China with [EVs|Solar|BESS|Turbines] will replace all of the fossil fuel countries (US, middle-east, Russia). This is probably the biggest transition in the history of mankind. This is energy production, storage and all the appliances that use electricity. After this, its incredibly hard for any other country to compete.
I dont agree with china having the same position as the FF exporters. Simply because with renewables, you export the means to produce energy rather than the energy itself. So in terms of monetary value, china will be selling alot less panels than the FF countries sell oil. And other countries can also manufactor renewables tech themselves, while with oil they couldnt materialize it under their feet
Basically i think the paradigm of the energy trade being cornered for politcal controll wont exost with renewables. Renewables are decentralized and so not controllable
China is now the world leading developer of Thorium Reactors.
Coal 2025 report
"China consumes 30% more coal than the rest of the world put together. It also produces more coal than all other countries combined, and it is the world’s largest importer. This dominance by a single country makes global coal markets very dependent on developments in China, notably those related to economic growth, government policies, energy markets, weather conditions and dynamics in the Chinese domestic coal sector."
https://www.iea.org/reports/coal-2025/executive-summary
In terms of reducing oil consumption China is pursuing two strategies:
1. Electrification of transport
2. Producing synthetic gasoline/diesel/chemicals from coal.
"The sector last year turned 276 million tons of coal - equivalent to almost a year of European coal use - into chemicals, oil and gas, according to the China National Petroleum and Chemical Planning Institute."
https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/chines...
"China’s power sector is undergoing a visible transformation. Electricity demand rose by 5% between 2024 and 2025, reaching 10,368 TWh, yet coal-fired generation declined by 113 TWh to 6,294 TWh in a year, reducing its share in the power mix. The entire increment in electricity demand was absorbed by nuclear and renewable sources, whose combined output rose by 617 TWh. On paper, this reflects a decisive shift away from coal and toward low-carbon energy. In practice, however, coal is not disappearing from China’s industry – it is being redirected."
"Coal-to-liquids (CTL) and coal-to-chemicals (CTC) technologies provide the missing link. Using Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, coal can be converted into synthetic liquid fuels such as diesel, gasoline, and naphtha, as well as petrochemical feedstocks including olefins for plastics production. China and South Africa are the only countries operating CTL and CTC at an industrial scale. China alone consumes hundreds of millions of tonnes of coal annually (380 million tonnes as reported by the IEA) for chemical and synthetic fuel production. It is important to note that the largest part of this demand goes into the CTC industry. China has effectively replaced gas as its main feedstock for ammonia and methanol production with raw coal, to the extent that roughly 80% of these chemicals’ output is now fed by coal."
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Coal/Chinas-Renewable-Boom-Masks...
The world moved from coal to oil for transport and shipping fairly quickly due to the higher energy density and significantly easier handling of liquid vs solid fuels. Using pipes and tubes was a huge labor savings compared to having people shovel coal into a hard to control boiler.
The World Is Awash With Oil and Prices Are Poised to Keep Falling - https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-global-oil-supply-pr... | https://archive.today/hkhtI - December 18th, 2025 (Control -F "Crude Price Forecasts Are Below Levels Needed for Budgets")
> China with [EVs|Solar|BESS|Turbines] will replace all of the fossil fuel countries (US, middle-east, Russia). This is probably the biggest transition in the history of mankind. This is energy production, storage and all the appliances that use electricity. After this, its incredibly hard for any other country to compete.
Strongly agree. China is replacing petrostate economic demand with demand for their clean tech products, which keeps their deflationary economy afloat, provides them soft power, and will transition the yuan to a global reserve currency. Today countries by dollars to by petroleum ("petrodollar"); tomorrow, countries will want yuan to buy "manufacturing fiat," to trade with the world's factory (China is 1/3rd of global manufacturing capacity, as of this comment). Stocks of assets vs flows of energy.
Electricity can be generated from any source (dirty + clean), but the abstraction layer of electricity will allow the grid to continuously increase the clean fuels. It helps that the cleanest is also the cheapest. Solar panels are cheap as dirt. In 1975, a solar PV module cost $128.27 per watt. In 2026 it costs $0.1 - $0.2 per watt, a thousand times cheaper. In 1975, only satellites could afford solar. Today, its the cheapest source of energy.
China will be an electrostate. Are there any other electrostates? Maybe Bhutan, Costa Rica, but they are too small.
China for sure. The rest will come as they replace the last of coal and fossil gas with anything low carbon, solar, wind hydro, as well as the necessary battery storage and transmission for energy orchestration and agility. Like Norway is already at 100% of EV sales and other countries are still close to 0%, we're simply observing a global energy transition horse race. Exciting time to be on the timeline imho.
Ember Energy: Global Electricity Review 2026: Solar surge halts fossil generation rise as clean power meets all demand growth and renewables overtake coal - https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/global-electricity-... - April 21st, 2026
The ‘profound’ global impact of China’s rise as an electrostate - https://www.ft.com/content/013e8a27-ade5-48ed-8f2e-ffbf70cc5... | https://archive.today/J0bew - October 10th, 2025
I think new models will result in new structures, not just a switch from the US to China.
Yeah, sounds about right for this timeline.
The US has coasted just about as far as it can go on it's exorbitant privilege while failing to invest in the future.
TLDR China builds, and will continue to build long into the future, the US prospers (for now) from financialization but cannot build, nor has the will to attempt to.
China Makes AI-powered Robots Core of National Strategy: China´s 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) marks pivot to innovation - https://ifr.org/ifr-press-releases/news/china-makes-ai-power...
> Frankfurt, May 05, 2026 — China has launched its 15th Five-Year Plan by placing robotics at the heart of its modern industrial system. The aim is to pivot its AI research towards physical applications with robots as main drivers for economic growth. This is a next step in the country´s strong automation development: China´s manufacturing industry already has an operational stock of around 2 million units — approximately 4.5 times more than the global no. 2, Japan. 54% of annual industrial robots installed worldwide were deployed in China. This is according to the World Robotics 2025 Report, presented by the International Federation of Robotics (IFR).
General Dynamics Failed to Build Artillery Shells for the Army - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49281711 - August 2026
Wikipedia: Exorbitant privilege - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exorbitant_privilege
For example, China can build ~20M EVs a year, the US ~1-3M per year, as of this comment.
Ember Energy: China Cleantech Exports Data Explorer - https://ember-energy.org/data/china-cleantech-exports-data-e... (updated monthly)
> As the world’s largest manufacturer of clean technologies, data on China’s cleantech exports provide an important early insight into the pace and scale of the energy transition. In 2024, China produced around 80% of the world’s solar PV modules and battery cells, and 70% of electric vehicles.
16% for trucks and buses
7% for aviation
4% for shipping
2% for rail and domestic waterways
25% + a chunk of the 16% (city buses, shorter distance or smaller trucks, etc) is a good amount.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/307194/top-oil-consuming...
Moreover, it takes a lot of oil to refine and transport oil. If there's no demand for road transport, then the corresponding demand for refining and transport will disappear as well.
Finally, coal is already replacing oil in the chemical industry. Not because it's cleaner, but because it's cheaper and more available.
Aviation and petrochemical use cases are unlikely to disappear in our lifetimes, but that is a small slice of today's oil demand (lets call it ~15-20% for the sake of argument), and will be the remainder as renewables and batteries eat global energy demand. ~40% of marine shipping disappears when you're not moving energy around the world, the remaining half can burn renewable energy produced ammonia or methanol for fuel. Like bankruptcy, the change happens slowly, and then all of a sudden. China now has more power than OPEC because of the facts in this comment and their vast strategic petroleum reserves.
It is understandable to say "this flywheel is spinning slowly" before it is spinning very fast, while you're watching it spool.
How China became the world’s great oil power - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49238158 - August 2026
Laos went 100% electric vehicles overnight with a drastic approach [Bans Fossil-Fuel Car Imports] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49040819 - July 2026
Electric Vehicle Sales Boom as Ethiopia Bans Fossil-Fuel Car Imports - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47068567 - February 2026
Norway EV sales and related data - https://robbieandrew.github.io/EV/
Our World In Data: Tracking global data on electric vehicles - https://ourworldindata.org/electric-car-sales
Global oil price stuck in triple digits. Goldman Sachs says it may stay there for years - https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/20/energy/oil-gas-prices-intl-hn... - March 20th, 2026
Electric Cars Pass a Crucial Tipping Point in 23 Countries - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-28/electric-... | https://archive.today/e8XSt - August 27th, 2023
Almost 40% Of All Ship Cargoes Are Oil, Coal And Gas - https://thelastdriverlicenseholder.com/2022/01/12/almost-40-... - January 12th, 2022
https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/rmt2019_en...
There's a good EIA graph about halfway down on https://www.weforum.org/stories/climate-action/us-fossil-fue... that breaks it down.
The future where oil demand is so low and and will remain low even after low prices is much further ahead I'm afraid.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-mix?tab=stacked-di...
Renewables have to go up by 10x (or more, with electrification of all the things) everywhere pretty much in the coming decades.
Look closely at China, they are pursuing all forms of energy Solar, Wind, Gas, Oil, Nuclear and even new Thorium reactors (Courtesy of Oak Ridge, Tennessee) and all forms of batteries Lithium/Sodium ion they are not resting on their laurels anywhere they are willing to use anything, and are open to any solution that works.
https://www.neimagazine.com/news/china-refuels-thorium-react...
https://china-environment-news.net/2025/06/01/world-first-ch...
The Chinese are not limiting themselves to just one solution or two they are pursuing all types of technology all types of energy they seem to have an open mind is this where/becuase the oligarchs don’t get to call the shots in their system?
They just don't have our easy-access shale fields. If it wasn't for fracking our coal percentage would likely be just as high
As always with these stats, I like to check whether that includes plug in hybrids, and it does. Those are still mostly dependent on fossil fuels, although they use less. Pure BEV adoption seems to depend on your radius from Norway: https://www.autonergy.co/blog/global-ev-adoption-leaderboard...
(France should really be doing better, after all migration away from fossil fuels was a motive behind the Pompidou/Messmer nuclear buildout in the 70s!)
Its really sad that India is pro fossil fuel, it has an opportunity to follow China's strategy.
In fact, the Chinese coal lobby is partially responsible for the push for electric trucks. The alternatives are diesel and LNG - both competitors to coal.
now that it's a proven business model in the centre of the these things, of course.
1) https://octopus.energy/big-on-batteries-octopus-and-catl-tea...
2) https://mybroadband.co.za/news/motoring/648661-electric-truc...
That's a result of tax policy much more than the fundamental economics of ICE vs EV. Petrol is highly taxed. ICE cars are highly taxed. EV cars are probably exempted, or at least taxed less.
it'll be a roller coaster for sure, but i think there are going to a lot of interesting substations and knock on effects.
I will be very happy to be proven wrong here over time though. New battery technology could make a big improvement. And I keep hearing that AI will give us answers to all our technical challenges and lead to an age of abundance where we all make a high income, so there's that too.
I wonder what would happen if oil demand was significantly reduced, thus reducing fracking.
Solar power is the worst, it gets more expensive every year.
Regarding batteries... It's over for sodium based batteries (the ones promising us cheap battery storage) because dry coated Lithium ion batteries are coming onto the market which means sodium batteries are an economic dead end.
For example, if every road vehicle became an EV tomorrow, global oil demand would drop from 100M barrels per day ("Mbpd") to... ~60M. And that assumes EV replacements for things we don't have EV replacements for yet, like long haul trucking. We also have avgas, for which there's no replacement, and global shipping.
But beyond fuel there's a significant range of non-fuel usages (eg industrial, plastics, construction).
There's another factor here too and that is that the oil economy props up the weapons economy. Nobody goes to war over a solar panel [1]. That sounds like a good thing (and it is) but you have to realize there are forces who like that oil drives war became war is a huge profit opportunity.
[1]: https://www.theenergymix.com/no-one-goes-to-war-over-a-solar...
Unless Jevons Paradox. Cheaper energy might mean more oil use. 1) Never underestimate the world's hunger for energy; renewables and electrification have huge disadvantages (you can't get close to the energy density of gas/diesel). 2) Oil is used for most products. 3) Even if its use declined, that would raise the price without making it less important.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/271823/global-crude-oil-...
The transition to EVs is key to the national security of many countries that currently do not have energy security like China and even most if not all member countries in the EU.
Meanwhile everyone is being confused with AI-slop.
Most decent emergency / contingency plans will have the fire department, police or whatever local group show up at one or two designated gas stations to provide power, or require these stations to have on-site emergency power.
Because the Russian government is still telling themselves they can win and don't even bother trying to negotiate with Ukraine but instead the USA, this must not be the case.
this is just nonsense.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Iberian_Peninsula_blackou...
while traveling i got caught up in this. no restaurants, no credit cards working, no grocery stores, no cell connection, no navigation with phone, no gas station. the goddam list goes on. fortunately this was less than 16 hours.
Everywhere else, gas stations aren't open if there's no power because nothing works, not even the cash register.
But I'm starting to see the uni freshman libertarian vibes here having been there once myself.
lol. i see. gas stations were closed since pumps were out. similar story with other facilities. luckily, gas station snack shops accepted cash, so buying some water/snacks was possible.
cash is of no use if facilities are not open. now that everything has been spelled out, i'm sure you are able to comprehend ;)
Meanwhile, those with solar panels not reliant on grid-tie, they can continue to charge their vehicles.
Buy a bicycle.
https://www.nj.com/news/2012/11/sandy_gas_ration_12_counties...
And we do have all kinds of disasters, but the state not only effectively intervenes, but also supports the aftermath and reconstruction. In America there are some crazy examples of towns just being left straight out abandoned afterwards, because tehre's no such thing as government reconstruction support.
But I bet there would be a lot of bicycle and vehicle theft going on, in such an event.
Solar panels and home battery storage. This is also going to seriously screw over electrical grid and especially powerplant operators... residential will, at least in suburban and rural areas, not need a grid any more except during prolonged phases of low solar yield.
This is such a perverse and anxious fear imo
Alternatively, even outside a cyberwar scenario, bad weather has been shown to take down power grids for entire regions for days, sometimes weeks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonial_Pipeline_ransomware_a...
https://shippingtelegraph.com/shipping-news/adnoc-reports-15...
Where I live, we have typhoons which depending on the direction they arrive in can result in all the gas stations being out of gas for 2+ days. Meanwhile the grid keeps on ticking.
> bad weather has been shown to take down power grids for entire regions for days, sometimes weeks
Once again, as someone who actually lived through those scenarios multiple times, when the gas pumps go down you're usually shit outta luck on getting gas.
When the grid goes down for days, the gas you have in your gas car + any random fuel tanks you have in your garage is what you have. Don't expect anything else unless you plan to take it at gunpoint.
For example, a president of a certain country threatened to make a "power plant day" in another certain country.
That is of course, one of the big problems of 'going green' - electricity production is low hanging fruit and understood by the general public.
When that's 'solved' (solar, wind, geo, nuclear), how do we solve the other 97%?
Oil really isn't going anywhere. It will be a slow tail, perhaps too slow to stop emissions.