US Administration moved Energy Tech backward to 19th Century?

391,570 views Streamed live on Apr 15, 2026Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman and historian Heather Cox Richardson are joining forces for Lunch Money, a new monthly conversation series. Krugman writes the popular Substack newsletter bearing his name; Richardson’s Letters from an American reaches over 6 million readers every day. Join them for a wide-ranging, thoughtful, and provocative conversation about whatever is on their ever-curious minds.
… But on this one, they are all wrong.

About Battery, for instant, it is efficiency on energy density that matters： 400WH/kg vs 13,000WH/kg. The state-of-the-art Li-Ion Battery has a long way to achieve equal or better than conventional gas or air fuel started in 20th Century (though not “19th Century” as the the experts claimed).

Technically, going forward in 21st century productions and applications supposed to have higher efficiency (about natural resource utilization, labor costs and condition, materials row and processed, energy used in manufacture, and environment impacts, as the whole). Overall solutions upon: (1) the whole life cycle should be considered: of infrastructure construction and equipment manufacture, and disposal of industrial waste; (2) cost to decommission of already-invested infrastructure, facilities and jobs; (3) resource geology: mining, processing, disposal, and pollutions, in all places: cities, rural, lands, mountains and oceans, and populations in poor countries.
To solve such complexity of combined challenges, it is not about government policy, it is about breaking multi-discipline barriers in physics.
The world’s scientists should all work on problems in their respective fields to overcome problems that the New-Energy encountered, instead to please politicians in return to get new industries and markets started blindly, counting on government will subsidize costs and give funds.
To fill up some 30+ folds of technical gap is a marathon only just started. What the world government administration are doing now, is to waste resources for a set of too-early applications of the yet-low-tech, not signifying what 21st century hi-tech revolution.
While politicians should concentrate on feasibility of people’s livelihood in present. The problem is about CURRENT jobs with existing industry, not with future industry to replace existing jobs now. The long process of the industrial transformation is much longer than elected politician’s governing terms.
Government planning, either central or global, China and world vs US, have been all wrong in both basic physics and economic feasibilities. It all needed to be corrected.

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Yes, a government should sponsor R&D (technology-to-prototype) in new-energy, but should be in right direction; but leave profitable and beneficial segments of product-to-market for private-sectors. The scientist need to prove the R&D is in right direction and assure results. For example, hydrogen fuel cells, if fully developed into commercial efficiency, will deliver a promising energy density of 33,000WH/kg, though still have cost impacts to infrastructure buildout. Energy generation, storage-transportation and engines, all need to be fully in parallel developed and made feasible all together.

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Before all those encountered or promised problems solved in R&D, all investments and expenses on industrial development so far, and if keeps pushing, are wastes due to the miss-direction.

These popular commentators are so wrong about past, present and future. During 19th Century, there was no automobiles running in the world. Steam Engine? What is she talking about US went back to the Steam Engine Era? Everybody in the world are not continuing what the 20th Century started: modern coal natural gas burn power planned, even the “21st Century China” who embrace electric-cars, is also majorly used coal as fuel to generate electricity and then charged car batteries.
Heather Cox Richardson’s marine-biology scientist sister, is so wrong, too. That is the problem about scientists’ that I mentioned above.

While Paul Krugman sited the current solar, battery and electric cars and wind are technologies of the 21st century and future. He is narrowly focusing on few failing new-energy attempts, trying to categorize them as new-tech, ignored the fact that there are 3/4 of 21st Century of diversified R&D ahead.

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These people, represent and influence Government Plan and Strategy, help the New-Energy Industry with sponsorship, but also risks. Later, government will withdraw on any ill-positioned fat giant infants, and discontinue their subsidize and financial aid. The national policy factors are only startups’ illusion and risk in planning, and allow them to escape from accountability to private-sector investors (the force-majeure by default). We have seen such patterns in the past of solar battery industry rise-and-fall in US, then in Germany, now in China. Do people open their eyes to see the fact that China government’s current financial burden had created surplus of electric cars? BYD is in fact hugely in debt: currently $20B; its debt to equity ratio is 0.6, and its debt to EBITDA ratio is 6.3? You’d want all US industries to run business in this way, calling this is the technology and economy of future to pursue?

China, yes, is able to sustain New-Energy Industry with its ultimate power of socialist planned economy. The West can, and is, not able to competing China, due to the system. But China is instead complements resource and environment burn-out portion of the Eew-Energy industry to the West, which the latter has proven could not afford. By giving up these practically high-consumption and pollution efforts, such as mining, processing and manufacturing batteries and electric cars, and wind mills and electric motors/generators, Western energy industry CAN benefit from China. Thus both sides of New-Energy Industries are sustainable by as depending 20th Century fossil-fuel burning energies. For the historian titled about 19th Century, that the both have long passed.

The conclusion on this argument: on the same ecological chain of New-Energy Industry, the West counts on China’s burning out in front-end segments, for its own later segments in applications to be successful.