I don't know if he's obsessed by oil. So far when a president invaded a country because of it's oil, it always went with a cover story to justify it. Now the (cover) story provided by Trump is oil, so it may be possible it was all just to get the Nobel prize. As trinkets are all he cares about. Now it looks like he wants what I want when playing hearts of iron: make all the continent mine.
this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2026
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His best before has already expired, one foot is in the grave, old age takes its toll, why do you think he would care about anything other than himself at this point in his life?
It is the party, they are coming out of the(ir nazi) closet and holding his hand to betray his america first promises and use the unchallenged power of the military for the benefit of their rich and connected.
We get the bill. And if we are dumb enough a feeling of pride being the most capable of killing people for the benefit of the same rich stealing our lunch.
The president does not know what is going on. Big fella really went downhill the last 5 years, he is running on autoprick.
it always went with a cover story to justify it
Trump is too stupid to come up with a plausible cover story, though he tried claiming that Venezuela was the source of fentanyl coming into the US, which was quickly and easily disproven.
Batteries, yes. Chinese? Not necessarily for long.
EVs alone have major grid balancing potential. You can get home batteries for under $100/kwh in US right now, and cost of EV batteries have always been lower due to bulk/contract purchases. At $100/kwh, even from grid TOU use power, you can time shift profitably for just 1c/kwh before financing costs, but before resilience/backup benefits from batteries.
Solar is by far the cheapest way to charge those batteries, where home solar without monopoly persecution from utilities, as in Australia, can be extra affordable. But even before abundant solar is permitted in our countries, or even net metering, simply having TOU rates that are cheap at night allows for enough arbitrage for when TOU rates are high. Where some EVs are $300/kwh to $500/kwh for the entire car, TOU rates can allow for arbitrage that pays for whole car.
What sorts of batteries are around that price per kwh? Genuinely curious, been thinking about adding batteries but can't justify the costs I've seen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bShGUPU3TQ $120/kwh. There are amazon listings for 20kwh in rack batteries for under $3000. It does take DIY (no soldering kits) to get to $100/kwh. searching youtube for projects/options reviews, and especially the linked author is recommended if you're interested.
Amazing, thank you. My new obsessive project has been lined up
Yes, China has very purposefully put itself at the forefront of the first technological revolution of the 21st century and done this at multiple levels (solar panel production, battery tech, EVs)
Meanwhile the American elites have decided that 19th century technology is were they want to be. Well, that and dead ending killing the country's lead in the Tech revolution by going down a branch with no future in the form of LLMs and making everybody lose trust in keeping their data in anything owned by American companies.
And, of course, the crooked politicians here in Europe are actually following America more than China in this.
And, of course, the crooked politicians here in Europe are actually following America more than China in this.
That is much less the case then it might appear. Out of the Top10 largest EV makers three are European(Volkswagen, BMW and Stellantis). When you look at wind, Europe has a few of the largest companies in the world. Europe is also basically the only place even attempting to compete with China in batteries, since Trump cut US support for that industry. There are plenty of more niche industries as well, in which Europe has some very strong companies.
It is a lot more complex than "Europe is actually following America more than China in this".
Europe have very limited lithium deposits compared to China. Europe is trying to be as self sustaining as possible, especially now that the US have shown themselves to be a highly unreliable partner.
So exchanging one dependency for another is a poor lateral move at best.
You can't just start digging up the entire ground and make car batteries out of all lithium you find.
European universities all over are researching alternative battery technology that doesn't rely as much on lithium.
None of that is true. There is lithium everywhere, Germany just found 45 million tonnes of it. People have been digging up the entire ground for oil for 200 years.
You can research all you want, but the periodic table is not changing, and Chinese R&D is decades ahead of the West.
Yeah, they just found it late last year. And still working out how they should bring it up. They've made estimates on the amount, i'm not qualified to verify their estimates.
If they can actually bring it up we have security in the materials required to make the research worth it.
But no, we have not dug up all of the ground to get oil. Oil is a lot more liquid than lithium ore. We can pump up the oil without having to excavate the entire surrounding area.
I'm not saying that to defend oil. But the funny part about it is that if they had dug up all of the ground to get it, they would have found their lithium deposits sooner. Because they found it in an oil-field.
You can research all you want, but the periodic table is not changing, and Chinese R&D is decades ahead of the West.
What does that even mean? Do you have any idea how long ago it was since we found the last naturally occurring element? Should we have just stoped all research I the early 1900's because "the periodic table is not changing". Dumbest shit I've heard all years. And yes, I did hear about Trumps email to Norway. You still win.
Adding to your comment: Lithium brines are extracted through drilled wells, it's not always ore.
Thank you. I didn't know that.
You can research all you want, but the periodic table is not changing, and Chinese R&D is decades ahead of the West.
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One is an energy and material source. The other is neither and is simply storage.
Why would you compare them?
Because batteries are a point of tension in the adoption of some electricity-centric techs. Electricity production can be done in many different ways already (unless you suddenly decide to 100x the demand for shit and giggles), but a lot of applications requires batteries, which makes them some sort of choke point for adoption. Making them better, more accessible, cheaper, more friendly on the environment ease that.
The comparison is also on one end of the world focusing on the dying down side of things, while the other end is (allegedly) looking forward.
That's why they're compared.
That's nice. Now run a modern civilization of 10 billion (upcoming) with only electricity.
Those Chinese seem to be some decent forward thinking blokes. Nothing like I was led to believe by west
They brutally exploit their people. 6 days a week, 12 hours a day work in factories, for substinence wages, dumping their pollution, no protections, no unions, brutal one party state controlling every word spoken.
Really taking the shaft of capitalism and even getting the balls in. Impressive suckery from a gullible sucker. Kudos!
Says the guy stroking off one of the most repressive regimes in the world.
Do not let a group of half witted tankie thralls convince you you are right, anyone in reality will ignore every opinion you have knowing you hold up china as a great government. And troll for them with gay terminology, something china would lock you up for.
So you think moving away from fossil fuels and moving to electric is a net negative not worthy of comment? It is possible to can praise the good without endorsing the bad. And cocksucking isn’t inherently gay that just seems to be part of some latent homophobia you harbor. But then you went and used cockfondling to what, insult me? I’m a decent cockfondler and bet you give toothy head. But not that good kind with a little drag on the backstroke rather that just stop and let it fuck your esophagus kind. Also, keep up, ‘Tankie’ has been so overplayed it just indicates you are a lazy and your argument is weak. But I’ll humor you. Defend your statements of China with proof…
What a word smith!
*wordsmith
Thank you! It’s a gift. I think it’s because I read so much.
I’d sooner buy a Chinese EV than a Tesla, but the orange gameshow host running my country says I can’t.
Because Biden said you could? He's the one that doubled tariffs on Chinese EVs from 50% to 100%. Biden also gave the EV tax credit which was essentially a subsidy to Tesla, which Trump ended.
Note that I'm not defending Trump, but simply noting that the US was heading in his direction. He's a symptom of advanced disease, but you don't get to blame him all the shitty things all US presidents ever did. He's a raging tumor, but the cancer was spreading already.
Because Biden said you could? He’s the one that doubled tariffs on Chinese EVs from 50% to 100%. Biden also gave the EV tax credit which was essentially a subsidy to Tesla, which Trump ended.
I don't fault Biden for adding a tariff on Chinese EVs to temporarily protect the American auto manufacturing envornment. We just have too many jobs tied to the domestic production of cars. The immediate loss of those jobs would plunge the USA into deep recession. It looked like this was working too with many American companies adapting and coming out with EVs.
However, most of those American EVs have been scaled back or canceled. Further, with the exception of the Chevy Bolt no domestic maker produced an affordable EV. Since American companies decided they don't want to play in EVs anymore, I fully support removing the tariff and letting Chinese EVs into the USA. It looks like that will be the only thing that will force American car companies to compete. This situation closely mirrors the 1970s where Japan introduced small, reliable, fuel efficent cars, and affordable cars at a time when gasoline was crazy expensive.
It looks like this time around it will be the Chinese that teach the American auto market to adapt instead.
Biden increased tariffs...AND invested heavily in battery plants in the US. Trump killed that. Biden's tariffs were because the Chinese government is dumping in the US to undermine the car industry.
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It's like he wakes up every morning and asks himself "What can I do to make sure China owns the 21st century?"
Thats because he's stuck in the 80s. It's common for people with dementia to fall back to a time they thought was good and for him, it was the 80s when oil was king.
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