Page 360 - Sustainable Cities and Communities Design Handbook

Energy Economics in China’s Policy-Making Plan Chapter j 17 333

expansion of global resource consumption is ecologically possible. The
consequences facing China are very severe, and the Chinese growth model
could face a fundamental challenge because the peak of resource exhaustion
and the imperativeness of ecological sustainability would impose severe limits
to its future economic growth, hence fundamental social changes will be
inevitable (Li, 2010).
Fig. 17.2A and B calculate and project the peak period of both the world’s
and China’s primary energy supply.
World oil production is projected to have peaked in 2008. World natural gas
production is projected to peak in 2041. World coal production is projected to peak
in 2029. Nuclear energy is projected to grow according to IEA’s “Alternative
Policy Scenario.” Long-term potential of the renewable energies is assumed to be
500 EJ (12,000 million tonnes of oil equivalent). The world’s total energy supply is
projected to peak in 2029.
Li Minqi (2010)
Furthermore, China’s coal production is projected to peak in 2030; oil
production, in 2016; and natural gas, in 2046. China’s long-term potential of
nuclear and renewable energies is assumed to be 1000 million tons of oil
equivalent,China’senergyimportsareassumedtokeepgrowingfromnowto2020
to sustain rapid economic growth. The Chinese economy is assumed to keep
growing at an annual rate of 7.5% from 2010 to 2020. By 2020, China’s energy
imports are projected to grow to near 700 million tons of oil equivalent,
comparable to the current US energy imports. After 2020, China’s energy imports
are assumed to stay at 8% of the rest of the world’s total fossil fuel production.
China’s total energy supply is projected to peak in 2033 (Li, 2010,p. 130e131).
Clark and Isherwood (2010) found this same pattern of short-term fossil
fuel energy supplies in China while studying the inner Mongolia autonomous

FIGURE 17.2 (A) World primary energy supply (million tons of oil equivalent, 1950e2100). (B)
China’s primary energy supply (million tons of oil equivalent, 1950e2100). Courtesy Li, M., 2010.
Peak energy and the limits to economic growth: China and the world. In Xing, L. (Ed.), The Rise of
China and the Capitalist World Order. Ashgate, Farnham, England, p. 128, 130.