World Builders

Power transitions: Britain, America, China

Geopolitics has taken over the energy transition.

Jun 7 • 

Bruno Maçães

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Four waves of modernity

Europe played two distinct roles, I think.

Jun 2 • 

Bruno Maçães

8

May 2025

May 2: The blackout in Spain and Portugal; how to build a new grid for a new energy system; energy as a system of relations

Jorge Sanz, former president of the Commission for the Energy Transition in Spain, argues that fifteen gigawatts were suddenly disconnected from the…

May 2 • 

Bruno Maçães

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April 2025

April 27: The system as a third actor; why AI needs solar; how to infect a large language model

One of the topics in World Builders that needs development is the notion of a spectrum of dominance.

Apr 28

3

April 23: Trump as fantasist; American simulations; and the logic of decoupling

You have to admire Trump’s peculiar genius.

Apr 23 • 

Bruno Maçães

8

The Age of World Building Has Begun

Toynbee remarks in one of his essays that for an Englishman in 1897 history seemed to have come to an end.

Apr 18 • 

Bruno Maçães

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July 2023

The rebuilding macroeconomic theory project: Keynes

Among the once unquestionable beliefs that may now take a new meaning is the idea of the economy as a living organism.

Jul 30, 2023 • 

Bruno Maçães

2

The Taiwan Conundrum

We recently attended a workshop on the future of Taiwan with a delegation of very senior scholars from China coordinated and led by Tsinghua University.

Jul 26, 2023 • 

Bruno Maçães

3

Where the Sun Never Sets: Towards a Solar Civilization

I argued in Geopolitics for the End Time that what we saw during the pandemic, a race against every other country, often drawing a form of perverse…

Jul 22, 2023 • 

Bruno Maçães

5

May 2023

Join my chat

A private space for us to converse and connect

May 12, 2023 • 

Bruno Maçães

Electricity and the American century: of all forms of energy electricity is the most modern, and the most virtual

In the twentieth century, “increases in all forms of energy use made the United States the most highly powered society in world history” (David Nye).

May 7, 2023 • 

Bruno Maçães

5

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The underworld, a system of modern energetics

The twentieth century brought about a different kind of civilisation.

May 1, 2023 • 

Bruno Maçães

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