The Oil Drum

http://www.advfn.com/news_China-GDP-seen-rising-by-10-5-pct-in-2006-9-5-pct-in-2007-govt-think-tank_ 17246844.html

However if the US economy does take the expected hit from the housing implosion this may of course change.......

All of the (mainland) Chinese people I've met have been decent english writers, and could understand pretty much anything written (except for slang).  They're very awkward speaking it, however.  From what they've told me, reading and writing english is taught in school, but not how to speak it.

"As for the awareness of 'educated' people, it is important to remember that much of 'education' is simply advanced but narrow technical training coupled with indoctrination of various sorts. Any person who is successfully educated to high levels has already learnt very strong lessons in conformity. These tendencies are further reinforced by material or career success, and the cognitive dissonance then kicks in: 'Everything's great! What Peak Oil?'"

Definitely a problem with the education system in general.  Jump through the hoops and get your piece of paper.

"They are not going to waste state security resources on people chatting in general terms about a geological fact of life."

The Oil Drum: Discussions About Energy and Our Future.  We do a bit of philosophy around here too.

"I am writing this from Hong Kong. I've never met anyone Chinese in HK who has heard of PO."

Have you been asking around?  I know I don't openly go about blabbing to every person I meet that we're about to have our nuts in a vise.  They don't take kindly to it.

"...That's life. That takes your energy. Any thought you have left goes on the rubbish in the tabloids."

A lot of my PO aware friends say things like this.  By the end of the day after 8 hours of working their shitty jobs they just want to relax and don't want to think about PO.  Others I believe have "put up a shield" of conucopianism and believe technology will come along and whiz-bang everything.  It's kind of an escape.

From Charles' article above:

Our country's leaders have three main choices: Taking over someone else's oil fields; carrying on until the lights go out and Americans are freezing in the dark; or changing our life style by deep conservation while heavily investing in alternative energy sources at higher costs.

Which are we doing now, two years later?

The challenge today is that while there is general agreement that petroleum is critically tied to our standard of living and to economic growth, supplying it in the amounts needed cannot be taken for granted.

...And if oil and gas demand is growing at 2 to 3 percent per year, then supplying these energy sources in ever-increasing amounts is clearly a formidable challenge.

But the challenge is even greater because the production from our existing resource base is subject to natural decline through depletion.

For the vast majority of resources in OPEC nations, the depletion rate for oil is thought to be about 2-3 percent per year. In some non-OPEC countries, it's about 7-8 percent annually. If you assume a worldwide average depletion rate of 4 to 5 percent per year, then the real required production growth rate needed to meet predicted demand approaches 7 percent. That means we will need to add some 80 million oil-equivalent barrels of new production by 2010. Another way to say this is that half the oil and gas supplies required 10 years from now is not yet on production.

I should add that the cost of adding those 80 million barrels could exceed 1 TRILLION dollars, about 100 billion dollars a year -- compared with the 60 billion dollars a year industry is now spending. This is doable, but only in a proper investment environment, which I'll address shortly.

This is an enormous challenge, and I would like to speak to that for the next few minutes. Part of that challenge is to find the resources in the first place. Fortunately, though, impressive additions to the resource base have been made in recent years, thanks to large discoveries in the Gulf of Mexico, offshore West Africa, the Caspian Region, and, of course, the Middle East. In fact, worldwide, the industry has discovered more than 700 billion oil-equivalent barrels that have not yet been developed.

and

On average, it has been taking seven to eight years to bring new resource adds onto production. If we are to meet the demand we expect in the future, we'll need to cut years off that time frame.

This goes directly to a concept Daniel Yergin and I have been discussing for some time -- what we call the "law of long lead times." Simply put, it means that if we don't shorten the time from "here to there," we could be asking for trouble if, for whatever reason, supplies become short.

...Thus, if we are to meet the supply challenge of the future, we will need a series of what are, in effect, bargains. Industry will commit to doing what it knows how to do in a timely fashion if governments can agree to establish the political and economic climate for projects to succeed and thus help supply the demand for energy...

http://tinyurl.com/yh923x