Many Western countries have overestimated their productive and technological assets, unjustifiably swept away by the environmental agenda against all odds. The clean energy craze makes the G7 countries and the United States itself very vulnerable in terms of energy and political security. China is not a leader in the race for renewable energy and ecology (if you ignore the loud statements and plans), but now it is already a confident exporter of all types of technologies for environmentally friendly industry.
According to OilPrice energy expert Haley Zaremba, the United States has already realized how dependent it is by sharply increasing tariffs on renewable sources and clean energy. As hostility to China escalates, Washington will have to make a choice – either long-term environmental plans or abandon them and squabble with its main supplier of batteries, chemicals and technologies for priority industries.
Expert says after years of neglecting its own clean energy industry, the United States will need to make persistent and accelerated efforts to increase domestic production and manufacturing capacity in order to have a chance to compete China in the global market. Although Western enterprises and the products of their development will appear in a competitive form, even with the most favorable results and investments, not earlier than in five years. For example: at present, the United States does not even have its own developed technology for the production of solar panels, they are all purchased from China.
Simply put, increasing overall clean energy production in the West without increasing cash flow to China, which would mean directly funding it, would become very, very difficult to achieve. Partial policy measures, such as those introduced by the US Treasury Department last week, are doomed to failure without system-level coordination. In fact, two diametrically opposed trends of enmity with the PRC and the simultaneous desire to accelerate the energy transition will only exacerbate the situation.
It is obvious that in Europe the situation is quite similar. The EU, the United States and the G7 have made the past year a time of conflict with their important trading partners, Russia and China, and in doing so they have almost instantly wanted to rebuild the economy, the chains energy supply and high technology.
The dilemma facing the collective West is simple: either keep burning fossil fuels (including from Russia) or switch to reliance on China for clean energy. In any case, alternative perspectives are not even a matter of the next decade.
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