China's Growing Dependence On Foreign Oil

As U.S. Aims For Energy Independence, China Heads the Opposite Way -- Michael Forsythe, New York Times

President Barack Obama told Americans in his State of the Union address last month that thanks to increased natural gas production and conservation, the country was closer to energy independence than it had been ”in decades.” That’s not something you’ll be hearing from Xi Jinping, his Chinese counterpart, anytime soon: China’s reliance on imported oil is rising fast, according to a new study by a government research institute.

If nothing is done to curb consumption, by 2030 China will import about 75 percent of its oil, Li Wei, the director of the State Council’s Development Research Center, wrote in a report published on Wednesday. By then China will consume about 800 million tons of oil a year. That’s about 60 percent more than the country used last year. China is set to surpass the United States this year as the biggest oil importer and already imports more than half the oil it consumes, according to figures from the United States Energy Information Agency.

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My Comment: Energy is China's Achilles heel .... and everyone knows that. Using coal .... which China has an abundance of .... is no longer a viable alternative. Smog and acid rain has poisoned much of the countryside, and continued use (and growth) of these energy supplies will only worsen the situation. Nuclear energy carries risk .... Fukishima and Chernobyl are reminders of what can happen when things go wrong. Using oil and gas while developing more friendly alternative energy/green technologies are the best options .... but it entails becoming dependent on other countries as well as being in competition with other customers .... a position that China has never liked.

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Thursday, February 13, 2014