America Will Lose If the EU and China Become Energy Buddies
Fossil exporters’ status will dwindle from the shift to clean power.
The current swagger of the surplus nations could be short-lived.
Photographer: Justin Hamel/BloombergThe electrons coursing through our grids, turbines and engines are invisible to the human eye, but without them, all the machinery that powers our industrial economy would grind to a halt.
Unseen flows of energy drive international relations, too. What’s often thought to be a game of ideologies, territories and militaries is driven, deep down, by those same electrons. For as long as there have been states, they’ve battled to control the sources and distribution of first nutritional energy — in the form of food — then fossil fuels, and now renewables. In the tentative rapprochement between Europe and China, and the continent’s darkening relationship with Washington, we’re seeing the next chapter of this ancient story taking shape.