The OTHER "hockey stick curve"

Many readers will be familiar with the concept of a "hockey stick curve", in which over the course of centuries global temperature and CO2 fluctuated within a certain range, then suddenly curve upward starting in around 1950. Recently looking at some international energy consumption data, it occurred to me that there is another hockey stick curve going on at present. If you graph the energy consumption of China starting in the 20th century, it increases gradually over time. Then starting in the year 2000 it curves upwards and grows dramatically (Data are available from the US Energy Information Agency). In just 6 years to 2006 it increases from roughly 40 Quads to 80 Quads (40 to 80 ExaJoules).

Astonishing. This amount of growth, 40 Quads or ExaJoules, is more than the entire energy consumption of all but two of the world's countries, the US and Russia. I repeat what I and many others have continually called for, namely an aggressive effort to improve efficiency and develop alternatives to fossil fuels. I think we need to add one more component, namely that the rich countries support countries like China in developing access to sustainable energy alternatives so that they can improve access to energy for all their people without drastically increasing CO2 emissions.