The central thesis of this blog is that what is happening in China today, specifically with regard to their energy consumption, is worthy of everyone's attention.

People have been predicting imminent catastrophe for humanity for centuries, and perhaps since there has been language.  Maybe there is a fundamental human fear of famine and scarcity, or a tendency to paranoia and pessimism about the future.  By and large, most predictions of doom have been unfounded, irresponsible, and even irrational, alarmism that have been wholly controverted by later developments.  This blog is not about raising alarm or predicting imminent catastrophe.

What this blog is about is change.  China's rapid emergence as a near-superpower and super-consuming nation is a historical phenomenon that is probably unstoppable and which will have profound impact upon the lives of everyone on the planet.  There will of course be significant generation of wealth and opportunities to capitalize upon it for those keeping themselves informed (through this blog, for example) - but there will also undoubtedly be substantial costs associated with China's rise and those costs should be understood. 

This blog is about those Opportunities and those Challenges.

The fundamental worry I have is that the rapid shifting of China's massive population from miserable poverty to increasing prosperity will slowly and surely bring about a reversal in the great economic boom of the last 100 years - that is - an increasing scarcity of commodities that will overcome the phenomenal gains in productivity produced by the technological achievements of the last century.  In other words, sometime this century, we may experience Peak Wealth.

The last two decades have seen Chinese manufacturing and labor reduce the price of finished goods worldwide, while the information revolution has yielded dramatic gains in productivity.  This has resulted in low inflation, and dramatic increases in real wealth, quality of life, and purchasing power for hundreds of millions of people, rich and poor alike.  However, the emergence of China as a near superpower has created explosive growth in the consumption and demand for basic commodities; food, metals, but primarily, Energy.  The prices of these basic commodities have inflated dramatically over the last several years, and while I believe the turbulence will settle down I also believe that we are beginning to experience what will be a prolonged phenomenon.

So I am not saying, as many have in the past, that very soon there will not be enough to go around.  What I am saying is that within a generation there will be vastly more people competing for the fruits of a modern comfortable life, and that I worry that the global production capacity of the basic commodities that are the elements of that quality of life will not be able to meet the increased demand. I worry that the real purchasing power of the average worker, anywhere in the world, will start to stagnate and decline, and that an increasing fraction of our efforts will be dedicated to an increasingly difficult search for resources.

For those is rich countries, it could mean just having to do with less than our recent ancestors.  For those in the poorest countries, such as in Africa, it could mean an end to hope about ever digging out of grinding poverty.  And for those in China, it could mean the complete exhaustion of their resources before feasible alternatives become available.

China's entire society is extremely reliant on its domestic coal supply and it is burning the stuff at a truly phenomenal rate, but every chunk of coal burned is, as a practical matter, gone forever so as China (abd the world) needs more and more, it has less and less. At it's current growth rate of consumption and with it's present quantity of proved reserves China will run out by 2025 and peak long before.  What then? 

There is a wrong, but much-loved myth that in Chinese the charachter for "Crisis" is composed of the characters for "Opportunity" and "Danger".  Like many, I find that despite the falsity of the myth, there is truth in the message.  To closely observe (on this blog) the evolving relationship between China and it's Coal is to see the elements of opportunity, danger, and crisis unfold before your eyes on a global scale.

Well, that's the idea anyway.