| ▲ | johnea 6 hours ago |
| Its important to qualify that: A decade or so behind, in the US. If the US didn't block import of Chinese tech, we could have electrified a decade ago. The tech available at the current moment, is even more capable of replacing petroleum based electricity. But our government is banning Chinese tech to serve our outdated industries instead of importing it to serve the population. As any wise country would do when faced with superior technology, we should import it with the condition of technology exchange. Chinese manufacturers should be training US workers and industrial ownership how to produce cheap, efficient, sodium batteries. This benefits the populous immediately, and the industries are able to advance into the current century's tech. |
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| ▲ | noduerme 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| >>> As any wise country would do when faced with superior technology, we should import it with the condition of technology exchange. If it were a matter of industrial protectionism against a country which was not hostile, not authoritarian, didn't rely on slave labor, etc., then I'd agree with you. Countries have other pressing reasons besides immediate economic advantage to prevent this sort of thing. To greatly oversimplify: Japan fought against opening their markets, as did China, out of political and social concerns for the stability of their states, far more than economic ones. |
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| ▲ | 0xbadcafebee 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | The US is far more hostile than China, also relies on slave labor, and is so increasingly authoritarian that our country's domestic & foreign policy now resembles a 3rd world dictatorship. Doesn't matter though. The big mistake was allowing manufacturing to be exported from the US to begin with. Nearly any advanced technology we use or wish to produce is now dependent on China. They control not only the advanced manufacturing process, but also the refinement of rare earths (we can mine it but not refine it) and have cheaper labor. Not only can't we make tech without them, we can't sell it at competitive prices. Things will soon get worse as robotics and vertical integration makes Chinese products even cheaper and better quality. And we can't compete on robots because China controls that production chain too. The smart play would be to build up our own green energy sector to gain cost savings, while investing in its manufacturing, so we can eventually compete and support ourselves (which Biden and Obama passed funding for). Trump eliminated all that when he came back, because the oil companies wanted more profits, they literally don't believe climate change is real, and they have no idea how diplomacy works. We could've had cheap battery, wind, and solar manufacturing in the US. Not anymore. | | |
| ▲ | leonidasrup an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | You should visit the Tibet region and ask the locals. But: 1. As a US citizen, you would probably not a get permit necessary for entering the Tibet region. 2. If you could get a permit for Tibet region and go there, you would be followed by police officers dressed in civilian clothing. The locals would be quite hesitant to speak to you. (Source: been there long ago, seen it). China has many qualities, but freedom is not one of them. | | | |
| ▲ | noduerme an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | >> The US is far more hostile than China, also relies on slave labor, and is so increasingly authoritarian that our country's domestic & foreign policy now resembles a 3rd world dictatorship. As a child of immigrants from the Soviet Union, and also as someone who knows people still resident in authoritarian dictatorships: This is patently ridiculous. Everything else in your post is a spray of nonsensical policy points and predictions. You led off with the tell. Frankly, it makes everything you say afterward sound like what an authoritarian enemy government would want people in the US to think about their own country. What you wrote in your first sentence is either (a) wildly misinformed (like, you have no idea what life is like in an authoritarian country with actual slave labor, which is an insult to the people who do currently live there), or (b) intentionally nefarious (like, you work for such a country, in a capacity to minimize the distinction between their system of autocracy and the United States' democracy). If it's (a), study at least a little bit of the history of mass murder in the 20th Century. If (b), well, we live in a free country so you can spew whatever garbage you want. Interestingly, we have not been overtaken by any of the dictatorships that have sprung up in Eurasia over the past hundred years, and I don't think we will be soon. |
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| ▲ | WarmWash 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| All fine and dandy until your grid goes mysteriously offline the day after China moves on taiwan. |
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| ▲ | jacquesm 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Call me paranoid. I have a couple of inverters here that are grid connected and I made sure everything that allowed outside connectivity in the box mysteriously stopped working. A little bit of RF knowledge goes a long way with stuff like that. It was interesting to see how many ways it tried to do this. Fortunately it kept working even without connectivity. Configuring the things is a pain though, the display and buttons are clearly not meant to be used that way but it does work. |
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| ▲ | andsoitis 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| > But our government is banning Chinese tech to serve our outdated industries instead of importing it to serve the population. It protects American companies who operate in the green energy generation and storage arena from Chinese competition. |
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| ▲ | reactordev 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | No, it protects fossil fuel energy companies from having to retool and change. | | |
| ▲ | andsoitis 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It does that too, but it would be unbalanced to not also recognize it protects green energy companies in America from Chinese competition. Not only does Chinese competition get blocked, but governments are incentivizing green energy. For instance, just recently it was reported that Tesla’s $10B solar factory could get 35 years of tax breaks in Texas (Oil Capital!!!) https://electrek.co/2026/10/23/tesla-solar-factory-texas-35-... | |
| ▲ | Schiendelman 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Honestly, it's not even doing that. Thing that would really push the US ahead would be the tax breaks we had until a couple years ago. |
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| ▲ | blitzar an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > protects American companies who operate in the green energy generation Wont someone think of the big beautiful clean coal companies | |
| ▲ | whatsdowndog 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [dead] |
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