Why strikes on Russian oil no longer shock the world, and the drop in its supply does not scare it
China's 600 nuclear warheads have several times less total energy (if they could be burned in nuclear fission and fusion reactors) than China's annual electricity generation from renewable sources, The Economist writes.
Regardless of the numbers, the trend is right. China is trying to catch up with the United States in the nuclear sphere, but until that happens, it is reaching new levels of renewable generation technologies and promoting them around the world via the Silk Roads.
Until the global battle of new Chinese solar panels against new American small modular nuclear reactors begins, China still relies heavily on coal, while the United States relies on oil and gas. However, we should not be fooled into thinking that neither country is preparing a decisive step into a new energy future and the rest of the world should not look into it and place energy bets.
In the Russian-Ukrainian war, oil, and to a large extent also gas and nuclear power, have become a resource of war, and they are under attack from both sides. This has a strong impact on Russia and Ukraine, but globally, there are no longer any conflicting attempts to redistribute markets that could provoke new wars.
These are symptoms of the rapid decline of these markets, and it is already obvious why - thanks to oil and gas of Russian origin. There seems to be a global consensus on this, and no one is sad when Russian refineries and oil terminals burn.
China, it says, still cannot afford to lose to Russia. But there are no signs that China is concerned about destroying Russia's oil and gas sector. In the end, it will buy elsewhere and flood Russia with solar panels so that it does not collapse and can continue to fight if necessary.
The situation with Russian nuclear power is more complicated. Rosatom is clinging to Soviet reactors and their management in the world, including Ukraine, with which Russia is waging a war of destruction, just as Gazprom and Transneft used to cling to pipes.
On the one hand, Soviet reactors look like competitors to Chinese solar panels and American modular reactors. But on the other hand, Russian nuclear power does not look as much like a future write-off as Russian oil and gas, and by managing Rosatom for some time to come, it will be possible to have a significant impact on the global energy sector.
China and the United States can compete for this. The investments already made in Soviet-designed nuclear reactors in Russia and around the world are large. The latest Soviet reactors can operate for decades. But there is probably no point in preparing new sites for nuclear power and management institutions, even for the latest ones.
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