More cars produced than in America for the first time.
For the first quarter of the year, 2.7 million cars were sold in China -- besting U.S. sales of 2.2 million for the first time to become the world's largest car market.
If the Chinese do not shift to electric cars powered by nuclear, wind, and solar power we are going to face a big problem with fossil fuels depletion and pollution.
China consumed 33.23 million metric tons of oil in May, up a strong 6% from the same month in 2008, a Platts analysis of official data showed June 18.
Note: The Chinese are stockpiling too. It is not clear whether this figure includes demand for stockpiling. Is retail demand up?
Take a look at the larger trends behind these latest two reports. In 2007 China surpassed the US in CO2 emissions. In 2008 China accounted for 43% of world coal consumption.
China, which has been trumpeting its new wind and solar goals in recent days, led the way with a near 7% increase in the amount of coal it burned during 2008 despite average prices rising 73% to $150 (£129) per tonne. This accounts for 43% of global coal use.
Out of the major commodities the United States still only leads China in oil consumption. The same is true for most (all?) minerals.
Among the basic commodities—grain and meat in the food sector, oil and coal in the energy sector, and steel in the industrial sector—China now consumes more than the United States of each of these except for oil. It consumes nearly twice as much meat (67 million tons compared with 39 million tons) and more than twice as much steel (258 million to 104 million tons).
These numbers are about total consumption. “But what if China reaches the U.S. consumption level per person?” asks Brown. “If China’s economy continues to expand at 8 percent a year, its income per person will reach the current U.S. level in 2031.
“If at that point China’s per capita resource consumption were the same as in the United States today, then its projected 1.45 billion people would consume the equivalent of two thirds of the current world grain harvest. China’s paper consumption would be double the world’s current production. There go the world’s forests.”
The Earth's crust is made up of 8.1% aluminum and 5% iron. So we will have plenty of them even if China industrializes to the US per capita level. But for applications that use large amounts of rarer inputs we are going to have to shift toward other ways to accomplish what those limited resources do for us.