China and the world's oil supply

[Rob_Hugo@PortNW]

I heard on NPR recently that China will be one of the two two oil consumers in the future, and their use is speculated to skyrocket rapidly as their middle class gets larger and demands more mainstream consumer luxury items.

I know we have traditionally been very closefisted when it comes to technology trade with china, but our government should really start considering trying to coordinate to develop the chosen fuel for the future, and begin building infrastructure. At the moment we are no where near being out of oil. But we are near being out of cheap to access, process, and refine oil. Companies are now beginning to look into re-opening closed wells where new technology can allow them to draw out material previously thought unreachable. This was regarded by my college geology teacher (an industry geologist for 30 years before teaching) as being a forecaster of when the end of cheap oil had begun.

[Anonymous]

I too have heard that we still have an abundance of oil reserves let. I have heard that if demand was to stay consistant that we would still have oil for a several hundred years. However, like you said with demand increasing (especially in China and India) those oil reserves are expected to disappear much faster then once thought. It is very scary to think about what could happen to oil prices over the next few years and how OPEC will respond to the increasing demand. We need an alternative fuel sources so that we do not end up all killing each other for oil.

[Anonymous]

What you're not understanding perhaps, is that much of what they consider to be the "remaining oil" has issues, whether it be a challenging geographic location (many former members off USSR), oil that is heavy in sulfur and other undesirables that need to be refined out (ever get a batch of gas that leaves your exhaust smelling like rotten egg?), regional bans (Alaska), political disputes that prevent accessability and routing of natural resources, and/or oil that is refined from non-traditional sources (oil sands, shale, etc).

In other words yes, solutions exist, but are all ones that would increase the value of oil not reduce it...and as the easier to access resources start to go, the price will already skyrocket.

Since India is technically an Asian country I'll bring up something that I heard on NPR recently. Apparantly the price of gas has increased to the $20/gal range and the cost of cooking oil has increased by 3 times the average cost. The two are related. People are taking cooking oil and mixing it with rubbing alcohol, turpentine, cologne/perfume, acetone, and pretty much anything else that will end up with the car running in the end. Other than the environmental issues, the other probelm is that the exhaust is making people ill.

[Anonymous]

I think that as the United States we need to change the way that we live consume energy. considering we use much more oil than China I think that if we step up to the plate then others will follow. Everyone is entitled live the best life possible, but obviously not at the expense of the planet.

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