Feb 4, 2026 07:17 PM
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/out-with-evs..._permalink
INTRO: Green pundits can still be heard insisting China has seized a strategic high ground in solar. But the conviction is noticeably leaking from their voices. Solar panels are useful; they seem less and less strategic by the hour. China’s makers will have to keep cutting prices to find customers in a world of expanding energy options.
Those expanding energy options are the real story.
A nonsensical ideologized worldview has collapsed, the so-called energy transition. If battery electric is the future of transportation and robotics, as many say, so what? Fossil fuels will continue to find customers and myriad applications. Emissions will continue.
The fantasy about electric cars being the Christ of consumer products, our savior, has gone to the ideological landfill in the sky. A carbon tax remains the sensible approach to moderating CO2, if anyone is asking. They aren’t. And yet the Trump administration may be about to open a backdoor to let Chinese EVs enter the U.S. tariff-free. Another strategic industry we’re about to lose? No. Americans will only suffer inferior cars and inferior carmakers if we shield our domestic market from competition.
If you’re confused about what constitutes world-changing energy and transportation engineering, maybe it’s time to look elsewhere: human spaceflight.
The key is rocket reusability, pioneered by Elon Musk, which has given rise to a $12-billion-a-year revenue-generating business in Starlink, soon to be joined by Jeff Bezos’ version of space-based internet access through his company Blue Origin.
With SpaceX’s forthcoming Starship, launch costs per kilogram are expected to fall to 1% of the costs under the space shuttle. New paying space ventures are in view. Microgravity manufacturing will allow purer and more-uniform crystals, alloys and drug compounds. Helium mining on the moon is possible. Large amounts of data for AI might be processed more cheaply in orbit thanks to solar energy and ease of cooling. Mr. Musk on Monday announced he will merge SpaceX with his AI company in pursuit of exactly this opportunity.
Two things might threaten this boom. One is debris proliferation in low Earth orbit if there’s an accident. SpaceX will soon make its first attempt at refueling a rocket in space. For once, move fast and break things isn’t the order of the day.
The other is the palsied hand of government. Private space flight has been going so well, it’s hardly been a subject in this column since a 2004 effort to prod congressional action on a safe harbor from the lawsuit industry. Now that moment has returned. The Senate is considering a bill to codify a Trump executive order streamlining licensing rules and procedures. Guess who opposes the order? The state of California, possibly out of animus for Mr. Musk.
I’ve made my forecast clear. The U.S. won’t deal with its looming debt problem except with ad hockery—inflation, spending cuts, tax hikes, de facto claw-backs of government benefits via waiting lists and declining service quality.
But the coming debt convulsion can end badly or very, very badly depending on one thing: whether we protect a 15-generation North American legacy of personal enterprise and rule of law. For now, the U.S. remains outside the norm of our major global antagonists. Our politics isn’t solely reduced to figuring out who has created something of value, like SpaceX, so it can be shaken down, stolen or harnessed for aggressive statist ends.
Less encouragingly, President Trump vents a noticeably corruption-tinged urge to extract favors from firms that benefit from his decisions. And Democrats proclaim a strange new enthusiasm for socialism, never mind that we already have a lot of socialism. It’s the source of our runaway debt.
Why not more socialism? For one thing, in our newly Hobbesian international environment, not keeping pace in the race for wealth and technology means falling prey to those who do. Ask yourself which countries are likely to prevail: Those that afford their industries relatively free access to a global division of labor? Or those that follow the lure of industrial policy and protectionism?
Mr. Trump does have a decision to make, and it isn’t an easy one... (MORE - details)
INTRO: Green pundits can still be heard insisting China has seized a strategic high ground in solar. But the conviction is noticeably leaking from their voices. Solar panels are useful; they seem less and less strategic by the hour. China’s makers will have to keep cutting prices to find customers in a world of expanding energy options.
Those expanding energy options are the real story.
A nonsensical ideologized worldview has collapsed, the so-called energy transition. If battery electric is the future of transportation and robotics, as many say, so what? Fossil fuels will continue to find customers and myriad applications. Emissions will continue.
The fantasy about electric cars being the Christ of consumer products, our savior, has gone to the ideological landfill in the sky. A carbon tax remains the sensible approach to moderating CO2, if anyone is asking. They aren’t. And yet the Trump administration may be about to open a backdoor to let Chinese EVs enter the U.S. tariff-free. Another strategic industry we’re about to lose? No. Americans will only suffer inferior cars and inferior carmakers if we shield our domestic market from competition.
If you’re confused about what constitutes world-changing energy and transportation engineering, maybe it’s time to look elsewhere: human spaceflight.
The key is rocket reusability, pioneered by Elon Musk, which has given rise to a $12-billion-a-year revenue-generating business in Starlink, soon to be joined by Jeff Bezos’ version of space-based internet access through his company Blue Origin.
With SpaceX’s forthcoming Starship, launch costs per kilogram are expected to fall to 1% of the costs under the space shuttle. New paying space ventures are in view. Microgravity manufacturing will allow purer and more-uniform crystals, alloys and drug compounds. Helium mining on the moon is possible. Large amounts of data for AI might be processed more cheaply in orbit thanks to solar energy and ease of cooling. Mr. Musk on Monday announced he will merge SpaceX with his AI company in pursuit of exactly this opportunity.
Two things might threaten this boom. One is debris proliferation in low Earth orbit if there’s an accident. SpaceX will soon make its first attempt at refueling a rocket in space. For once, move fast and break things isn’t the order of the day.
The other is the palsied hand of government. Private space flight has been going so well, it’s hardly been a subject in this column since a 2004 effort to prod congressional action on a safe harbor from the lawsuit industry. Now that moment has returned. The Senate is considering a bill to codify a Trump executive order streamlining licensing rules and procedures. Guess who opposes the order? The state of California, possibly out of animus for Mr. Musk.
I’ve made my forecast clear. The U.S. won’t deal with its looming debt problem except with ad hockery—inflation, spending cuts, tax hikes, de facto claw-backs of government benefits via waiting lists and declining service quality.
But the coming debt convulsion can end badly or very, very badly depending on one thing: whether we protect a 15-generation North American legacy of personal enterprise and rule of law. For now, the U.S. remains outside the norm of our major global antagonists. Our politics isn’t solely reduced to figuring out who has created something of value, like SpaceX, so it can be shaken down, stolen or harnessed for aggressive statist ends.
Less encouragingly, President Trump vents a noticeably corruption-tinged urge to extract favors from firms that benefit from his decisions. And Democrats proclaim a strange new enthusiasm for socialism, never mind that we already have a lot of socialism. It’s the source of our runaway debt.
Why not more socialism? For one thing, in our newly Hobbesian international environment, not keeping pace in the race for wealth and technology means falling prey to those who do. Ask yourself which countries are likely to prevail: Those that afford their industries relatively free access to a global division of labor? Or those that follow the lure of industrial policy and protectionism?
Mr. Trump does have a decision to make, and it isn’t an easy one... (MORE - details)