Beware of 900 million Chinese driving cars
"Since 2000, coal prices are up 400 percent, uranium is up 1,000 percent, natural gas is up 300 percent, and oil is up 600 percent," according to Jigar Shah, founder and chief strategy officer for SunEdison in Beltsville, Md.
"Since 2000, coal prices are up 400 percent, uranium is up 1,000 percent, natural gas is up 300 percent, and oil is up 600 percent," according to Jigar Shah, founder and chief strategy officer for SunEdison in Beltsville, Md.
I've given considerable thought to a lecture I heard 25 years ago given by Albert Bartlett, professor emeritus of physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Bartlett's hypothesis is simple: We are using fossil fuels at an exponential rate. He said that between 1950 and 1960, the world used as much fossil fuels as it did in all the previous years of civilization. According to him, the world's use of fossil fuels has doubled every decade, or so, since.
The professor predicted production of crude oil would peak in 2004 and then drop off rapidly until it's gone. I fear we're feeling the irreversible impacts of a world running out of gas that Bartlett anticipated.
It is estimated that there are 60 million cars on the road in China today. By the end of 2010, that number is expected to grow to 130 million cars and if the Chinese ever reach the ratio of one car for every 1.3 people that now exists in the United States, they will have 900 million cars on the road, according to Martin Calkins, of University of Massachusetts-Boston.
I'm willing to bet that by the time that happens, the Chinese will be driving electric cars because the world will be out of gas.