2009: China announces drastic licensing regulationsThe Chinese counterpart to Economics Minister Sigmar Gabriel: "Have you seen a single petrol scooter? They don't exist any more, they can no longer be registered, only electric scooters".And further on during the tour of the BYD plants in Shenzhen: "And guess what we'll soon be doing with cars that only have a combustion engine?"
In 1992, still under Deng Xiaoping, "electric mobility on two wheels" appeared in the five-year plan. How did such an idea come about in China? Because China was completely de-ideologized under Deng Xiaoping and had a completely pragmatic government. For 100 km of mobility on a two-wheeler, you either have to import 4 liters of crude oil or burn 1 kg of domestic coal. Option 2 is therefore more economical. In addition, an electric scooter runs on any type of electricity, whether coal, solar or wind. But a gasoline scooter is always just a gasoline scooter. While in 1994 in Germany the Simson company became a victim of green fundamentalists, dogmatists of pure emptiness, no chance for the German electric scooter Simson SR50 gamma e, a 5-year plan to motorize the country electrically was already underway in China. The first field test took place in 1998, with 40,000 electric scooters in Shanghai. This was followed by registration bans in numerous cities, and by 2009, petrol scooters were no longer permitted in 500 Chinese cities. From 2007, production leveled off at 30 million units per year.
There was once a time when the price of oil fell due to increased demand. Today, we are familiar with the phenomenon of "20 percent price reduction per doubling of the world market" from numerous up-and-coming branches of industry. Computers, mobile telephones, photovoltaics. This phenomenon was first observed in the oil industry between 1859 and 1893. The oil industry has long since gone from being an up-and-coming industry to a limited industry: More demand increases the price. In the case of oil, this even works very drastically. If there is a shortfall of 1 million barrels of daily production on the world market, a price increase of US$ 20 must cause demand to fall by 1 million barrels. This extremely harsh price dynamic is due to the oil-dependent motorist and his motto "I have to drive, whatever the cost". The entire price dynamic from fall 2007 to the end of 2008 can be illustrated with the US$ 20 theory. In the summer of 2008, there were 4 million barrels too little oil production for an oil price of US$ 70, so the price climbed to US$ 147. Then came the global economic crisis. During the crisis, demand for oil fell by 5.5 million barrels and the oil price plummeted to US$ 32. Let's rather look at the Chinese government system as a collection of hundreds of "Henry Ford". Businessmen who follow the high ideals of capitalism "Drive the competition out of the market with cheaper better products". What would a Chinese car industry with 60 million units per year achieve? With combustion engines, the demand for oil would increase by 1 million barrels per year. After a few years, this would cause a dramatic rise in the price of oil and a collapse of the car industry. A gigantic Chinese car industry is only possible with electricity from the sun and wind, and is therefore only possible with electric cars. If 2 kW of peak photovoltaics are needed per car, 60 million electric cars require 120 GW of photovoltaics. China has about 70% of the world's photovoltaic production. What made the USA great? US cars made with US steel, and driven with US oil. China wants the same recipe for success: China cars made with China steel and powered by China photovoltaics.
In August 2009, the IEA published a dramatic oil forecast. At the time, I was still naive enough to believe that the Greens had something to do with renewable energy and would use this with great enthusiasm in the 2009 federal election campaign. The German mass media were silent about it. The German parties were silent about it. This dramatic oil forecast did not materialize due to the success of the US fracking industry. There are only 4 million barrels of oil from fracking between the record oil price in summer 2008 and the oil price in 2016. | |||||||
