Good questions. China is running like a bull in a China shop(pun) They do not use social and industrial or economic checks and balances
By way of comparison we hear about ructions in Iran over rising prices for gasoline.
Gasoline is heavily subsidized there and as a result, people use a lot of it. Of course, when something is artificially price-capped that means there’s no incentive to make more of it. Which is why Iran’s own refining capacity is so limited. Why build refineries when there’s no opportunity to make money at it?
We have been reading about China’s exploding appetite for energy, I gather subsidized fuel prices have everything to do with that.
I’m having difficulty how a “War for Oil” would work in the here and now. The world price is the world price whether it comes from halfway round the world or your own back yard.
The Imperial Japanese invaded the Pacific because the embargo physically prevented them from buying oil anywhere at any price.
How’m I doing so far?
Well said.
$.64/liter = $2.42/gallon.
Take away just some of our extra taxes placed on gas, and you’ve got the same rate here, also without subsidizing.
I heard or read somewhere recently that Chinas demand for petroleum is growing by 10 percent per year. Maybe someone can extrapolate that out to what percent it will increase the cost of fuel annually.
That's 1.6 billion dollars per year. That's about 1000 programmers, at $100K per year salary, each. Not really all that many..
Read the article about the costs to the Chinese oil companies -- it says they lose $200 / tonne (A tonne of diesel?)
About 300 gallons in a tonne (metric ton, about 2205 pounds). So supposedly they're subsidizing $0.67 per gallon. I think that's a bit high, given that the price for diesel I saw yesterday outside of Minhang (a district of Shanghai) was $0.64 per liter ($2.40 per gallon). I don't think diesel runs $3.00 per gallon without taxes...
A thousand watts per square meter...
'Tis true! Solar can average 1000W per square meter, IF:
You get 100% conversion
You can get full sunlight (not filtered, not cloudy)
Realistically, you get around 10% conversion, and you get 6 hours a day of decent output. Meaning you get around 600-800 Whr per day, per square meter. Given the typical American home uses about 35 kWhr per day, so you'd need around 60 square meters of solar panels to collect the energy needed.
Given that decent panels run around $300/square meter, were talking about an $18,000 investment in panels, not including inverters, batteries, switchover boxes, etc. I'd expect to see a cost around $30,000 to convert to solar.
Around my US home (Snohomish County, Washington), power is $0.08 per kWhr. About $2.80 per day for a typical American home (about right, I spend around $65/month average on power). That's about a 30 year term to simply break even, not including the time value of money...
Solar really isn't viable for general power generation yet. Heating? Sure, passive solar heat is great. But for power generation, we need a serious 4 or 5X increase in panel efficiency on a BIG scale - with the costs held constant or dropped - to see it as a viable source.
They are already doing so...albeit a non-shooting war so far.
They are doing everything they can to take international oil sources off the market. Clearly trying to tie those sources up for China exclusively, and thence are trying to strangle the West which depends on open market access.
First, there is the issue that if China subsidizes its industries below cost, they will gain market share - which sounds good in the short term, but it will mean that those industries will grow larger, and require larger subsidies over time. Second, there is the problem, already discovered by Socialists in the United States and in Europe, that once a group becomes accustomed to sucking on the government teat, they are *very* reluctant to let go again. This means that the subsidies may become a permanent drain on the government coffers - "too big to fail" is not just seen in America. (And, by the way, once other people hear about how good a living one can make mooching off of the government, they will demand "their share" too. Abraham Lincoln said that a nation could not endure half slave and half free, but it applies to socialist and capitalist economies too.)