The growing conflict over dwindling energy resources

Ever since reading his book, Rising Planet Shrinking Planet, I have valued and respected what Michael T. Klare has to say about the geo-politics of energy resources. Almost on cue, less than 12 hours after Michael Klare posted an article on TomDispatch, there was a leading story on Yahoo News about a diplomatic spat between China and Japan regarding the detention of a Chinese fishing boat captain near disputed islands in the East China Sea. While the AP report framed the issue as a detention of a Chinese fishing boat captain near disputed islands in the East China Sea, for astute readers of TomDispatch and other people who don’t rely on the main stream media to get their information, the real story was more about future territorial claims regarding the energy deposits of natural gas both of these countries want to possess for their own economic security.

As a professor at Peking University's School of International Studies noted in the AP story, China is taking such a hard stance regarding the detainment of a fishing boat captain because if China did not protest so loudly in this incident, it would be tantamount to accepting Japanese sovereignty claims over disputed islands and the natural gas fields in the area.

In the recent article on TomDispatch by Michael Klare, the author of Blood and Oil, and Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet offers some sobering views on why China will not concide any ground to Japan in reagrds to energy resources.

Chinese leaders view energy as a -- possibly the -- major concern of the country and have been devoting substantial resources and planning to the procurement of adequate future supplies. In addressing this task, Chinese leaders face two fundamental challenges: securing sufficient energy to meet ever-rising demand and deciding which fuels to rely on in satisfying these requirements. How China responds to these challenges will have striking implications on the global stage.

According to the most recent projections from the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE), Chinese energy consumption will grow by 133% between 2007 and 2035 -- from, that is, 78 to 182 quadrillion British thermal units (BTUs). Think about it this way: the 104 quadrillion BTUs that China will somehow have to add to its energy supply over the next quarter-century equals the total energy consumption of Europe and the Middle East in 2007. Finding and funneling so much oil, natural gas, and other fuels to China is undoubtedly going to be the single greatest economic and industrial challenge facing Beijing -- and in that challenge lays the possibility of real friction and conflict.

With China importing 4.8 million barrels of oil per day to fuel its ever increasing economy, a number predicted to reach over 10.6 million barrels per day sometime around 2030, the likely hood of future conflict over dwindling energy resources between the great powers in the world only increases exponentially. This seemingly insignificant incident in the East China Sea largley ignored by the main stream media, is one of the reasons why most Americans remain woefully misinformed about world events.