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What passes for keen insight at the Wall Street Journal?
American Thinker ^ | 10/02/25 | Bill Ponton

Posted on 10/02/2025 8:23:13 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

When did the Wall Street Journal give up on making coherent arguments? It certainly seems to be the case with a recent WSJ article entitled, “The U.S. Is Forfeiting the Clean-Energy Race to China”. The premise of the article, as you might have guessed, is that the U.S. will lose out to China if it does not match China’s level of subsidization of clean energy. No where in the article did the authors ask, “Is it a race worth winning?” I contend that it isn’t.

The authors start out by asserting that,

“The rapid pace of EV adoption in China and elsewhere casts a long shadow over oil demand. Natural gas will be burned for decades, but increasingly competitive solar panels and batteries might sap how much of it the world will need. “

Do the authors think that a reader will jump at that bait? There is no oil or gas producer losing any sleep over competition from E.V.s, solar panels, or batteries. The authors have created a strawman.

They go on to state,

“China installed 277 gigawatts of wind and solar capacity in the first seven months of the year, quadruple the utility-scale additions federal analysts in the U.S. project across all power sources for 2025. That could give China a big advantage in the power-hungry AI race.

The implication being that wind and solar capacity is compatible with the energy needs of AI datacenters, which is not the case for those who have tried and failed with just such a scheme (see Tech Titan’s Quest for Net Zero ).

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; China; Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: cleanenergy; ev; greenenergy

1 posted on 10/02/2025 8:23:13 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

Between EVs and AI datacenters, China is going to be burning a tremendous amount of coal. But clearly the Global Warming folks won’t want to talk about it.


2 posted on 10/02/2025 8:31:33 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy (Democrats seek power through cheating and assassination. They are sociopaths. They just want power.)
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To: SeekAndFind

How many coal burning plants did China build recently?

The assumption that China is in any kind of “clean energy race” is a fallacy.

They are heavy on research, not for the sake of the environment, but only to try to compete in such markets. Markets that are created by subsidies, not demand.


3 posted on 10/02/2025 8:32:11 AM PDT by z3n (Kakistocracy)
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To: SeekAndFind

Biggest pollution producing country, did they mention that salient point?


4 posted on 10/02/2025 8:32:26 AM PDT by Lockbox (politicians, they all seemed like game show host to me.... Sting)
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To: SeekAndFind

The only part worth accepting is that electric vehicles are about to have a revolution, with China already experiencing it.

Not to save the world, but lighter, smaller, safer, quick charging and long range EV batteries are very close to mass production.

Apparently China is already selling EV’s with the new battery technology.

America and Europe are ready to go within the next two years.

The new electric cars will not have the negatives of current models.

If you have some money to invest take a look at stocks like Quantumscapes.

Another more speculative industry that is starting to break out is quantum computing. Stocks like QBTS.

just sharing.


5 posted on 10/02/2025 8:38:22 AM PDT by Williams (Thank God for the election of President Trump!)
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To: SeekAndFind

EMP drones. We should be testing them on cartels.

Nothing will be an attack on Taiwan more embarassing.


6 posted on 10/02/2025 8:46:42 AM PDT by If You Want It Fixed - Fix It
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To: SeekAndFind
The WSJ, including the once-good editorial pages is, in this readers's view, a Trump-hating, open-borders megaphone.

What the editorial pages get right on labor unions and education they lose back with one Trump (metaphorical) hit piece after another. They simply do not understand, for example, that Trump's tariffs are mostly re-adjustments of the playing field to counteract de facto tariffs by other countries.

They also seem almost weepy over the "dreamers" con scheme, and do not see the need to broom cheap illegal labor in favor of employing United States Citizens.

Do not agree? Arguments welcome.

7 posted on 10/02/2025 9:06:17 AM PDT by Seaplaner (Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never...in nothing, great or small...Winston ChurchIill)
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To: SeekAndFind

Globalist are running the WSJ.


8 posted on 10/02/2025 9:09:11 AM PDT by Parley Baer
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To: ClearCase_guy

WSJ is gone. The leftist Murdoch kids have ruined it.


9 posted on 10/02/2025 9:10:05 AM PDT by iamgalt
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To: ClearCase_guy
Between EVs and AI datacenters, China is going to be burning a tremendous amount of coal. But clearly the Global Warming folks won’t want to talk about it.

China is already BY FAR the biggest contributor of new coal emissions since 1990... more to the rest of the planet combined, in fact. (They're also BY FAR the biggest contributor of ocean plastics waste, with China and India combing for well over 93%.) Any "environmentalist" who ignores this glaring fact, and demands that every other nation cut their coal use, is simply a shill for China. They do not care one bit about coal emissions, only about slowing down the Western World and assisting China in polluting more.

10 posted on 10/02/2025 9:14:52 AM PDT by Teacher317
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To: SeekAndFind

Is China concerned that we could shut off their oil?


11 posted on 10/02/2025 9:24:22 AM PDT by csn vinnie
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To: Williams
The only part worth accepting is that electric vehicles are about to have a revolution, with China already experiencing it. Not to save the world, but lighter, smaller, safer, quick charging and long range EV batteries are very close to mass production.
.
.
America and Europe are ready to go within the next two years.

First the U.S. and Europe need to update their grid capacities to be able to charge EV's. Not just the fast charging on trips, but upgrades are needed even for Level 2 charging at home (if most people switch to EV's).

Using my own EV charging as an example. If I hadn't made tons of energy improvements to the home about the time I got the EV, the EV charging would have added on average 477 kWh each month to my power demand (a 35% increase to what I pulled from the grid, 1,363 kWh/month, before I went solar and did other energy improvements to the home). Can you imagine the demand if even 1/3rd of drivers switched to EV's. (To be fair, my wife and I drive ours 1,500 miles/month on just home charged miles alone. Maybe most EV drivers don't add that much to power demand.)

This would have been in addition to paying for natural gas for my two nat gas appliances (furnace and water heater). Unfortunately, most EV owners don't do like I did and add tons of solar, convert old appliances to energy efficient ones, and do other common sense energy improvements like adding insulation and gaskets around doors, etc. In the past 12 months I averaged pulling 371kWh/month. This is about 1/3rd of what I pulled before going solar and EV. So now it's 1/3rd of grid demand while no demand on natural gas and virtually no demand on gasoline (what little we drive our gas pickup) in our now all-electric home and charging the EV for 1,500 miles/month of home charged miles.

Since virtually no EV owner does like I did, count switching to EV's as adding tons of demand to the already overtaxed grid.

12 posted on 10/02/2025 9:27:23 AM PDT by Tell It Right (1 Thessalonians 5:21 -- Put everything to the test, hold fast to that which is true.)
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To: SeekAndFind

When the Wall Street Journal’s (WSJ) parent company, Dow Jones was sold to the Murdochs, the prior owners retained (in perpetuity as far as I know), the editorial control of the Opinion section of the paper (and the web version).

The Murdochs are totally “green” indoctrinated and many articles in the main section are not “news” as much as they are editorials disguised as “news” and promoting some element of the “green”, “climate change” agenda; which you won’t get from the editors in charge of the WSJ opinion page.

Under the Murdochs installed overseers of the WSJ, since the Murdochs took over, the WSJ has become more and more, year by year the “business oriented” symbiote of the New York Times - everything is an editorial pretending to be “news”.

But, you can still find some Conservative sanity in the opinion section.


13 posted on 10/02/2025 9:34:49 AM PDT by Wuli (uire)
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To: SeekAndFind

I wonder how much China has increased their debt-to-GDP ratio, pursuing green energy?

Now, that said, I’m not pleased the Chinese are still building coal fired plants without proper scrubbers, which results in excessive mercury floating... here, and God know how much harm, there. But, China is not helping themselves by pushing energy tech that is not yet efficient, for more than niche usage (where sometimes it DOES make sense — I’m charging up some brand new small / big pocket portable solar power banks right now.)

BTW, I’m gonna be “coy”, but, I encourage anyone who has not looked up the numbers recently to go look up China’s debt-to-GDP ratio. You may be astounded.


14 posted on 10/02/2025 9:48:56 AM PDT by Paul R. (Old Viking saying: "Never be more than 3 steps away from your weapon ... or a Uriah Heep song!" ;-))
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To: iamgalt

They’re destroying it.


15 posted on 10/02/2025 12:39:46 PM PDT by WhiteHatBobby0701
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To: iamgalt
WSJ is gone. The leftist Murdoch kids have ruined it.

Yep, lost its way in the 90's

16 posted on 10/02/2025 12:43:01 PM PDT by 1Old Pro
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