By Natalie Chung Sum Yue,Santiago Millan

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A century ago, Winston Churchill’s decision to pivot the Royal Navy from coal to oil defined British maritime supremacy. At present, whether nations invest in emerging energy technologies or double down on conventional ones could define who commands the next era of energy.
The energy transition today is a technological and geopolitical contest between entrenched fossil powers and rising renewable challengers. As the transition accelerates, we are witnessing a widening divergence in how superpowers approach the challenge. The complexity of modern renewable systems, combined with the systemic risks of climate change, demands a departure from traditional cost-benefit analysis. Instead of clinging to static risk models, policymakers must learn to harness opportunity and feedback and the compounding benefits of early action.
To understand the transition, we need to shift our thinking from the physics of extraction to the dynamics of electronics, where progress follows patterns more like Moore’s Law than geology. Modern renewables such as solar, batteries and wind operate on “experience curves”, where costs fall predictably as scale increases and learning accumulates.
This stands in stark contrast to fossil fuels. The price of a unit of fossil energy today is roughly what it was in 1900. Despite dramatic advances in extraction technology, we are running out of easy-to-access reserves. The more efficiently we drill and dig, the harder and costlier it becomes to continue.
Solar, by contrast, has become 10,000 times cheaper since the 1950s, and its cost has halved in just the past decade. Batteries are following a similar path, with wind close behind. The scale effects of technologies such as these tend to produce a “winner-takes-all effect”. The country that produces the most will also be the country that produces the cheapest and best quality, as well as the one that advances the most knowledge.
Superpower status has long been intertwined with energy dominance. Once it was clear that energy equalled power, states rewired alliances, capital flows and military logistics to lock in supply and deny it to rivals. They also wielded energy access as diplomatic currency to reward allies and win new ones. Energy transitions, therefore, mark historical inflection points in both hard and soft power.

From a hard power perspective, whoever leads in the energy technologies of the future will shape the global industrial landscape. They will dominate high-value manufacturing, anchor secure and self-reliant supply chains and shield their economies from the leverage of geopolitical chokepoints. Control over energy technology thus becomes a foundation of strategic autonomy.
From a soft power standpoint, dominance in cutting-edge energy technologies allows a nation to define global standards, cultivate technological prestige and set the narrative of progress. This leadership draws talent, capital and political goodwill, amplifying its cultural and diplomatic reach well beyond the energy sector itself.
The superpower that treats energy policy as a systems problem – making pragmatic, evidence-based choices that account for economies of scale, feedback loops and path dependence – will lead the next energy age. Rather than aiming for incremental gains, nations should invest strategically in technologies with non-linear payoffs.
China has long provided policy support for advanced renewable technologies. As a result, it now holds a dominant position across global solar, battery and wind turbine supply chains. Each step forward in deployment reduces costs, creating self-reinforcing feedback loops that accelerate the shift towards new energy.

Shale-driven gains turned the United States into the world’s top oil and gas producer, an edge that matters most in a world of incremental change. Today’s technologies are transformational, and measures that shelter incumbents – whether through barriers to cleantech imports or by unwinding broad, technology-neutral support – dampen the learning curves and scale effects that determine future competitiveness.
Energy transitions are historical ruptures, not marginal adjustments. They trigger cascading effects across industries, geopolitics and ecosystems. These impacts often extend far beyond what linear models can predict. Rather than traditional cost-benefit analysis, which is linear and marginal in nature, we suggest policymakers use broader and more powerful tools of analysis, such as the field of risk-opportunity analysis.
This approach emphasises non-linearity, uncertainty and systemic feedback. It identifies high-leverage interventions, values strategic optionality and stress-tests systems against collapse. By focusing on non-linear dynamics, it suggests that transformative policy should target sensitive intervention points within complex systems.
Battery storage subsidies are an example of such a lever. They do more than expand capacity; they also unlock the full potential of intermittent renewables by enabling round-the-clock reliability.

This creates powerful combinations that harness efficiencies and mitigate externalities while helping to advance diplomacy and soft power goals. Each battery exported can seed future markets for electric vehicles or grid-scale energy storage, expanding strategic leverage over time. In parallel, supply chains, climate systems and financial networks must be regularly stress tested to identify and mitigate risks of systemic collapse.
The evolution of technology is unstoppable, yet the instinct of entrenched interests to defend legacy advantages such as fossil fuels remains deeply ingrained. Given scale and accumulated learning, China’s dominance in renewable technologies is unlikely to reverse. As that lead expands, so will its geopolitical influence, through both traditional channels of power and the appeal of energy partnership and self-sufficiency.
A growing surplus of clean energy has become a potent diplomatic asset. In contrast, Washington’s continued reliance on marginal cost-benefit logic, coupled with its promotion of hydrocarbons and resistance to renewable disrupters, is likely to be remembered as a historic strategic error.