China becomes the 1st global consumer of energy - for how long?

‘Peak Coal’ – ‘Peak Oil’ : la prise du homard ?

China has just supplanted the United States at the head of the largest global energy consumers, reveals the annual BP [PDF]]]] statistical report [PDF]]]].

Global energy consumption, drawn above all by emerging countries (China, India, Brazil, etc..) believed 5.6 % last year.This is the fastest growth rate since the 1973 oil shock, the British oil group said.

China extracts and absorbs almost half of world coal production!Coal provides three-quarters of Chinese electricity.[NYT]]]]

[Reminder: humanity broke a new carbon dioxide emission record in 2010 with 30.6 gigatons released in the atmosphere, the International Energy Agency last week announced last week.]]]]

China would be promised in the lead in the world economy by 2030, taking into account the present growth of its gross domestic product.

Only here: the tree of Chinese economy will be able to go up to the sky, if its roots, the coal mines, prove to be incapable of increasing their extractions in the years to come-a possibility that Beijing appearsTake very seriously?

Before offering some answers to this question of coal and the explosive Chinese economic machine (my mind has given up going straight these days), I would like to connect several points that are around it (-this question).

In short, let's put all that in context a bit.

The International Energy Agency (IAI) has been pressing OPEC oil countries for a month to increase their black gold productions.(At the same time, the AIE implores rich countries to go out quickly, quickly from oil, ... let's go).The rise in gross production claimed from OPEC aims on the one hand to respond to the interruption of Libyan exports, and on the other hand (that is to say, above all) to face the increaseRapid for crude demand.

In 2010, global oil consumption has largely crossed its 2008 level, the year of the Krach Banc (AL) Aire: it exceeded 87 million barrels per day, according to BP.

The rise in gross production requested from OPEC, if it happens, will necessarily be limited, and it is very likely toar crude prices, analyzes the New York Times.In question, again: the inextinguishable thirst for energy from China.Chinese petroleum consumption is now the second after that of the United States, and it was the one that has grown the fastest in 2010 in 2010.

[Incidentally, if you dare to say, this thirst has no chance of being appeased by the invasion of several oil zones supposed to return to the future independent state of South Sudan by the troops of North-Soudan;Even if China is one of the rare (unofficial) allies in North-Soudan, an African producer of average importance, where Chinese oil tankers have advanced their pawns in the last decade.]]]]

Let's continue to connect points.My previous post reported the analysis of one of the most famous investment funds on the planet, GMO, according to which "the era of abundant resources" is "finished forever".

Even or even.

The growing appetite of China for the fertile land of Brazil is increasingly concerns the Brazilian government, which, simultaneously, faces a spectacular resurgence of wild deforestation in Amazon and Mato Grosso.

In India, conflicts between industrialists and peasants for access to the best land has continued to worsen since in 2008, the Tata Motors group abandoned its initial Nano manufacturing plant project, a smallautomobile for the new little (and nevertheless immense) Indian middle class.

In China, finally, the authorities have just recognized the evidence: the giant hydroelectric dam of the Trois-Gorges, completely operational since 2009, is faced with "urgent problems", both geological, ecological and human.

The New York Times has chosen this week to highlight a platform highlighting the physical, economic, ecological, material, substantial impossibility (etc..) to see the population of China or India extend the "American dream" to the globe around the globe.

Overpopulation + misery, we see what it gives.Overcrowding + enrichment may make a more explosive cocktail still.

And then, there is coal.

For several weeks, large Chinese electric companies deliberately have turned the turbines of their coal factories in slow motion, which provide 73 % of the country's electricity.These industrial groups, mostly public, intend to protest against the central power of Beijing, which does not authorize them to pass on their invoices the current flambé of black mineral prices.They assume to cause large blackout everywhere, perhaps the worst that China has ever had to face.

China, which now consumes three times more coal than the United States (but which has less than half of the amount of reserves of UNCE SAM), could soon be witnessing a stagnation of its extractions, or even a decline, warned the Wall Street Journal in November.

Beijing plans to limit its coal production until 2015, in order to spare its mineral reserves, noted the financial daily.

Annoying perspectives, in particular because Chinese electricity consumption now exceeds that of the United States.

In 2010, China provided and absorbed more than 48 % of world coal production, and its consumption increased by 10.1 %!

All this could explain the intransigence of Chinese central power vis-à-vis electric companies.A ‘PRICE SIGNAL’ very strong in the fashion of Chinese planned capitalism, encouraging to turn away from coal?

China has some reason to fear a future flambé even worse on its vital raw material.

The problem may not concern that China.

The absolute global peak of energy supplied by coal could be reached in 2011, according to a study by the University of Texas, of which National Geographic magazine reported in September. Dans une tribune [pdf]]]] publiée en novembre par la revue Nature, Richard Heinberg et David Fridley, du PostCarbon Institute, prétendent que l’ère du charbon abondant et pas cher touche à sa fin, elle aussi.A diagnosis that obviously does not make unanimity.

The world is increasingly eager for coke, lignite and anthracite.

Coal, not renewables, is by far the source of energy that has developed the most in the past decade, according to the AIE [PDF]]]].Coal, not renewables, seems to be the first oil substitution energy today, conclude the authors of ‘Energy Source‘, remarkable blog of the Financial Times.

If the global economy should simultaneously face the ‘Peak Coal’ (absolute peak of energy production from coal) and the ‘peak oil’ (petroleum peak), it would probably be good news for the climate.But the good news might stop there.

"How is we braking?I asked on this blog a few months ago.

In his conference on the essence of the technique published in 1955, the German philosopher Martin Heidegger quoted Hölderlin:

"Where the danger believes, also grows what saves.»»

Let us hope that the poet has said true.