On Apr 12, 2005, at 2:08 PM, Damon Agretto wrote:
Ah. Not that widely apparently. ;)
Well they said so on CNN today!
I don't work with the television on. The last time I looked at CNN -- couple days ago, I think -- there was interminable live coverage of a hostage standoff between a man and his ex wife. Completely irrelevant. Unfortunately the other feeds were rabbiting on about either the Pope or Chuck and Strumpet.
I really really miss DW.
Also, IIRC Shanghai in particular was undergoing a massive boom in the last several years, but oil prices didn't spike then either.
Well, Shanghai is only one part of China,
Oh, golly, do tell. ;)
and its conceivable India has something to do with this too (I think the CNN report claimed as much too).
No one here mentioned India until just now.
But basing the claim on oil use just on the increase of China's GDP may not be the whole factor. At what point in GDP growth do people switch from riding busses or bikes to owning their own cars? Someone else correct me, but I believe one of the biggest consumers of petroleum are domestic, privately owned vehicles (POVs). If millions of Chinese are now earning enough to trade in their Huffy's for Chengdu SUVs, then there's where the spike in demand would occur...
That's a good point, all right, and could have something to do with it. Let's see, it seems that in June of 2004, 3 in 1000 Chinese owned a car:
<http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/06/ 0628_040628_chinacars.html>
Figure 1.2 bln people, that would have been about 3.6 million cars. Even if Chinese automobile purchases have increased tenfold in the last 10 months, then, that's 40 million cars, which is still not right; apparently as of 2004 2.3 million cars were being produced:
<http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/members/2005/113-4/focus.html>
That's still a fraction of the number of vehicles the US gobbles up annually, and yet we don't see spikes like this most recent one. (Of course a lot of it's not on my scopes; I own and use a Bianchi most of the time.)
Worldwide there seems to be a prediction of about 1.3 billion motorized vehicles in 2005. That's apparently a large increase, but pointing the finger at China alone seems a little too pat.
-- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress "The Seven-Year Mirror" http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf
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