(Oil + Demographics) X China = Disruption

The fascinating thing about emergent properties is that they can be bubbling away for years, generations in fact, and hardly be noticed, but when their time comes they can burst on us with a speed and power that is breathtaking. Then we get a phase shift and not only is everything totally different from the time before that shift, but we have difficulty even imagining what it might have been like, even if we were there.

I talked a few days ago about whether or not we have just gone through the Hubbert Peak of Oil production which, if true, promises to make life terribly interesting for economies highly dependent on cheap, plentiful oil. But that may be the least of our problems on the front.

A couple of years ago I hear and economist casting doubt on China's economic growth figures because he had calculated the growth in energy consumption and the numbers didn't add up. The again, oil consumption might just be a second order measurement, in any case, he should be happy now.
I heard on the BBC last night (can't find on their site yet) that:
1. China is now the second biggest consumer of oil on the planet after the US
2. That in the next 12 months, the growth in that demand is set to double previous predictions and its energy needs are expected to more than double by 2020.

Witness Oil prices rise to 13-year high, threaten economy

The steady climb of oil prices in recent weeks reflects a convergence of growing demand from the world's three largest oil consumers— the United States, China and Japan — even as supplies are set to shrink April 1 because of a cut in production by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.
World demand grew by 1.4 million barrels a day last year and is forecast to grow by an additional 1.5 million barrels a day this year, primarily because of record consumption of gasoline in the United States and China, where auto sales and industrial production are expanding rapidly.
Joseph P. Quinlan, chief market strategist with Banc of America Capital Management, said he expects dramatic growth of consumption in China — potentially the world's biggest car market — to drive oil prices for years to come.
"Auto sales in China soared by roughly 70 percent last year," he said, contributing to a 46 percent boom in oil imports. The government in Beijing expects double-digit growth in auto sales to continue as incomes grow, China's middle class expands, and cars made there become cheaper and more numerous.

Falling production, rapidly rising demand in a major oil consumer and already strained production facilities. Interesting times guaranteed. But wait, there's more.

The BBC has also been running stories of late about the increasingly bizarre demographic outcomes of female infanticide. I talked about it in Emergent Weirdness in India and a few days ago there was another BBC story about the increasing number of Indian men unable to find wives and forced to stay with their parents and care for the family. But the same problem exists in China, and the problems are even larger.

`One child' policy leaves China with huge shortage of women

China, the most populous nation on Earth, could find itself dealing with the combined frustrations of as many as 40 million single men by 2020 because its one-child policy is creating a shortage of female babies.

In an unusually frank speech on China's looming demographic crisis, Li Weixiong, who advises the country's political consultative conference on population issues, said a cultural preference for boys was creating an artificial disparity between the number of boys and girls that represents "a serious threat to building a well-off society."

Li said the dearth of women would lead to a dramatic rise in prostitution and the trafficking of women. "This is by no means a sensational prediction," he said.

If nothing more, the policy of One Child per family is now proving to be exceptionally successful in dealing with its primary problem, too rapid population growth. The fear is that it will lead to much more catastrophic effects than prostitution, female trafficking and a slowing economy, although this paragraph tells a whole story on its own.

If the authorities are reluctant to lift the birth limit, possible long-term solutions to the looming dearth of eligible women may be even more unpalatable. They include altering the traditional marital balance of power and bringing women's pay more into line with that of men, enabling them to better support their families.

Yes indeed, appalling, unpalatable in the extreme, it could even lead to matriarchy, that might be an emergent property that no-one predicted, although the contrary case is made here. But long before that, there are other serious concerns, as Brigham Young University Professor Valerie Hudson notes in Effects of Female Infanticide. And yes, I note she may have an anti-abortion agenda. But whatever the cause, the effects make for worrying reading.

During the 19th century, the Chinese province of Huai-Pei suffered devastating natural disasters including floods, droughts, famines, and locust invasions nearly every three or four years. The peasants in this province, who were dependent on the land and the crops, did the only thing they could think of to survive under these conditions--they killed their female babies.

Male babies were valued as potential food providers and contributors to the family income while females were another mouth to feed and could only be married off at great expense to the family. In this time of desperation, reducing liabilities, such as female children, was seen as a viable survival technique. As a result, during this century there was an average of 129 men for every 100 women in Huai-Pei.

This skewed sex ratio became a problem when the men were ready to marry. Because of the lack of females, many men had no hope of marrying, raising a family, or supporting themselves; consequently, they grouped together and began small-scale banditry throughout the province to steal and provide for their families. Eventually, nearly 100,000 of these men, known as the Nian, led a rebellion on the Chinese emperor from 1851 to 1863 that contributed to the fall of the empire.

Now pull it all together. A nation with a booming economy needed to meet the material demands of its very large population with a developing energy crisis. Not 100,000 unmarriageable men, but tens of millions of them whose anger, frustration and incipient violence needs to be canalised in ways that don't lead to another, gender inspired Red Guard.

And surrounded by nations whose growing economies will also make for increased energy demands, and whose cultural practices have lead to significant skewing of the gender bias in society. Common borders, scarce resources and a surplus of males with an undercurrent of violence.

Your turn.

Comments

[Mark Harm]

There are a few new technologies. For example, newly developed Thermo-Depolymerization Technology (which converts carbon-rich garbage into crude oil). The conversion process doesn't create any harmful pollutants and use of the new form of oil actually releases less greenhouse gases than would be released by the natural decay process if the material had been stored in a landfill - in the case of naturally decaying material. The process can also be used to convert plastics and other non-decaying material.

'Turkey waste turned into oil' - New York Newsday - New TDP plant generating a positive cash flow while selling crude oil converted from garbage at a price 10% less than equivalent oil produced at a conventional refinery.
http://www.nynewsday.com/technology/ny-liturk073836915jun07,0,1109501.story?coll=ny-technology-headlines

'Missouri plant begins making oil from farm waste’ – Waste News - Crude oil No. 4, produced from agricultural waste products, put on the market.
http://www.wastenews.com/headlines2.html?id=1085160729

'Turkey Fuel? Factory to Turn Guts into Crude Oil' - National Geographic - Details how a Carthage plant is converting turkey waste into crude oil and its potential to solve many of America's waste disposal problems while making us less dependant on foreign oil.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/11/1125_031125_turkeyoil.html

'Researchers turn manure into crude oil' - MSNBC News - Researcher Yanhui Zhang of the University of Illinois has successfully converted pig manure into oil in small batches. He uses a similar process to the one already being used by a plant in Carthage, Mo., that converts tons of waste material, such as feathers and entrails, from a nearby Butterball Turkey plant into light crude oil.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4732398/

Successful Result of a California Pilot Thermo-Depolymerization Plant in the Philadelphia Navy Yard on the California Energy Commission's government website
http://www.energy.ca.gov/pier/indust/descriptions/100_98_003_3.html

And on the hydrogen frontier, there was a recent breakthrough in an ethanol-to-hydrogen reactor that will make hydrogen much more competitive as an energy source. The new reactor eliminates the need for large expensive facilities to produce hydrogen - being small and cheap enough for home and car use.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/02/13/hydrogen.reactors.ap/

Mark Harm
Candidate for State Representative - Michigan
http://www.markharm.com