We don’t have oil, but we have ideas was a popular refrain in France during the 1973 oil crisis. The French government’s response afterwards gave us two of modern France’s most distinctive features. Paul Messemer, a prime minister under Georges Pompidou, launched an ambitious plan to build dozens of nuclear reactors. An already-underway project to build a new high-speed rail network in the country also changed over from using gas turbine-powered trains to electric ones.

Today, the reactors that first saw the light of day under the Messemer plan are responsible for generating more than two thirds of France’s electricity. The gas-turned-electric trains became the TGV, France’s comprehensive modern high-speed network. Both are sources of immense national pride in France.

But the revolution that Pompidou and his successors oversaw in France was far from complete. Despite the nuclear reactors and the TGV, fifty years after the oil crisis, in 2023, electricity accounted for 25% of France’s final energy consumption. This is above the EU average for the same year of 23%, but not remarkably so.

Nuclear reactors brought down France’s reliance on imported and polluting fossil fuels for its power. The TGV gave French people in the country’s major cities an alternative for long-distance trips to planes and cars. But the fuel-driven car itself, and other major sources of energy use that rely on fossil fuels, like heating, are here to stay.

If the French government’s legacy from the 1970s is continuing anywhere, it is on the other side of the world, in China. For the last 20 years, the country has undergone a major push to electrify its energy use. At that point, electricity’s share of final energy consumption in China was just under 15%. By the mid-2010s, China had caught up with the west in how much of its energy consumption came from electricity.

Then it surpassed us. Now, electricity’s share of final energy consumption in China is close to 30%. The recent trend has been upward, and continuing to grow too. Electric cars and, to a lesser extent, high-speed rail in the country has shifted energy use for passenger transport towards electricity. As electric cars continue to make inroads, especially, this will likely continue. Progress on the use of heat pumps for heating and cooling has been slower. But China now does, finally, have a nationwide heat pump action plan.

If you are China, there are obvious attractions for trying to pass into the electric age that go beyond using nuclear or renewables to generate more green energy. China relies on fossil fuel imports at the moment, particularly for its oil consumption needs. It is the world’s largest crude oil importer. This is a key geopolitical vulnerability for the country, especially when the vast majority of this oil needs to come by sea.

But electricity, and especially clean electricity, supply chains are something China owns. For solar, China’s market share is above 80% in each stage of the manufacturing supply chain. Its grip on battery supply chains, for electric cars or energy storage, is similar comprehensive. As we have all found out recently, it effectively corners the market too in rare earths, which are turned into magnets that you can find in a variety of electrical components.

For some time, it’s been taken for granted that the world would follow a similar course to China energy-wise, albeit at varying speeds. Cutting out carbon emissions almost invariably means electrifying. Low-carbon energy sources, like renewables or nuclear, are used to generate electricity. When some other fuel source, like hydrogen, is low-carbon, it typically means that it’s been produced using low-carbon electricity.

We might, however, be heading for something more like an energy Cold War, at least in the medium-term. In the US, Donald Trump’s administration has been hostile towards renewable energy and technology like electric cars, especially after his acrimonious split with Elon Musk. Joe Biden, Trump’s predecessor, signed into law a major initiative to boost funding for green technology, the inflation reduction act.

Via his own budget bill, which he calls the Big Beautiful Bill, Trump wants to take a hatchet to his predecessor’s initiatives. But the Trump administration also wants to go further than just removing tax credits. The US Senate's version of the bill included an excise tax on wind and solar, based on how many components are sourced from some foreign counties, including China. It was stripped out at the last minute.

Some of the bill’s more forceful measures to boost the US’s oil and gas industry also ultimately didn’t make it through to the US Senate’s version. But the Trump administration’s overall attitude is clear. If China is trying to make the oil age end more quickly, then the Trump administration wants it to stick around for longer, and become more American.

In Europe, we are sort of stuck in the middle, between the oil age and the electricity age. The EU and its member states, as well as the UK, are nominally committed to climate neutrality by 2050. This implies significant, and rapid, electrification of energy use.

But electrification in Europe has, in practice, happened at a snail’s pace, especially compared to China. A recent analysis by Ember, a clean energy-focused think-tank, shows what whilst European countries have made similar progress in making their electric grids greener in recent years to China, actual electrification is falling behind.

Some countries, including France itself, are starting to get cold feet about climate targets, especially an intermediate one reducing emissions by 90% compared to 1990 levels by 2040. Broadly speaking, Europeans like the idea of doing something about climate change. In recent years, however, they have proven loath to pay the costs, either in higher taxes, more environmental regulations, or disruption to old industries.

The question is which way we will end up tilting: towards a new energy world that China represents, or the Trump administration’s old one. Coming up with ideas is one thing. Putting them into place is quite another.