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Editors’ picks for 2024: ‘Australia’s climate ambitions have a modern slavery problem: examining the origins of our big batteries’

Originally published on 6 September 2024. Republication of this report today follows news on 6 January 2025 that the US Defense Department had added CATL to its list of companies that work with the Chinese military.

Several big battery projects in Australia vital for storing renewable energy to meet the nation’s climate goals are highly likely to be using materials sourced through the forced labour of Uyghur and other Turkic ethnic groups in China, ASPI research has found.

ASPI has examined the supply chains for big battery projects across various Australian states and found that, even when the batteries are sourced from US-based companies, critical components are still obtained from Chinese suppliers. These suppliers carry well-documented risks of involvement in human rights abuses.

Australia needs big batteries because its renewable energy plans require storage for intermittent sources such as wind, solar and hydro. That’s why state and territory governments are pouring billions of dollars into battery energy storage systems (BESS), also known as big batteries.

However, most of the global battery supply is controlled by companies based in the People’s Republic of China and is dependent on raw materials mined and processed in Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region (XUAR).  Two of the largest companies that supply batteries and lithium cells for batteries—Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. (CATL) and EVE—are used in Australian projects in spite of having been reported to be implicated in grave human rights violations, notably forced labour of Uyghur and other Turkic ethnic groups in the manufacturing and processing of raw materials. In a damning 2022 report, the United Nations stated that such violations might constitute crimes against humanity.

Our findings indicate that a legislative or policy directive is required to ensure that the default for Australian companies and governments is to source batteries that are guaranteed not to involve forced labour. Only then can Australia reach its climate goals without that success coming at the expense of human rights.

This directive should compel Australian governments to act as model contractors and incentivise and require private sector partners to undertake appropriate due diligence. It would mean mandating that project owners and operators know the origins, sources and supply chains of the batteries and their materials and are able to confirm they do not carry the risk of human rights abuses. When dealing with countries known to engage in modern slavery, such as China, it cannot be sufficient to say there is no evidence of forced labour. Rather, the supply chain must be known to be free of these risks.

If this work does not provide complete confidence, then the battery suppliers should not be used.

Understanding Chinese battery supply chains is indeed notoriously difficult. Faced with scrutiny from foreign governments and non-government researchers, Chinese companies often obscure their supply chains through intricate webs of suppliers and corporate affiliations, creating significant challenges for consumers and regulators trying to trace the origins of materials and labour. But difficult doesn’t mean impossible.

In June 2022, The New York Times uncovered that Xinjiang Nonferrous Metal Industry (Group), a Chinese state-owned enterprise, was directly exploiting forced Uyghur labour in the mining sector under the guise of a surplus labour transfer program. And in September 2023, the Washington Post detailed concerns about forced labour within the supply chains of several electric vehicle companies, including Tesla, Ford and Volkswagen.

One of the supply chains examined by the Washington Post involved CATL (宁德时代新能源科技股份有限公司), the world’s largest EV battery maker, which has contracts with seven major global automakers.

CATL attracted the scrutiny of US lawmakers in February 2023 after it struck a deal with automaker Ford. The scrutiny prompted the battery company to ostensibly divest its ownership stake in Xinjiang Zhicun Lithium (新疆志存锂业有限公司), a company reported to be connected to forced labour practices in Xinjiang. Zhicun produces lithium carbonate, which is central to the manufacture of lithium-ion batteries, from its facilities in Xinjiang.

However, while CATL officially divested from Zhicun, it continued to exercise significant control or guidance over the company’s operations through a series of holding companies and by the appointment of Guan Chaoyu as a manager of Zhicun’s new shareholder company, Chendao Capital. Guan also holds positions in several companies where CATL has invested, according to two US House of Representatives’ Select Committees.

ASPI’s research now reveals that despite the official divestment, CATL and Zhicun also continue to collaborate through a joint subsidiary, Wanzai Shidai Zhicun New Energy Materials Co., Ltd. (万载时代志存新能源材料有限公司), established in July 2022 with a registered capital of 1 billion yuan (A$211 million). This company is jointly held by Yichun Shidai New Energy Resources Co., Ltd., which is fully owned by CATL, and Zhicun Lithium Industry, with shareholding ratios of 80 percent and 20 percent, respectively.

In August 2023, a group of Republican lawmakers called on the US Department of Homeland Security to add CATL and associated companies to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List, citing their connections to coercive labour transfer programs in Xinjiang that were first outlined in a December 2022 report by Laura T. Murphy and others at Sheffield Hallam University. In June, lawmakers accused CATL and another Chinese firm Gotion of ‘state-sponsored slave labour’ and called for them to be added to a US import ban list.

While the spotlight on companies like CATL and their potential reliance on modern slavery has focused on the electric vehicle industry and the involvement of companies like Ford, Tesla and BYD, the overlap of supply chains means the same human rights risks extend to large-scale battery energy storage systems, such as those being constructed across Australia.

Despite what is publicly known, Australian governments and companies in almost all states are readily engaging with CATL, EVE and companies that use their products.

The responsibility for the projects and the selection of providers is complex.

At Collie, in Western Australia, two major battery projects are being built.

One is being built by French company NEOEN using Tesla Megapack batteries. The project is split into stage 1 and stage 2—with the contracts for both awarded by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), which is jointly operated by the Commonwealth, state and territory governments, and industry.

The second project is being developed by energy company Synergy, which is wholly owned by the WA government. In September 2023, the WA government announced it had awarded contracts exceeding $1 billion to CATL directly for the Synergy projects at Collie and another site, Kwinana. Both stages one and two of the Kwinana project use CATL batteries.

Meanwhile, in New South Wales, the most significant project is the 850-MWh Waratah Super Battery near Newcastle, supplied by Powin, a US-based company. Powin’s batteries are supplied with lithium cells made by CATL and EVE, another Chinese battery manufacturer. A quick Google search would have revealed that, earlier this year, Swedish research on human rights due diligence found that ‘through equity ownership, joint operations, and collaborations, EVE’s products are also linked to the oppression of ethnic Turkic groups in Xinjiang’.

In Queensland, the government is building a 300MWh big battery through the publicly owned energy company Stanwell, in partnership with Tesla, near Rockhampton. These Tesla Megapack big batteries and EV batteries are made with lithium-ion cells that are made by CATL.

CATL batteries have also been used in other renewable energy projects in Victoria, such as the Phillip Island Battery Energy Storage System, established in 2022, and the IKEA power project in South Australia, established in 2020. NEOEN also operates the Victorian Big Battery, the largest BESS in Victoria.

This raises the question of what requirements governments are putting on major battery suppliers such as Tesla and Powin, and the project owners and operators. There is ample public documentation to show that projects in WA, SA, NSW, VIC and QLD are using battery packs with lithium cells produced by CATL and EVE.

Australia’s stance against human rights abuses and proclaimed global leadership in combating modern slavery should dictate that both governments and companies make it a condition of their contracts with suppliers—even US companies such as Tesla and Powin—that the battery packs provided to Australia are not sourced from any country that engages in these human rights violations. Yes, such goods made in North America and Europe may be more expensive, but that is in part because corporations from these regions have to abide by stricter labour laws and human rights protections.

ASPI sought responses from a wide range of Australian and international entities responsible for the projects, including state governments, energy companies and the Australian Energy Market Operator.

The Victorian Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action referred questions to NEOEN. The Clean Energy Finance Corporation, a federal government green bank that invests in clean energy and contributed $160 million in investment to the Victorian Big Battery, said it made risk-based assessments of the modern slavery risk associated with investments by conducting due diligence on relevant partners and supply chain participants. It said this included consideration of publicly available information such as academic and international reports including ASPI’s own research. It also queried suppliers about their modern slavery risk management practices.

NSW EnergyCo, the statutory authority responsible for the state’s renewable energy project planning, provided a background statement pointing to the Renewable Energy Sector Board plan that states project proponents are required to provide evidence that they have registered a modern slavery statement with the Australian Border Force and that their registered modern slavery statement is compliant with the Commonwealth Modern Slavery Act. (2018) It referred questions about batteries’ manufacturing to Powin.

The WA Department of Energy, Mines, Industry, Regulation and Safety referred questions to public company Synergy, which did not respond by the deadline, and to NEOEN.

The Queensland Department of Energy and Climate referred questions to public company Stanwell, which pointed us to its modern slavery statement. The most recent statement, covering 2022-23, said that of their ‘tier two’ suppliers—that is, those that are one step removed from directly supplying Stanwell—70 percent had suppliers in countries considered high risk for slavery, but none of the key suppliers had self-reported any problems. However, Stanwell did not respond to our direct written questions about Tesla and CATL.

NEOEN declined to comment. Tesla and Powin did not respond to written questions.

AEMO said it could not comment on specific projects and referred questions to project owners for queries on investment and materials.

CATL provided a written statement saying that it has never bought any products from Xinjiang Zhicun. It said it had never owned any interest nor exercised control in its operations. It further said that based on its ‘investigation and fact-checking, Xinjiang Zhicun has never engaged in any forced labor activities’. It said it worked with Jiangxi Jinhui, a subsidiary of Xinjiang Zhicun’s parent company Jiangxi Zhicun, to process lepidolite, which is a lithium-bearing mineral, in Jiangxi Province. CATL’s emphatic response contradicts the substantial media reporting, academic research and investigations done by members of the US Congress, making it highly doubtful that Australian governments and companies should derive any confidence from it as a guide to the risks of these supply chains.

This is a known problem with a known solution. It requires Australian governments and their contracted suppliers to do adequate due diligence. When battery supply chains involve Chinese suppliers, there is a high risk of exposure to forced labour that is deliberately hidden through shell companies and obscured local ownership and shareholder arrangements. This necessitates a different approach to due diligence: not  a ‘tick-box’ approach to compliance but one that puts a burden of proof on suppliers and procurers to assure supply chains are verifiably free from modern slavery. If that can’t be done, these products should not be permitted in Australia.

With China’s dominance of the battery supply chain, sourcing from other countries is difficult, though not impossible—at least not yet. Australia could introduce a procurement requirement that companies and governments building and operating big battery projects stipulate in contracts that their suppliers source all components through processes and from regions that are free from forced labour risks.

The Australian government and its partners—in particular the US, Japan and Korea, all of whom have some capacity in this area—should collaborate to reduce the near-monopoly level of Chinese control (which begins at the scientific research stage). This would be the only way the Australian government could achieve its stated objectives to ‘diversify global battery supply chains’ and ‘to ensure Australia builds sovereign capabilities’, while also ‘taking a global leadership role in combating modern slavery’.

In addition, given the known threat of economic coercion from Beijing, Australia should consider its reliance on Chinese battery suppliers as a strategic vulnerability, against our national interest. The nation’s climate goals necessitate robust energy storage solutions, but they cannot come at the expense of human rights. The documented use of forced Uyghur labour in Chinese battery supply chains, potentially constituting crimes against humanity, underscores the urgency for Australian companies and policymakers to prioritise trusted, reliable and secure sourcing. By prioritising alternatives to Chinese batteries, Australia can lead not only in renewable energy innovation but also in upholding global standards of human dignity and justice.

The energy transition that couldn’t

Ideas, and the words we use to frame them, matter. For example, as the Cold War wound down, ‘the end of history’ suggested that the disintegration of Soviet communism would leave liberal democracy and market economies unchallengeable. That idea took hold among Western policymakers, leading them to believe they could afford to relax. Three decades later, ‘the end of history’, and the policies that followed from it, appears woefully misguided.

Today, it is ‘energy transition’ that has gained a hold over policymakers. While the term suggests the necessity of shifting from fossil fuels to renewables—a seemingly compelling idea that aligns with climate goals and technological innovation—it inaccurately describes what is happening (and will happen) and has led some governments to adopt costly, counterproductive policies. And it has pitted goals that should be complementary—addressing climate change and promoting energy security—against each other.

To be clear, energy transitions—moves away from one form of energy to another—have occurred throughout history, coinciding with economic changes that created demand for the new energy sources. After the Industrial Revolution began, the steam engine, the internal combustion engine and the rise of manufacturing economies impelled societies to shift from wood to coal and later to oil and gas.

Support for a transition away from fossil fuels reflects concerns about the actual and predicted costs of climate change and the evidence linking the warming of Earth’s atmosphere and oceans with the release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (especially methane) emitted by burning coal, oil and natural gas. The goal of the transition is to achieve net-zero emissions (ideally by 2050) by phasing out fossil fuels and replacing them with renewables, including solar, wind and nuclear power.

This is not occurring. Nor is de-fossilisation. Fossil fuels—oil, gas and coal—still supply over 80 percent of global energy. Since 2013, global oil and gas consumption has risen by 14 percent, owing to a 25 percent increase in developing economies. Coal consumption remains indispensable in powering China, India and other developing countries, and reached record highs in 2023. Renewables, while growing rapidly, are not displacing hydrocarbons, at least for now.

The reason is straightforward: energy demand is increasing at an annual rate of 2-3 percent, and technological advances such as hydraulic fracturing (fracking) have made hydrocarbons cheaper and more abundant. The United States, already the world’s biggest oil producer, will produce even more during Donald Trump’s coming presidency, and growing populations and economies in the Global South will sustain robust demand.

Emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, electrified transport, and hyperscale data centres, are also driving energy demand—which renewables alone cannot reliably meet, reinforcing the role of fossil fuels. Fossil fuels likewise remain indispensable for energy-intensive industries such as aviation, shipping and heavy manufacturing. Renewables, while effective for electricity generation, struggle to meet these sectors’ needs.

Regulatory considerations and politics have also contributed to foiling the energy transition by slowing the permitting process for both nuclear power and wind. And many countries have not overhauled their tax systems to steer consumers and businesses away from fossil fuels.

With the factors undermining the energy transition unlikely to disappear anytime soon, one option is to ignore the evidence and press ahead. This seems to be the preferred approach of many who gather at the annual United Nations climate change conferences. In Dubai in late 2023, attendees issued a final agreement (signed by close to 200 governments) explicitly calling for ‘transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly, and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade.’

Europe has committed to do just that, setting ambitious targets for renewable energy and pricing carbon at levels that made energy and doing business more expensive. The European Green Deal, intended to decouple economic growth from resource use and make Europe the world’s first carbon-neutral continent by 2050, instead contributed to a fall in growth. The lack of investment in energy also left much of the continent dangerously dependent on Russian gas. In short, the premature embrace of the energy transition weakened economic performance and energy security alike.

As Thomas Kuhn famously argued in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, dominant intellectual frameworks persist until their limitations become undeniable, paving the way for a new paradigm. The energy transition has reached that point. Its absence from the final draft of this year’s global climate conference in Baku is telling. A new paradigm is needed: energy coexistence.

Such a paradigm would accept that energy consumption will continue to rise for the foreseeable future, with fossil fuels and renewables both playing a larger role. It is a question not of either/or, but rather both/and—all of the above and more of all—in order to achieve increased security, resilience and affordability.

The paradigm of energy coexistence requires targeted investments and policy reforms. Modernising energy grids to accommodate diverse energy sources and increase efficiency is critical, as is scaling carbon-capture and storage technologies to mitigate emissions. Encouraging the development of renewables through fostering public-private partnerships and easing site restrictions would help. Switching from coal, which causes the highest emissions, to lower-emission gas and renewables should be a high priority as well.

Some will object that energy coexistence is a rejection of much-needed policies to address climate change. But addressing climate change cannot come at the cost of energy sufficiency or security. Nor will it, given the politics.

Building necessary support for tackling climate change is more likely to succeed if the policies are not viewed as hostile to all fossil fuels. A transition from the energy transition would be a good first step.

Space-based solar power: renewable energy at an affordable price

As pressure grows to phase out fossil fuels and meet emissions-reduction targets, Australia is well placed to harness clean, affordable and virtually unlimited space-based solar power.

A report commissioned by the UK government on space-based solar was released in September 2021 after a study by scientific, technical and economic experts. It examined two leading baseload designs—SPS Alpha designed by Mankins Space Technologies in the US in partnership with Melbourne-based technology company Solar Space Technologies, and CASSIOPeiA designed by Ian Cash in the UK.

Consultants Frazer-Nash concluded that both were technically and economically viable. To declare my interest, I am the director of Solar Space Technologies, the company Mankins partnered with in developing the SPS Alpha design. The broad space-based solar power concept is explained in this Financial Times video.

Based on the consultants’ report, in March 2022 the UK launched its space energy initiative to lead the development of space-based solar power.

The US is also considering this technology under a draft presidential policy directive on a national strategy for space solar power, which gives detailed instructions to nine US government departments.

The Australian House of Representatives Standing Committee on Industry, Innovation, Science and Resources space industry report, The now frontier: developing Australia’s space industry, released in December 2021, recommended that consideration be given to developing a mechanism to identify and develop innovative space proposals such as space solar power technology in Australia.

In March, the European Space Agency announced that it had signed contracts for two parallel concept studies for commercial-scale space-based solar power plants. It said that represented a crucial step in the agency’s new SOLARIS initiative—maturing the feasibility of gathering solar energy from space for terrestrial clean energy needs.

China is already carrying out preliminary tests of the concept. In March 2022, Beijing announced that solar power stations would be launched which, it said, may solve human power shortages. China’s plan is to launch a space power generation test satellite first to trial the key microwave and laser power transmission. The appropriate technology would then be selected for further development.

It’s likely that China will use this development to encourage smaller nations into its orbit.

In January 2022, Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, proposed the idea of a solar power plant in space and said it had completed design work. The system would also be used to recharge satellites.

A space solar power station of 2 gigawatts—an output similar to that of a large coal-fired power station—in geosynchronous orbit would cost about the same as a Virginia-class submarine and over 30 years an SPS Alpha Satellite will generate $53 billion in revenue.

What a wonderful initiative for Australia to add to the AUKUS technology-sharing agreement. This could be implemented immediately, not for military purposes but for the good of humanity. Harnessing unlimited clean baseload power is certainly in Australia’s national security interests. The benefits are clear—low cost, limitless power 24/7, 365 days a year with zero carbon emissions that can be beamed to wherever you want it.

This could drive thousands of new, well-paying manufacturing jobs in regional and remote Australia and the power can be sent directly to wherever it’s needed.

The mining industry could benefit from having a low-cost energy source for ongoing production and new smelting operations.

This technology will resolve issues for those trying to meet the 2050 emissions-reduction target, and it fits the government’s desire to solve the looming consequences of climate change with technology.

It also can provide the energy required for human activity in space, particularly on the moon and Mars. With water on the moon we can generate oxygen. This fits well with the aspirations of the Australian Space Agency.

The return on the capital investment for SPS Alpha Mark III, the final operational design, will be five to seven years once it’s in geostationary orbit above Australia.

The bottom line is that solar power technology is already designed and technical experts are ready to implement it in Australia. This technology is a nation-building industry for Australia’s wellbeing, jobs and wealth creation into the 21st century.

John F. Kennedy famously declared in September 1962: ‘We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organise and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.’

This big idea, space-based solar power, is in the same league.

It will put humanity on the path to almost unlimited clean power at an affordable price.

Space-based solar power and 21st-century geopolitical competition

Way back in the 1970s, when NASA was contemplating the future after the Apollo moon landings, it was thinking big—really big. Two of its big ideas—Gerard K. O’Neill’s proposed space colonies and the idea of space solar power systems—were all the rage then. It was a grand vision for a space-based economy that would transform global society.

NASA’s lunar plans failed to secure US government support, and the massive funding of the 1960s moon race had come to a screeching halt by the mid-1970s. Also problematic was that NASA’s space shuttle, which first flew in 1981, never delivered on promises of low-cost access to space. Without a decrease in the cost of access, the price of space-based solar power would never be competitive with terrestrial sources of energy. Finally, we were ignorant of climate change—and coal was cheap and plentiful.

So it’s interesting that, 50 years later, China seems very interested in building solar power satellites of its own. The move is important for a number of reasons, and not just in terms of pure space exploration.

Simply put, space solar power satellites (SSPS) are designed to gather energy from the sun—which is uninterrupted in space and isn’t affected by the earth’s atmosphere or by day and night cycles—and beam that energy back to earth where it can power national power grids. Like commercial nuclear fusion power (that other big idea that is forever 30 years away), space-based solar power opens up the prospect of clean, limitless energy.

China is now indicating a desire to develop an SSPS capability in coming decades, emphasising a gradual approach of developing larger and more powerful satellites that are assembled in orbit by large space-based 3D printers. Using on-orbit manufacturing reduces the challenges of transporting large structures from earth into space. China’s investment in heavy-lift launch vehicles like the Long March IX, which will carry 140 tons into low-earth orbit, and its accelerating development of reusable rockets and spaceplanes, as well as the growth of its commercial space sector, could also support a Chinese SSPS network.

The timetable for developing this capability, originally published in China’s Science and Technology Daily, extends through the next decade. Work has already begun on building a ground station in Chongqing to receive the microwave energy gathered by the SSPS. The next step is to test the system using high-altitude ‘stratospheric’ solar power balloons between 2021 and 2025, and then deployment of the first space-based SSPS in the second half of the next decade. The goal would be to construct megawatt-class satellites by 2030, and gigawatt-class satellites before 2050, which could weigh up to 1,000 tons.

With on-orbit manufacturing for building large structures, the raw materials would need to come from mining lunar regolith rather than from earth. That ties in with China’s plans for a lunar base by the 2030s.

China’s interest in pursuing SSPS has some significant geopolitical implications for 21st-century energy competition. Fundamentally, the country that achieves a viable SSPS network first can potentially reshape global energy markets and, in turn, have much greater control over economic activity on earth from space.

I’ve noted previously that China has been promoting a ‘space Silk Road’ via its Beidou global navigation system to states that have signed up to its Belt and Road Initiative. That campaign appears to be designed to deepen those states’ dependency on China as a provider of information infrastructure provider. Adding an energy dimension would dramatically deepen Chinese control of any recipient society. China’s SSPS would be promoted as contributing towards interdependent co-development—the ‘win–win’ rhetoric of China’s foreign ministry—as well as easing dependency on fossil fuels that contribute to climate change. However, there’s no disguising the fact that it would be China that provides the energy to keep recipient states prosperous. That implies serious political leverage.

A Chinese SSPS network would also need large rectenna farms at key locations to receive the beamed energy from orbit and then distribute it to local grids. Such facilities would clearly be critical infrastructure, constructed and operated by China within recipient states. That would further deepen Chinese investment and influence in BRI states.

China isn’t the only country looking at this technology. Japan has made SSPS part of its future space exploration vision, though on a much smaller scale, and India has also expressed an interest in the concept. If it becomes clear that China is serious about SSPS and it makes significant progress in coming years, the US is unlikely to sit back and accept that China will lead in this new technology. To do so would give Beijing global energy dominance by the middle of the 21st century.

In the 1970s, SSPS foundered on its inability to compete with cheaper terrestrial technologies—albeit ones that led to the global climate change challenge we face today. Now, 50 years later, while there’s growing interest in a second look at SSPS, the US isn’t leading the charge. Instead, it is focused on developing renewable technologies to meet its domestic energy demands and gradually phase out fossil fuels. Similar efforts are underway in Europe and other places, including Australia.

Renewable technology is a highly diversified private-sector market. It’s not so easy for one state to dominate it. By contrast, SSPS would be a centrally controlled, state-based ‘big science’ endeavour that can be more easily exploited for geopolitical and astropolitical purposes. Renewable energy technology may offer part of the solution, but it doesn’t necessarily cancel out China’s potential to use SSPS for hegemonic influence.

What emerges is the possibility of strategic jostling between competing approaches for ensuring 21st-century energy security and economic prosperity.

Certainly, the US and others can rise to the challenge. NASA has plans for a return to the lunar surface by 2024, and commercial space companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin emphasise a permanent lunar presence. That ‘moon first’ approach opens up the possibility of an SSPS race centred on ensuring access to the lunar ‘high ground’ to get the vital resources required for building large structures like satellites.

There’s also that other possibility of nuclear fusion power to consider. Like SSPS, it’s a massive science and engineering endeavour. Fusion power—if mastered—would be a viable alternative to SSPS but, ironically, would also require an ability to tap into lunar-based helium-3 to make it possible, demanding a US return to the moon anyhow. If, however, fusion continues to remain an elusive dream, the US may be forced to look seriously at SSPS or watch China develop the means to achieve global energy dominance, perhaps by 2050.