The last great orator we had in this country, Aneurin Bevan, said
that England was a nation that is "mainly made of coal and surrounded
by fish" (1945). He said this in the context "that only an organizing
genius" could produce a shortage of coal and fish. (Well, without
going into further detail here, UK governments and the EU between
them have certainly become geniuses!)
I wonder what Bevan would have said today? As it happens, about half
of England is sitting on top of the cheapest and cleanest fossil fuel
that has ever been discovered. I speak of shale gas, of course. One
gasfield of 8,000 square miles (20,000 square kilometres) straddles
England from east to west. Even before this is touched, there are
enough other large pockets to be able to supply all our energy needs
for centuries to come.
Bevan couldn't make an exception of us today because there are huge
gasfields under all continents and many are undoubtedly larger.
Almost all countries will now have access to as much as they want.
The reason for this is that millions of square miles of ocean bottoms
with 3,700 million years of rotting organic life have been subducted
under all the major land masses.
America, with 35,000 wells, has already gone all out to develop shale
gas. It is only pausing at present until it modifies many of its
oil-fed power stations and builds more gas-fed ones. It will also
reduce its considerable imports of oil and gas. Within a few weeks of
UK discoveries and further prospecting, the UK is undergoing the most
radical change ever made in its energy policies.
Most countries are dilly-dallying, so far. Not China. It saw the
writing on the wall immediately. From what one is able to gather, it
is already prospecting widely. It is going to produce widely,
too. It was already running short of conventional fossil fuels. This
will also now be its golden opportunity to develop a new swathe of
industries and bring the rural poor (700 million) into the 'ghost
cities' it has already built. Besides, China now knows that it will
have to face the most enormous resumption of American manufacturing
-- and, more to the point, exporting to countries that China now
exports to almost exclusively.
Until the 1980s America was by far the greatest economic power on
earth. A very considerable part of the reason for this was that, for
the most part of the 20th century, America had been recruiting
hundreds of the best scientists that Europe produced and, latterly,
many from Asia. This is why America is at the forefront in almost all
engineering and scientific areas. In recent decades America may have
lost out to China in the production of consumer goods but not of the
cutting-edge producer goods. China is unable to create the latter.
Its government admits that its young people are uncreative because of
its Confucian culture. Its problem is that, try as it may, it has
been unable to correct the situation.
Thus China will always trail America economically until it, too,
starts recruiting the best of the world's scientists and gradually
developing its own creative culture. What it needs to do is offer as
much funding as a research scientist needs. The rest, such as lovely
houses in superb locations and any type of school that scientists and
partners want for their children are relatively easily supplied.
China started its Green Card system some ten years ago when it
realized that it needed a great number of experienced managers in
banking and industry and teachers of English (which is now becoming
China's second official language [unofficially so far!]). Shale gas,
if developed as quickly as America is going to do, or, more likely,
even more rapidly, will enable China to promote itself into the
Research and Development league where it really needs to be.
Keith
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