Comments by "Peter Jacobsen" (@pjacobsen1000) on "The Spectator"
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A: The NYT article does not attribute the surge in electricity use primarily to EVs, but to the growth in data centers and crypto currency mining, both of which require a significant amount of energy. However, EVs do make some contribution, and soon, home heating will, too, as more homes switch to heat pumps.
B: EVs or not, electricity use will continue to rise, essentially forever. We will never quench our thirst for more energy, because energy is a crucial ingredient in helping our economy grow and will continue that way forever. Therefore, as we look into the future, we will be best served by energy that is highly scalable, and with a reduction in cost the more we scale up, like any other product. This is only possible if we use a resource that is virtually unlimited, and (almost) free. For now, fossil fuels are fine, but at some stage they will become too expensive. Nuclear energy is fine, too, but also very expensive. Time will tell what sources will be dominant in 20 years.
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It is to a large extent how students are educated in China, though mostly in lower grades. By high school, there is much less 'group shouting' and by university, it's gone. Partly, rote learning is beneficial in a society where you have to educate millions of children with few resources, and partly, it instills deference to authority and group conformity. Those values are part of traditional Chinese culture, but they also tie in with what the government wants from its people.
" if this impedes breakthrough creativity". It's very difficult to quantify this, but based on my 25+ years in China, I would say: Yes, it does. So far, China has had all the ideas come to them from more developed countries and they are now getting to the stage where they have to come up with their own ideas to advance. This looks to me to be more difficult for them (though it is by no means easy for us in the west, either).
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