Reply to post: It's too late anyway - better learn Mandarin

It's too late anyway - better learn Mandarin

It's typical that governments are quite happy to hit on the Chinese in the domestic market whilst knowing full well they've lost the battle.

Let's add up a few things:

- we have a major global warning and pollution problem;

- so has China, so much more than "us" that they HAD to take action, and China being China, it didn't hold back once the decision was taken;

- China has embarked on a MAJOR stimulus for electric transport, with bonus points for efficiency;

- green energy (wind/solar) is woefully insufficient to fulfil our power needs;

- fossil fuel power generation merely moves many small exhausts into a few big ones

- current nuclear reactors are plutonium/steam based because of some "we need weapons grade stuff for bombs" decisions in the 70s..

.. but the Chinese are well ahead in the alternative stream of thorium based reactors (liquid salt based) - and have developed their own IP whilst addressing the issues such as corrosion. As a matter of fact, they may go live with a test reactor this year, or in 2020. All that while Trump is encouraging coal to keep his voters happy, and has allowed the EPA to pretty much ignore pollution and global warming so they're not developing solutions either.

What do you reckon is going to happen to the dollar when the Chinese are starting to use and sell those smaller, safer plants? It makes the renminbi more interesting as a reserve and energy currency, and unlike Iraq, the Americans can't bomb the crap out of them for having the temerity not to use the dollar for energy sales..