Posted on 09/30/2025 6:36:00 AM PDT by MtnClimber
The first eight months of the second Trump administration have seen a sea change in energy policy. Previously, under Biden, the federal government had undertaken a blowout of hundreds of billions of dollars of subsidies and incentives for so-called “renewable” energy sources, while simultaneously implementing dozens of regulations and restrictions to suppress the production and use of fossil fuels. President Trump has now reversed all of that.
However, please take note of an important distinction: although Trump and Congress have zeroed out nearly all subsidies and tax credits for wind and solar generation and for grid-scale batteries, they have not enacted comparable subsidies and incentives for fossil fuels. Instead, all sources of energy production now must stand or fall without subsidies, based on their ability to fulfill customer demand and to generate profit. All sources of energy are now on equal footing, and without subsidies.
Meanwhile, over in China, billions of dollars in subsidies have flowed for many years into developing the ability to produce the infrastructure for a wind/solar/storage energy system — things like polysilicon, solar panels, solar cells, wind turbine blades, wind turbine nacelles, and battery cells. As a result, China has become completely dominant in the world in manufacturing these and many related items.
So who is making the better energy bet?
For one possible answer to that question, here is a Wall Street Journal piece from September 21 (probably behind pay wall). You get a clear idea where they are going from the headline, “The U.S. Is Forfeiting the Clean-Energy Race to China.”
In the vision of the authors of the piece (David Uberti, Ed Ballard, and Brian Spengele), there is an international race under way for dominance in “clean energy,” and the United States is in the process of losing it. The problem is that the U.S. is failing to put up the necessary government subsidies for “clean energy” to vie for the lead. Excerpt:
U.S. and China are offering competing visions for the future of energy, representing the next dimension in the showdown between two superpowers vying for global influence and artificial intelligence supremacy. The U.S. renewables retreat goes far beyond the tax bill that is winding down more than $400 billion in estimated subsidies. Federal agencies have tightened rules for new development. The Trump administration recently terminated a multibillion-dollar loan guarantee for a Midwest transmission line, halted a near-complete wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island and canceled $3.7 billion of funding for technologies that could reduce industrial emissions.
China, meanwhile, under the enlightened direction of President Xi, has opened the money spigot to subsidize “green energy” development:
In a meeting with his economic team in 2014, Chinese leader Xi Jinping called for a “revolution” in the nation’s energy system. Renewables were earmarked for special state support as part of Xi’s “Made in China 2025” initiative. By owning the production chain for equipment such as photovoltaic panels and wind turbines, the government bet it could ease its energy-security challenge while creating jobs.
And the result of the massive subsidies? Innovation!
Even as Chinese companies continued to erect coal plants, billions of dollars of subsidies flowed to such companies as JinkoSolar and the battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology, also known as CATL. Innovation followed.
So China is racing ahead to dominate the entire clean energy field:
By 2023, a solar module produced in China was 65% cheaper than one made in the U.S., according to the energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie. CATL said it spent more than $2.6 billion on research and development last year alone, with a staff of more than 20,000 people. Caroline Wang, an analyst with the Australian think tank Climate Energy Finance, said the resulting renewables buildout has recently left China’s world-leading coal fleet running at less than half capacity. “They are just leading the world by an absolutely mind-boggling margin,” Wang said.
It’s mind-boggling! The Journal provides the following chart (sourced to Bloomberg/NEF) of market shares of various green energy components to illustrate how completely dominant China has become:
Wow! There’s not one of those critical components where China’s 2024 market share was less than about 65%. And for some of them, like solar wafers and battery anodes, the market share was more like 95%.
So how are you going to bet? Here’s my bet: The entire idea of an energy system based on wind, solar and batteries will not work and will fail, probably over the course of the next ten years or so, if not sooner. All of the investment will be lost. All of the employees will be laid off.
At least in the U.S. we allow companies to fail and go through prompt bankruptcies, where their assets get re-allocated to more productive uses. In China, where avoiding loss of face for the leaders is the highest value, failed businesses get propped up endlessly, dragging the economy down with them. I guess that we are just blessed with incompetent geopolitical adversaries.
Of course, I could be wrong. But I don’t think this one is a close call. Businesses that need government subsidies to survive are a negative for the economy. It’s as simple as that.
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Would any of the US “green energy” be implemented if there were no government subsidies?
Interesting thought, that China bet its all on the wrong horse.
Solar has its place, but it will never be a base line fuel.
So, what are they doing with thorium?
No.
It’s mind-boggling!
Thank you.
Menton leaves out the choice for Red China, though. They are either:
1) Pouring money into this in the hope of creating air that is fit to breathe by their people.
or
2) Pouring money into this to sell worthless junk for US dollars (and Europian euros) to fund Belt and Road and invasion of the West.
Choice 1) would be entirely inconsistent for the “enlightened” psychotic Pooh Bear.
I respectfully disagree. IMHO, China seems to be going full speed on all energy types. Yes, they invested a lot in solar. But they also added many new coal plants. Perhaps they hope to one day not need to import coal (hence China's attraction to solar) because they don't want to depend on their adversaries (such as importing coal from the U.S.). But they're not crazy enough to go all in on solar until solar is a good replacement for coal (if it ever will be).
Contrast that with Europe hating importing natural gas from Russia (understandable), so they went all in on wind and solar. The difference is that they tried to DEPEND on wind and solar BEFORE they could be depended on. If solar and/or wind ever become replacements (doubtful), fine. But that time is not now.
“Clean Energy” isn’t clean, and it isn’t energy (when you need it). The ‘winner’ will only win the race to oblivion.
Green energy is costly, unreliable and inefficent. Subsidies are money wasted and further weaken the productive economy. When the technology develops to make green energy cheaper and more efficent than nuclear and fossil fuels, then the private sector will develop it and deploy it without government subsidies. Let China squander away.
China has built out a continent sized super grid. They have 1 million volt DC and AC grids and they store hundreds of thousands of gigawatt hours behind some of the largest dams and hydropower projects on this planet. When the wind slows down or the sun sets they open the taps on dams like like three gorges then send all that power to the cities via the super grid. They are about to build 70,000 megawatts worth of hydro in Tibet again linked by 1 million volt DC to the industrial heart of the country.
China don’t do climate change they give zero Fs about carbon and yet in the first 6 months of 2025 they built out three Texas ERCOT total capacity grids worth of just new solar. They have a single factory that can put out a Texas grid worth of panels every 12 months that’s one single factory. They are not leading the race they are dominating the whole planet in solar build out. Cope hard is what the luddites have left. Again China don’t do climate change they give zero Fs about carbon, they are building solar in the desert because they have engineer’s who can do math and understand the implications of it. Thin film polysilicon solar panels are the cheapest form of flowing electrons humans have come up.
You can buy retail bifacial panels for under $400 wholesale is under $100 even at $400 over their rated 30 year lifespan down to 80% original capacity those panels in Texas sun levels would make electrons for 1.3 cent per kWh for people who buy by pallet you can get that down to 3/10s of a cent per kWh.
The inverter needed can be had for 18 cents per watt of rated capacity with a 20 year warranty on the inverter the expected 10% attrition rate is 20 years active life. Sized to a 10,000 watt system that inverter feed by panels in Texas sun would cost 4/10 cent per kWh over it’s lifespan. No other form of flowing electrons is cheaper than this right to your wall plug.
Texas retail power is 13.4 cents per kilowatt hour right now today via ppwer2choose.org
Compare that to 1.3 cents plus 4/10. You could just buy power at night from the grid and run your meter backwards during the day if your RPP allows it if not set the inverter to no net export and your meter during the day doesn’t flow backwards.
Powerwalls work out to 15-18 cents per kWh LCOS that allows you to go off grid completely which for a prepper is priceless. Otherwise just buy grid power at night and laugh all the way to the bank during the day. Most Texas power use is during the day when the AC is sucking watts sure it runs at night but half as much as noon heat on the roofline...which is now shaded by said panels as well.
Trump is indeed removing the U.S. government from the “renewable” energy business, which I heartily agree with.
However, his approach to the oil and gas business is not nearly as laissez-faire as the article would have you believe. He is allowing a market-distorting cartel to have unfettered access to US consumer markets. Basically, Trump is throwing in with OPEC to keep U.S. oil and gas prices artificially low because he believes low gasoline prices are key to his economic platform.
He is imposing tariffs on steel, manufactured goods and all sorts of other products, ostensibly to protect U.S. industry. However, there is no corresponding protection being offered to U.S. oil and gas producers. Domestic producers are being forced to lay off workers and shut down operations because we cannot compete with foreign cartel prices.
This is a huge mistake. Conventional energy sources are among the most important strategic assets our country holds, and to intentionally allow the domestic industry to be decimated in favor of OPEC is foolhardy. The issue is particularly apparent in the world of small independent innovators who are finding it nearly impossible to raise capital for new projects.
My opinion anyway.
Trump is indeed removing the U.S. government from the “renewable” energy business, which I heartily agree with.
However, his approach to the oil and gas business is not nearly as laissez-faire as the article would have you believe. He is allowing a market-distorting cartel to have unfettered access to US consumer markets. Basically, Trump is throwing in with OPEC to keep U.S. oil and gas prices artificially low because he believes low gasoline prices are key to his economic platform.
He is imposing tariffs on steel, manufactured goods and all sorts of other products, ostensibly to protect U.S. industry. However, there is no corresponding protection being offered to U.S. oil and gas producers. Domestic producers are being forced to lay off workers and shut down operations because we cannot compete with foreign cartel prices.
This is a huge mistake. Conventional energy sources are among the most important strategic assets our country holds, and to intentionally allow the domestic industry to be decimated in favor of OPEC is foolhardy. The issue is particularly apparent in the world of small independent innovators who are finding it nearly impossible to raise capital for new projects.
My opinion anyway.
They’re also building more coal and nuclear plants than anyone. Like their new thorium reactor - https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/01/1115957/old-new-nuclear-technology/.
Places like New England are going to need hydrocarbon energy for a long time.
We should not drain the US hydrocarbon fields dry in just a few decades.
I have proposed a 10% money export tax. That would provide a 10% margin for US hydrocarbon and solar cell producers.
All the solar panel stuff is highly automated.
The US should be able to compete if it has 10% money export tax protection.
“Clean energy manufacturing”
There is no such thing. The processes used in those solar panels and batteries are very toxic.
““The U.S. Is Forfeiting the Clean-Energy Race to China.””
Oil and coal are clean. China buys their energy to produce government mandated “clean” energy. Remember when everyone had to use those dim headache producing fluorescent bulbs to save the planet?
If we can keep the nation from the suicidal democrats we win, China loses.
And I do sell power to the grid but I get little for it, way less than what the utility sells power for. I'm not complaining. Intermittent power is not as valuable as constant power, even if I do tend to sell power at times the grid is in the most demand (hot Alabama summer days of everyone running A/C is when I get excess solar power from the sun). So my math on whether or not to get solar and, after I had it for a while I upgraded it, is based little on how much I get paid for it, but mainly based on how much I save by not buying as much power.
And your prepper comment is also spot on. There's real value in knowing that the left's warmageddon doomsday cult energy polices don't directly impact me.
But none of that is related to the main point of this article (if the grid can depend on solar/wind) and to China's movement in building coal and hydro plants .... while investing in solar and wind. That's completely unlike what the left has done here in the U.S. an in Europe. The left here shuts down hydrocarbon plants before solar/wind are good enough for the grid to depend on (if they ever will be good enough for the grid).
“Tesla Powerwall+
Usable battery capacity 13.5 kWh
Price per kWh (estimated) $622–$962”
https://www.thisoldhouse.com/solar-alternative-energy/tesla-powerwall-cost
It would take ~six to ten thousand cycles (~20-30 years) for it to pay for itself.
Supersize water heaters. Have them on a thermostat timer cycle (130 degrees 10am to 4pm, 100 degrees otherwise). The highest water temperature I can tolerate is 103 degrees.
Cool your house as much as you can tolerate 11am to two hours before sunset.
Use bedroom air conditioners.
Levy a solar energy product import tariff starting at 1% and going up by 1% per month.
The Chinese companies will relocate US product production to the USA in about two years, without a subsidy.
As for cooking, throw dinner in a covered dish into the oven before heading off to work.
When the sun gets strong enough around 10am, have the oven go to 140 degrees to kill off bacterial growth.
At say 3pm, have the oven go to cooking temperature.
When done cooking, have the oven use outside air exchange to bring down the oven temperate to 150 degrees. That could be done by running a pipe from the oven to a compatible range hood.
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