https://plainsightresearch.com/ What the data says when you read it without ideology. Falsifiable research on China, energy, and global markets. en-us Copyright Plain Sight Research adam@plainsightresearch.com (Adam Hu) adam@plainsightresearch.com (Adam Hu) Mon, 03 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://plainsightresearch.com/logo.png https://plainsightresearch.com/ https://plainsightresearch.com/post-11-electrostate-part-2 https://plainsightresearch.com/post-11-electrostate-part-2 Fri, 17 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hu Part two of the Electrostate architecture: the demand side. Sinopec dated the domestic gasoline peak to 2023 and the actuals ran faster — gasoline down about 4% in 2025, total oil near 790 Mt and probably already past its own peak. The demand did not vanish; it changed meters. Charging and battery-swap electricity has grown at or near 50% for three years running, 81 TWh in the first half of 2026 alone. Five migrations carry the conversion: passenger fleets (54% of 2025 retail sales against 10% of a 359 million-car stock), freight corridors, building heat, industrial process heat below the 165°C heat-pump ceiling, and molecules. Demand lands near 15,600 TWh in 2035 on the way to 25,000 TWh by 2049, with electrification crossing 40% around 2035 — the first major economy to hold sovereignty and electrification at once. Eight exhibits; three timestamped predictions locked July 2026. Electrostate China & Energy https://plainsightresearch.com/post-10-desert-hydrogen https://plainsightresearch.com/post-10-desert-hydrogen Tue, 02 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hu Green hydrogen failed in Germany and Japan because the electricity was too expensive. In the deep deserts of western China the claimed floor is $1.2/kg — and at that price the green molecule simply undercuts the grey one, no carbon price required. The molecular economy, the one question that sorts the world into three, the cost ladder from $1.20 to $10, and the constraint that actually binds: collocation. Plus the coal-to-olefins carbon trap, and a falsifiable capacity prediction through 2028. Desert Hydrogen China & Energy https://plainsightresearch.com/post-9-electrostate-part-1 https://plainsightresearch.com/post-9-electrostate-part-1 Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hu UK coal. US petroleum. China sovereign electricity. Part one of the Electrostate architecture: the supply side, assembled. Solar and wind past the cost floor, storage compounding toward the sodium material floor, 40,000 km of UHV moving desert generation to coastal demand, and a nuclear fleet built at a cost base the West no longer has the institutional memory to match. Electrostate China & Energy https://plainsightresearch.com/post-8-framework https://plainsightresearch.com/post-8-framework Thu, 21 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hu The foundational document for Plain Sight Research. Rosling observed that human development moves predictably up a curve. Smil explains the physical cause: energy throughput is the substrate of civilization. The synthesis: the next 25 years are a buildout — 160 EJ/yr more energy, 50 billion tonnes of cement, 31 billion tonnes of steel, mostly in the Global South. The third question is who supplies it. The framework consistently produces only one answer. Framework Smil-Rosling https://plainsightresearch.com/post-3b-alibaba-scorecard https://plainsightresearch.com/post-3b-alibaba-scorecard Thu, 14 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hu My quarterly prediction was a disaster. The quarter itself was the strongest forward guidance Eddie Wu has ever given. Cloud margins are better than we modeled. The $100B target is confirmed as pure cloud. Three falsifiable milestones to track. Equity Research https://plainsightresearch.com/post-7-ad-hassabis https://plainsightresearch.com/post-7-ad-hassabis Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hu The Chinese AI programme didn't start with DeepSeek. It started in 2016, with Demis Hassabis. R1 was the visible flame. The wildfire is AI for materials. First post in Plain Sight After Dark — speculative companion essays where the call gets made before the evidence is fully in. After Dark China AI https://plainsightresearch.com/post-6-mining https://plainsightresearch.com/post-6-mining Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hu CMOC grew copper output 77% in the two years to end-2025, on Tenke Fungurume and Kisanfu — two orebodies it bought from Freeport, which now produces nothing from either. The reason isn't state policy: Zijin lifts copper at a C1 cost of $1,543/t against Barrick's $7,935/t all-in, and at $8,000 copper that is the difference between a business and a rounding error. China & Resources https://plainsightresearch.com/post-3-alibaba https://plainsightresearch.com/post-3-alibaba Sun, 05 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hu A $295B megacap mispriced by a factor of two. The algorithm reads collapse. The data says pivot to the right side of the Five-Year Plan. Equity Research https://plainsightresearch.com/post-5-oil-surplus https://plainsightresearch.com/post-5-oil-surplus Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hu Global oil demand enters permanent structural surplus by 2028-2029. Five demand-destruction forces the consensus underestimates. Energy Markets https://plainsightresearch.com/post-4-coal https://plainsightresearch.com/post-4-coal Fri, 20 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hu Three answers to the coal question. The third — coal-to-olefins — is the thesis nobody in Western energy markets has priced. China & Energy https://plainsightresearch.com/post-2-reading-words https://plainsightresearch.com/post-2-reading-words Tue, 10 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hu The FYP as deployment order, not speculative bet. Why TFP is China's new organizational scorecard, and what RMB internationalization actually means. China Policy https://plainsightresearch.com/post-1-iea-error https://plainsightresearch.com/post-1-iea-error Tue, 10 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hu The IEA underestimated solar for 15 years running. The same structural misforecast is now happening on China's trade surplus. China & Energy