turbines on privately-owned land, there are no national security concerns.  So invest.  Build.  Set up data centers adjacent to devour the energy.  The land is cheap out there.  The wind that sets that yellowed grass a-shiver neath the sun also sets profit-generating turbines a-shiver.  Kipling would love it.

 

spike

 

 

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