China gets into hydrogen power

You know, I feel a lot better knowing that this is happening. "China is not burdened with a large-scale traditional car manufacturing infrastructure, so it could skip the 21st century's auto-making techniques and develop concept cars with the 21st century characteristics, said Professor Meinolf Dierkes, an expert with the German Berlin social sciences research center."



Which is what you would hope; there isn't any real need if we structure things right, for developing nations to be stuck with our development patterns. In fact, if post-war Germany and Japan are any guide, it would advantage China and any other developing nations to come in on this kind of thing with the latest and best technology and thinking.



Just note this though:" China will need 450 million tons of petroleum by 2020, of which 60 percent will be imported." this is predicated on growth of car ownership in PRC and usage. What will this mean in a world having already peaked in fossil fuel exploitation and heading for the wind-down? It should accelerate the use-up and raise the price. That would be fine from the point of view of discouraging petroleum and encouraging alternatives. However, what kind of geo-political ramifications does it have in a world where arguably the first war over depleting reserves of oil has been fought [in Iraq] and where a number of conflicts are already simmering round other resource issues [eg water in the middle east]? Not good news.