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

[Keith Henson]

On Fri, Jan 23, 2026 at 6:50 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Trump Is Obsessed With Oil, but Chinese Batteries Will Soon Run the World
>
> ": a big Diesel loco can produce 4 MW each."
>
> >...Spike, do you have any idea of what it would take to connect those locomotives to the grid?
>
> I wasn't proposing to connect them to a grid.  That is the strength of that idea.  The power would only be used to run microprocessors.
>
> >...Some of them even make DC...
>
> DC is what we want for microprocessors.  We want to push a lot of current up to a small voltage.

Conditioning a locomotive output to run GPUs would be a monumental
task.  Plus, the economics would kill you.  A locomotive costs around
ten times the diesel engine and generator.

> >...There are reasons, particularly economic, why oil was phased out of power production 40 years ago.  If you want more power rapidly, the least expensive way is gas turbines burning natural gas.  That's what Musk did in Memphis to the dismay of the locals...
>
> Gas turbines are good too.
>
> Where I was going with it is that the big Diesels are available now, and the demand for power is now.
>
> >..."Coal plants can be brought online faster"
>
> >...I don't know if the skills exist here anymore...
>
> Coal plants are not at all complicated.

The ones I know anything about are.

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

Was a 1580 megawatt electric (MWe) coal-fired power plant that was
located in Laughlin, Nevada. Southern California Edison is the
majority owner of the plant and was its operator.[2] The plant entered
commercial operation in 1971. A steam line that ran near the plant's
control room and cafeteria ruptured on June 9, 1985, fatally scalding
six and injuring ten more. In 2005, the plant was shut down and was
later dismantled.

The whole article is interesting. It takes attention to details like
pipe inspections and control systems, or people die with the flesh
stripped off their bones by 1000 ° steam.  Long ago I knew a guy who
worked in a steam plant.  They walked around with waving broomsticks
in front of them looking for leaks.  A leak would chop a foot off the
broomstick.  One guy who walked into a leak was cut in half.  Coal
plants are complicated and dangerous places.

Keith
>  All the equipment to make those go are with us.  The turbines are the same regardless of what heat source is boiling the water.
>
> >...Might get the Chinese to build them if you absolutely insist on coal and can get the permits.
>
> Keith
>
> Keith I really think we can figure out how to make coal fired boilers.  That technology hasn't changed much in 100 years.  They filter the soot out of the exhaust now, and I think they neutralize the NOx, but the process can be fired up quickly enough I would think.  There may even be idled coal burners which can be fired up.  I toured on in Trona California which I think is currently idle because of California emissions restrictions, which do not apply in Nevada.
>
> What I don't know is how the SCOTUS Chevron Decision of June 2024 would impact the process.  One might think it would speed it up.
>
> spike
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