Yeah but I think advanced economies can figure out to produce the same things if there's a strategic need - and absorb the cost - you also can't just close the pipes and starve everybody, so China doesn't really have that much political leverage in how you use it.
There's also huge internal competition inside China between companies, so they have a harder time fixing prices.
Nope. A defining mechanism in energy markets is the cost to extract it. There's a reason Saudi Arabia dominates oil, if you can extract it with a shovel. And directly counter to your point, there's a reason, say, Germany can't just kick start a shell gas/oil industry even if it does have the deposits underneath.
> harder time fixing prices
Eh, it's not like the CCP didn't do heavy handed market interventions before, right? I mean some would even argue "fixing prices" is already embedded with the ruling party's name.
> you also can't just close the pipes and starve everybody,
What is this even suppose to mean? Of course you can. That is the whole point of having geopolitical leverage.
There were similar comments on HN. The argument goes that since it takes energy to produce PV panels and wind turbines, China effectively is an energy exporting country. What’s even better is some of the PV and turbines are produced with renewable energy. And unlike oil and gas, which are used only once, PV panels and wind turbines generate power for many years.
The argument also has a geopolitical component: PV panels wear down, and by the time yours have too, the energy infrastructure around you will have shifted towards PVs. I.e. your (country’s) energy will be dependent on China.
That is another aspect of “the Saudia-Arabia of PVs”
