An article in today’s New York Times focuses on the surge in the need by China to secure energy sources to power its growing economy as it continues rapid modernization. A telling statistic mentioned in the article is that in 2000 China consumed only half as much energy as the United States, and now it has surpassed US energy consumption.
A number of posters here have noted this week’s $400 billion 30-year agreement between China and Russia in which the Chinese will build infrastructure to import natural gas from Russia.
In addition to this deal, the Times article also mentions that China is rapidly expanding its own shale gas research and development program after seeing the rapid natural gas production in the United States based on new extraction technologies (i.e. fracking). China is also moving rapidly to secure oil through its own production and by making deals all over the globe (e.g. with Ecuador, Iraq and Nigeria)
With all these developments in conventional energy sources, what are we to make of the news we have been picking up of Industrial Heat making deals in China? Some say that if the Chinese government was aware of the potential of nickel-hydrogen energy, that they would not worry so much about making massive investments in conventional energy.
My thoughts on this are that at this point, while the potential of LENR seems to be very promising, that we are still in a very early preparation stage in the evolution of this field. The Chinese who Tom Darden has been meeting with have probably not yet seen an E-Cat plant in operation, and it could be considered very premature to make long term economic plans based only on promising test reports. It’s impossible to know at this point how much knowledge the leading planners of China’s economy have of LENR, and how seriously they are taking it. Also China’s energy agreements may have much to do with global geopolitical positioning in addition to economic needs.
