China may have peaked 3Q2004

slick50 notes on peakoil.com that :

... it appears China may have peaked. The main field Daqing produced 46.4 million tons in 2004 compared to 48.4 in 2003, over a 4% decrease. PetroChina, representing two thirds of China's oil production, saw 4th quarter oil production for 2004 decline as compared to 3rd quarter 2004.

peakoil.com -> iht.com

Production from Daqing fell to 46.4 million tons last year from 48.4 million tons in 2003. Output from the field in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, which accounts for half of PetroChina's production and a third of the nation's total, is being cut to prolong Daqing's life.

Guangdong, the "unstoppable" factory

atimes.com :

In slightly over 10 years Guangdong province, China's "factory of the world", will achieve "modernization", according to a report by Niu Wenyuan of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The report defines "modernization" as a level of economic development, social progress, living standards and sustainable development similar to that of a "medium-level developed country". This roughly means that even without the help of a European Union-like structure, Guangdong by 2016 is set to become a Chinese Spain or Ireland.

This is the Beijing view. The Guangdong provincial government is even bolder: it wants modernization as early as 2010 for the Pearl River Delta - the jewel in the crown of the factory of the world. And for the booming city of Shenzhen, the year is now, 2005 ...

- So what's going to stop the "unstoppable" factory? Mathematics. Yup, you heard right, mathematics. As Dr Bartlett reminds us to ask, at what rate of "growth", and for how long? At China's ongoing 9% growth rate, the resulting demand for consumption of basic resources (oil, coal, water, steel, etc) will double in 8 years, quadruple in 16 years, and so on (using the 72 rule of thumb). Can that really be possible? In a realistic world of finite resources, nope, that's not possible.

So, boom it will, until mathematics dictates that it is no longer possible. You can also say physical limits - but it's all in the numbers, anyway.

Global warming approaching point of no return

peakoil.com -> independent.co.uk

Global warning has already hit the danger point that international attempts to curb it are designed to avoid, according to the world's top climate watchdog.

Dr Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the official Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told an international conference attended by 114 governments in Mauritius this month that he personally believes that the world has "already reached the level of dangerous concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere" and called for immediate and "very deep" cuts in the pollution if humanity is to "survive". His comments rocked the Bush administration - which immediately tried to slap him down - not least because it put him in his post after Exxon, the major oil company most opposed to international action on global warming, complained that his predecessor was too "aggressive" on the issue.

... but this month, at a conference of Small Island Developing States on the Indian Ocean island, the new chairman, a former head of India's Tata Energy Research Institute, himself issued what top United Nations officials described as a "very courageous" challenge. He told delegates: "Climate change is for real. We have just a small window of opportunity and it is closing rather rapidly. There is not a moment to lose."

... he added that, because of inertia built into the Earth's natural systems, the world was now only experiencing the result of pollution emitted in the 1960s, and much greater effects would occur as the increased pollution of later decades worked its way through. He concluded: "We are risking the ability of the human race to survive."

(2005-01-25 10:14:40 SGT) [Env] Permalink

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