Comment by triceratops
20 hours ago
That's like saying oil-producing countries aren't sovereign unless they also manufacture oil drills and pumps and pipes and tanks.
The sun is an oil well. Panels are drills or pumps. Batteries are oil tanks.
Not having oil drill and oil tank factories in your country isn't a critical energy sovereignty issue.
They don't need to make things themselves, they just need to have the capability to make it themselves to be sovereign.
If you get cut off from global oil trade while having oil in the ground but no ability to make drills, what use is the oil? If you want sovereignty then it is critical to have the ability to make drills, tankers, etc in your country if you rely on oil.
This is no different than solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, etc when it comes to renewables. If you don't care about sovereignty then great, you are good to go. If you do, then you need to be able to handle everything yourself otherwise you are always going to be reliant on other countries.
> If you get cut off from global oil trade while having oil in the ground but no ability to make drills, what use is the oil?
Your existing drills and pumps might work long enough for you to stand up a domestic drill manufacturing industry.
Same for solar, except that panels and batteries operate for way longer than drills and pumps.
> If you don't care about sovereignty then great, you are good to go
If no one is sovereign then sovereignty is meaningless. Who cares.
> Your existing drills and pumps might work long enough for you to stand up a domestic drill manufacturing industry.
> Same for solar, except that panels and batteries operate for way longer than drills and pumps.
This is not about factories, but raw material as I said in a previous comment that you responded to. Most countries don't have uranium. A lot of countries do not have rare earth minerals for electronic chips.
> If no one is sovereign then sovereignty is meaningless. Who cares
The person I was originally responding to did and was claiming that you could achieve sovereignty with renewables.