| Plenty of wars have been fought already over oil and gas, and it’s waay easier to redirect tankers when a geopolitical player starts trying to squeeze someone hard. Note however that pipelines already have been caught in the middle of geopolitical drama. And oil and gas are energy dense enough (and storing it is cheap/easy enough), it’s possible and common to stockpile months to years worth of supplies. All it takes is some big metal tanks. Not sure how that is going to play out when it takes a decade plus to build a HVDC line, that line is in a fixed position (so easy to sabotage/destroy) and it’s orders of magnitude more expensive to store electricity - so most places will be lucky to even have a couple of days worth of storage. I’m honestly not sure which will be more dramatic looking if someone bombs it though. For somewhere with constant good insolation and low winter energy needs (like the Australian Outback, for instance), not likely to be a problem. Australia has never been meaningfully invaded or bombed either. So centralization is likely not a huge concern for them. For somewhere with peak energy needs that coincide with minimal insolation (and often wind!), like long dark winters? And temps that can easily result in people freezing to death? And that has a history of conflict with neighbors? Like Germany, France, Norway, Finland, etc. Yikes. |
I'd bet the chinese could run a line from Bejing to Lhasa in 6 months.