By Peter Zeihan
If you have any interest in what’s really happening in our crazy world, Peter Zeihan is an amazing source of unbiased insight as to what is going on.
We’ve got some more interview style questions for you today! We’ll be focusing on China, specifically looking at the potential for Chinese energy independence and if any countries surrounding China should be worried about an invasion/resource grab.
While it may appear that the Chinese have access to significant shale oil deposits, the reality of their energy outlook isn’t so pretty. Most of the Chinese lake bed shales are waxy and produce only a fraction of the energy that American deposits produce. In addition, the location of these deposits just so happens to be in a historically secessionist region, so that helps limit development.
On the Chinese expansion front, the prospects aren’t looking too hot. With limited military capabilities and geographical constraints, expansion towards resource-rich neighbors isn’t feasible. My bigger concern is what happens after Chinese demand for these resources falls off and the countries sending this stuff to China lose that stream of income…
Peter Zeihan is a world expert in geopolitics: the study of how place impacts financial, economic, cultural, political, and military developments.
He presents customized executive briefings to a wide array of audiences including financial professionals, Fortune 500 firms, energy investors, and a mix of industrial, power, agricultural, and consulting associations and corporations.
Mr. Zeihan has been featured in, and cited by, numerous newspapers and broadcasts including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, AP, Bloomberg, CNN, ABC, The New York Times, Fox News, and MarketWatch.
Is the hydrogen economy really the future? Or Is it all a farce? I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself, but it’s somewhere in between…
All the math and science behind using hydrogen checks out. And yes, it removes the carbon question from the equation, but where do you get the hydrogen from? Ideally, we would use clean energy sources to separate water molecules, but that’s too energy intensive for solar and wind to get us there this century. We could source it from fossil fuels, but it would be more carbon-intensive than what we do now. So no utopia for us quite yet.
Some bridge technology uses ammonia to create hydrogen, but it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. Ammonia comprises one nitrogen and three hydrogen atoms; unfortunately, nitrogen is critical for much of the world’s fertilizers. And when you have to choose between having food with dirty energy or starving to death w/ clean energy…the answer is pretty straightforward.
So while this is interesting technology and SHOULD be experimented with, that does NOT mean we should start implementing this tech at scale. We’re working with finite resources here, so the tech needs to be thoroughly vetted and proven before we take that next step.
Peter Zeihan is a world expert in geopolitics: the study of how place impacts financial, economic, cultural, political, and military developments.
He presents customized executive briefings to a wide array of audiences including financial professionals, Fortune 500 firms, energy investors, and a mix of industrial, power, agricultural, and consulting associations and corporations.
Mr. Zeihan has been featured in, and cited by, numerous newspapers and broadcasts including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, AP, Bloomberg, CNN, ABC, The New York Times, Fox News, and MarketWatch.
