As for oil, production cannot keep up with consumption. Now close to half is coming from other sources with it predicted to be importing half of its oil by around 2010. China became a net exporter of oil in 1993 and it currently gets 58% of imports from the Middle East, though it is now looking more at the likes of Sudan and Venezuela. Before this happened China was able to get enough energy from the like of the Daqing oil fields in Manchuria which are now unable to supply nearly enough for the country. This is importing of oil is needed since consumption is reported to be increasing at around 7.5% a year as a result of an increasing population and level of production. The graph below shows this increasing reliance on overseas oil:
China’s energy needs are projected to be at over 150% of what they are now by 2020. The current number of cars is 90 times that of 1990, with petrol prices a third of those in Europe. To deal with such issues, China is looking to invest in developing countries with proven supplies of oil as this is much cheaper than buying oil on the open market. Sudan is a case where they have done this. There was much controversy due to the trading of arms for oil between the two countries as Sudan needed weapons for their civil war. The emphasis on Africa is shown to the left. Other deals that have taken place include one with Indonesia, Australia, Uzbekistan, Colombia, Ecuador and Nigeria [see slide show for more details]. This increase in global trade is causing friction with countries such as India.
As for renewable energy in China, there is a fair amount of effort being put into it; hydroelectric power is quite a big producer of energy. As well as this, a lot of water is heated with the use of solar panels and there are some wind farms that are now being built in the country to the extent that China is now one of the world’s largest producers of wind energy.
The map below shows some of the distribution of these renewable energy sources:
Despite this attempted diversification when it comes to energy production, China’s demands still outweigh its supplies. In the future this trend looks to become more extreme and China is expected to become quite heavily reliant on energy from other countries. In order that it remains a country that is growing economically it will need to come up with cheap ways of importing these huge amounts of energy or it will have to find some other means by which it can obtain them alone (see renewable energy plans below). Predictions of China’s population declining in decades to come may well be linked into the fact that there may not be enough energy to cater for such a large population. The graphs below show the overall energy situation as well as a prediction of the future in terms of population.
So, looking forward it is clear that China is going to have to do something about the energy in the country itself to try and minimize exports. Recent news has claimed that China will be looking into renewable energy in quite some depth. An ambitious energy plan reports that 15% of energy will come from renewable resources by 2020 (it is currently at 8%). Emphasis is particularly being put on wind power and hydroelectric power (wind to increase by 23 times, hydroelectric predicted to almost double in production). Solar power is being looked into although it is more expensive; some of the work done in this area will be to do with connecting the systems to power grids rather than having them work individually. The entire cost of the increase in renewable energy is thought to reach around $133.3 billion.