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OWID
By Jo Nova
Means, motive, and opportunity. It looks for all the world like China used dirty tactics to corner the rare earth processing plants of the world.
Michael Kern argues that for the last twenty years, every time a Western rare earth mining operation looked like it was about to build its own processing plant, Chinese producers would flood the market and crash the price of the metal. The investment case would evaporate and the company would go out of business.
This kind of predatory capitalism is all very well until the nice guys realize what’s going on and ban your products from their defense contracts, back their own start ups, and those companies develop their own processing techniques, which is what is starting to occur in the US now.
China was treating rare earths as a strategic weapon, while the West assumed the free market was free, and was hooked on the cheaper stuff.
All’s fair in love and war, but dirty tricks have their own price.
How China Killed Every Rare Earth Competitor Before It Could Get Started
By Michael Kern, Oilprice
The West handed its rare earth processing […]
By Jo Nova
Two trendlines and the climate distraction converged
Just before Easter, the Page Research Centre put out a policy paper that ought to rivet Australians.
We have so casually sleepwalked (sprinted) blindfolded to the edge of cliff. Twenty years ago we were self-sufficient in liquid fuels, then we got distracted trying to change the rain and clouds in 2100 AD. Meanwhile in 2013, the area of South East Asia under the potential control of China was starting to grow rapidly. It is only now, after we have closed 6 of 8 refineries, banned oil exploration and shale use in some states in an Ode to Gaia, but we find that at a moment’s notice, China could potentially put three quarters of our liquid fuel supply under threat.
“In an Asian war scenario, 76% of our liquid fuel requirements would be in immediate jeopardy.”
The situation in 2013 regarding China’s ability to control supply lines:
China’s area of denial capacity 2013
But the world is a different place in 2026:
China’s area of denial capacity 2025
How rapidly we ran towards the pit, closing refineries, assuming it didn’t matter even after China had […]
By Jo Nova
The big losers in this war, apart from some former Iranian leaders, appear to be China, and NATO.
In the last two months China has lost easy cheap access to cheap oil from Venezuela and now Iran. China was getting around the sanctions and buying discounted Iranian oil through a shadow fleet of ships. It was acquiring as much as 80% of Iranian oil production. Now it has to pay market prices and fight for a limited supply.
Meanwhile the divide between the US and Europe is suddenly very obvious. NATO has been shown to be an empty shell.
Victor Davis Hanson, the military historian, explains the big picture:
GB News: Basically, is this a victory for Donald Trump? Does Does this ceasefire represent a victory for his sort of strategic campaign?
Victor Davis Hanson: Well, if it’s honored, it is because when all of the rhetoric and all of the politics vanish, and if they abide by the agreement and we stop and the straits stay open and … if we’re viligant — then it is.
He [Trump] comes back and he says when I came into office Iran had […]
Photo by Petar Milošević
By Jo Nova
Coal, it turns out, is an infinite chemical wellspring, being converted into everything from plastic, to diesel, jet fuel, gas, methanol and fertilizer. There is no way, just no chance, that China will leave this bounty locked underground. And why are we?
The idea of converting coal to liquid fuel sounds like an expensive exotic chemical reaction that is barely used. If people have even heard of it, it’s mainly because the Nazi’s were so desperate for liquid fuel to power their tanks and armored cars, they converted coal in a large plant that became a wartime target in World War II. It produced 92% of Germany’s air fuel, and 50% of its petroleum. Who knew, those Messerschmidts were coal powered? Later South Africa used it in the 1980s in response to an oil embargo, and they still do.
Quietly China has developed a giant coal-to-liquids industry to reduce its strategic vulnerability to an oil shock or a wartime embargo, and the volume is astounding. Accurate numbers are hard to obtain, but the IEA estimates that every year China is converting 380 million tons of coal into fuel, ammonia […]
By Jo Nova
Quietly while Australians were talking about Grace Tame or Britanny Higgins the levers of industrial power are shifting gear
While Australia has a puritanical objection to nuclear power there are 437 operating reactors around the world producing 9% of global electricity. One day Australians might be as technologically advanced as Armenia and Bangladesh. We can only hope…
For the last fifty years, the leaders of the world in nuclear power have been the US first and then France second, and by a long way, but China is about to change that global tally board.
Currently operating nuclear plants
Click to enlarge (World Nuclear Association)
Under Construction
There are 78 Reactors Under Construction which will add another 78,986 MWe, and nearly all of that is in one country.
Click to enlarge (World Nuclear Association)
The tally board stands at 438 Operable Reactors with a capacity of 400,680 MWe producing 9% Share of Global n Electricity Generation and 2,667,383 GWh (2024).
Why aren’t we talking about this?
10 out of 10 based on 84 ratings
By Jo Nova
This below, is the latest graph of coal plants in operation in the world today.
Luckily there is one place on Earth where carbon emissions are irrelevant.
Global Energy Monitor: Coal Plant Tracker (GW)
While most CO2 emissions cause wars, droughts, and kill eagles, there are some CO2 emissions that just create refrigerators, so nobody minds.
Where is that Boycott, Divest, Sanction China Movement?
China has 1,271 gigawatts of operating coal power capacity, over half of the world’s total.
The UN has met every year for twenty-eight years to badger everyone to stop using coal to appease the Goddess of Trace Gases and Weird Weather — all while China became the coal furnace of the world.
Or perhaps The UN met every year, so China could do exactly that? Lord above, imagine if the bureaucratic diplomats of the West could be bought off so easily by trophies, trinkets and photo-opportunities? Or perhaps they were naively trapped in cheap honeypot schemes? As a trade strategy, it would be a bargain. And it surely was.
Somehow life on Earth depends on Extinction Rebellion protestors, but they can’t seem to find the Chinese Embassy.
And just so […]
Image by MythologyArt from Pixabay
By Jo Nova
China wants to rule the world
And so the media circus continues. China’s new five year plans are out, and no matter what they are, the media has to pretend China is a good little carbon player like everyone else. No one can admit the truth, that China’s emissions are so big everyone else is irrelevant. That China breaks all the rules while cornering the market selling junk wind-and-solar-generators to an audience that doesn’t need them.
To say so would destroy the illusion — like turning up to a party with a carton of antimatter.
And now China wants to govern the vassal states (like Australia) presumably to make sure they continue to be forced to buy the junk generators, so they can’t compete with China in making real things.
Climate change is a racket that serves China and the UN.
[Bloomberg] China aims to “actively participate in and lead global climate governance,” according to a draft of the country’s 2026-2030 five-year plan published Thursday.
Nation will “uphold the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities” and “fully implement the United Nations Framework […]
Shuozhou coal power plant. by Kleineolive
By Jo Nova
It’s almost like China doesn’t give a toss about climate change, eh?
Just quietly, while everyone was gushing tears over a two year extension to a fifty year old Australian plant, China added a gargantuan number of brand new coal plants.
Australia’s total coal fleet stands at 26 gigawatts in capacity. Yet China added three times that capacity in a single year.
Overall, China brought 78 gigawatts of new coal power capacity online in 2025, a sharp uptick from previous years, according to the joint report by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air and Global Energy Monitor.
The graph below represents how many gigawatts were added, but only in the largest turbines size. China added 52 gigawatts of energy from one gigawatt units. Presumably the rest of the 78GW came from smaller sized turbines. And here’s the thing, while everyone will pretend this is the peak and tell us “it will decline soon”, another 83 gigawatts of coal plants has already started construction, and another 161GW is newly proposed or applied for.
These coal plants are apparently only being used at 50% capacity, […]
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By Jo Nova
Australian Mums and Dads who want a petrol or diesel car will soon be effectively paying money to China to make EV’s cheaper for inner city socialites.
Make no mistake, despite the propaganda, Australia now has a carbon tax on petrol and diesel cars and the revenue will go straight to companies that sell EVs — which means the cash will flow to China more than anywhere else.
The news today:
“Mazda, Nissan, Hyundai and Subaru face multi-million-dollar penalties under NVES”
by Jake Evans, the ABC
The New Vehicle Efficiency Standard (NVES) requires car makers to meet emissions limits on the total cars they sell each year, incurring a $50 liability for every gram of CO2/km over that limit, which must be paid as a penalty or traded with greener car makers that accrued credits.
The liabilities are due to be paid in three years’ time, meaning the car makers can also reduce their liability by selling more cleaner cars in the next two years.
In the first six months of the NVES, Mazda has incurred a $25.4 million liability, Subaru […]
RedState
By Jo Nova
We need to talk about bioweapons…
A house cleaner known only as Kelly reported a suspicious garage in an AirBNB in Las Vegas to the FBI a few weeks ago. Apparently it was normally locked, but when it was left open she noticed a foul “hospital” smell. On Saturday investigators found fridges and carted away “more than 1,000 pieces of evidence”. They arrested a man who managed the property and discovered the owner he worked for was in jail and used to own the Reedley illegal bioweapon lab as well. That was the lab found by sheer chance that had vials of samples marked “Ebola”, “HIV”, Covid-19″ and “Tuberculosis”. There were also a thousand lab mice in there and people wearing hazmat suits.
Righto, so having found a hostile, highly dangerous, existential potential threat in 2023, no one asked the question, “does he own anything else?” No one thought to look at his other properties?
Kelly, the AirBNB cleaner was probably extra suspicious because she and another employee reported that the garage made them sick:
Police source describes falling ‘deathly ill’ after entering Las Vegas garage where biolab was found
— By […]
Image by AngMoKio
By Jo Nova
The Daily Telegraph has discovered a major Net Zero project has signed up several Chinese companies. The huge battery and solar scheme in Bundey South Australia has been given the red carpet treatment by the Albanese government. It will be fast tracked as a priority by the government and cash will rain down from the “Capital Investment Scheme (CIS)” .
The group running the project is Ganaspi Energy. Supposedly it is based in Sydney, except that when the Daily Telegraph visited the office there, it was empty. No one was responding to emails or text messages, and the phone number didn’t connect. If this company was a ghost corporation, or a front for Chinese interests, they don’t seem to be trying hard to disguise it?
Ganaspi Energy has brought in several Chinese firms, and held a party with some them in Suzhou to celebrate. Supposedly, the Bundey BESS and Solar project will be the largest battery storage power station in the Southern Hemisphere.
Taxpayers are underwriting the project for the first 15 years.
Revealed: Net Zero project’s major links to Chinese business
By James Willis, The Daily Telegraph
National security […]
By Jo Nova
Just when you thought EV’s could not get more deadly
Eric Worrall alerts us to the new experimental Burning Battery Ejectors at WattsUp.
A Chinese group has invented a James Bond style ejector for EVs to solve those embarrassing moments when the battery reaches thermal runaway, and there are no handy swimming pools to park the car in.
It seems like a great idea for all the times the EV starts to smoke while you idle next to a pit of fire retardant foam. Otherwise, it seems a bit tough on pedestrians. This could not only kill school children walking down the road, but take out their bus too.
Imagine if a hostile power had remote control over 500 kilogram covert bomb launchers, and they infiltrated our cities?
In case of thermal runaway, this proposed EV battery ejection system is designed to send a flaming, venting one-tonne battery pack several meters to the right of the vehicle … and may the gods help anything in its path. (h/t https://t.co/QpsFvjruwZ) pic.twitter.com/Wyu5NIsuKM
— Engineer Brains (@HHackenbecker) September 24, 2025
Simon who wrote Australian Climate Madness for years, first spotted the ejector battery and explains the crazy […]
By Jo Nova
The World’s Renewables Crash-Test-Dummy has officially set new magical emissions-reductions-targets. It’s just a different shade of impossible, so nothing’s changed. But the labels on the staircase to Green Heaven have switched from 43% to 62%. The UN and President Xi will be happy.
It won’t change world temperatures but it might be enough to bribe the UN with to “win” the Olympics of Climate Conferences — the junket to end all junkets. The annual private jet party of bureaucratic celebrities.
When our PM was asked why Australia should set targets for global weather control when the three biggest countries on Earth are not, he whipped out a “fun fact” to run a nation by — as Graham Lloyd noticed in The Australian.
[Anthony Albanese] hit out at Coalition MPs who argue Australia should not adopt ambitious targets when there was a lack of action from big emitters the US, China and India.
“The amount of wind and solar power under construction in China is now nearly twice as much as the rest of the world combined. Just a fun fact there,” he said.
It’s almost like the PM is managing the country […]
Nobody wants to say China
A couple of weeks ago at the Australian Clean Energy summit, there was a dawning realization that in our rush to diversify the energy grid we are accidentally “diversifying” our cyber security risks too.
Where, once upon a time, we could double and triple check the barriers around big old coal plants, now we have opened electronic doors to our grid on homes all over Australia. Energy geniuses told us solar panels would be decentralized, but instead, now that Australia has 25,000 megawatts of household solar, we have to add wireless gadgets to control them remotely. And some of these gadgets are coming in from fly-by-night small time operators. If, hypothetically, a foreign power wanted to be mean, or just hold an extra negotiating or blackmail card up its sleeve, we’re making it very easy. If Mr Chin wants something approved, he could say “Nice grid you have there…”
Small scale solar is so big, As Williamson points out, that it supplied 13% of the electricity to the NEM so far this year. And in Western Australia, it has generated 20%. (Boy is the West in trouble?)
On top of this, to deal with […]
Image: Rolls Royce
By Jo Nova
The Space Race is back
Australia couldn’t build a nuclear plant “til 2045”, but NASA is going to put one on the moon in five years time.
The new NASA chief, Sean Duffy, is set to announce urgent plans to get a very small nuclear reactor on the moon. What was going to be a 40MW microreactor in the “early 2030s” is now said to be a 100MW one launched in 2029. The reason for the rush is because three months ago China and Russia announced plans to cooperate and build their own nuclear plant on the moon in the early 2030s. They want the power to set up what they call an international lunar base. According to Politico, the fear is that the first nation to colonize the moon could declare a “keep out zone” — a quasi form of ownership that would stop another nation setting up in the same area.
Space race: US aims to beat out China and Russia with nuclear reactor on the Moon
By:Sébastian SEIBT , France 24
NASA’s interim chief Sean Duffy has made deploying a nuclear reactor on the […]
By Jo Nova
The invisible shrinking solar industry
Quietly, the world manufacturing base for solar panels has been shrinking for nearly two years and yet hardly anyone knows. Especially not the Prime Minister of Australia who set up the the $1 billion Solar Sunshot a year ago to artificially create an Australian solar panel manufacturing industry, twenty years too late, and with the worst possible timing.
China has already captured the solar market and killed it.
Gluts have consequences
The CCP is making twice as many solar panels as the world wants to buy. The latest trend is from bad to worse.
Let’s remember this story, the next time the propaganda media try to tell us solar panels are setting new records. Isn’t this the sort of thing our investigative sleuths at the ABC-BBC-CBC should have been digging out before elections were held? Doesn’t this change everything?
Australia is supposed to be going gangbusters “leading the world” and installing 22,000 panels a day to meet our Net Zero target, but no one else in the world is doing that.
China’s solar giants quietly shed a third of their workforces last year
Reuters
Over 40 solar firms have […]
By Jo Nova
It didn’t start that way, but it’s almost like Climate Change is just a Chinese trick…
The West’s ridiculously bloated legal system sits there like a radioactive duck. For a pittance, the Chinese Communist Party can sponsor climate lawsuits that cost US companies big money, tie them up in court, slow them down, and sometimes bankrupt them, and that’s for cases they don’t win.
For the other cases, left wing non-profits are running training programs for judges to indoctrinate them with climate ideology. (If we think some judges are crazy, perhaps they had help to get there?)
Senate Hearing Exposes China’s Role In Backing Climate Lawsuits Against U.S. Energy
By Olivia Rondeau, ClimateChangeDispatch
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is financially backing left-wing climate lawfare in the United States, and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, and dark money expert Scott Walter revealed the shady details while testifying before a Senate subcommittee on Wednesday.
According to Cruz, this campaign is a “three-pronged” approach.
“First, foreign money from entities tied to the Chinese Communist Party flows into the United States to bankroll climate advocacy groups who litigate […]
By Jo Nova
The Victorian state electricity grid is running close to the wire
They’ve run their largest coal plants into the ground — to the point of neglect where an air duct “detached from the boiler end and fell to the floor”. So one 380MW unit will be out of action at Yallourn for two weeks. And it’s just the latest in an ongoing series of failures.
We are the Renewable Crash Test Dummy — this is what the unfree, fixed, forced market produces when the best assets in a system are treated like planet-wrecking trolls.
A Hi-Tech transition, my foot…
An Air duct collapses at Yallourn Power plant. ABC News https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-09/yallourn-power-station-outage-air-duct-collapse/105394406
The Net Zero forced transition is just vandalism of a perfectly good electricity grid.
The whole 1,450 MW plant at Yallourn makes 20% of the state’s electricity, but has been described as “limping” along into retirement –– (a lot like Victorian manufacturing.)
One report on the power station found that at least one of its four generators was out of action for a third of the time last year. Yallourn was supposed to close in 2032, but under siege from heavily subsidized unreliable generators, […]
By Jo Nova
What an amplifier? The Chinese communist party quietly helped New York create a $75b climate SuperFund Law
That’s a lot of bang for their buck.
Imagine The Blob buddied up with China to lobby for a law that forced energy companies (and thus the shareholders and customers) to cough up $75 billion to fund green initiatives? The Blob gets more money to buy power and influence and buy favors from their friends. The Chinese Communists make their competitors energy more expensive, and thus all their products more costly, less competitive, their economy weaker. Suits every kind of grifter, eh?
But perhaps China just wants to save American whales right? Why else would the Chinese-American Planning Council (CPC) be so worried about US Emissions, but not their own? The CPC has been publicly lobbying for New York to legislate the “Climate Change Superfund Act — a bizarre retrospective law which would force energy companies to pay billions for past emissions back to the year 2000AD. Supposedly, companies like Exxonmobil, Shell, and others are going to pay $3 billion a year to help New York prepare for climate change. Though obviously, it will raise the price of energy […]
Maanshan Nuclear Power Plant, Taiwan. Photo by Jnlin
By Jo Nova
The energy situation is flipping on a dime around the world
Political entities are waking up to the need for reliable mass power. Consider the whiplash in Taiwan. They closed the last of six nuclear reactors on May 17th, marking the end of a nuclear era that started in 1970. But, hey ho, two weeks later, they’ve decided to hold a referendum on whether to restart the same plant. The vote is set for August 23.
Taiwan Plans Referendum on Nuclear Energy Reversal
By Tsvetana Paraskov, OilPrice
Taiwan will hold in August a referendum on whether the just-shuttered last nuclear reactor should be restarted once safety checks are completed, in a major reversal of the country’s policy amid energy security concerns.
Since 2018, Taiwan has shut down four other nuclear reactors and cancelled construction of two others following a referendum in 2021.
Earlier this month, Taiwan’s Parliament amended the country’s nuclear power act to allow plant operators to apply for a 20-year license renewal beyond the existing 40-year limit. This legislative amendment effectively opens the door to […]
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