This could be an early sign that indefinite rapid economic growth is not socially just or even physically plausible in the long run. Interestingly it could affect coal China's main energy source if goods and people cannot be transported to and from factories. I understand a plant in Inner Mongolia that makes diesel from coal has run into water supply problems, not that they were worried about greenhouse issues. Diesel can be made in other ways (eg biodiesel, Nextbtl, Choren process) and diesel engines can be modified to run on compressed natural gas (CNG) or dimethyl ether (DME) but none of these can be scaled up quickly.

To top it off it is rumoured that China will soon experience coal shortages. I think Kevin Rudd will be put in the awkward position of being asked to supply China with more coal and LNG for CNG. Whatever lofty words are aired at the Bali conference may soon evaporate if our export customers look like slowing. Every country has to quickly find alternatives to fossil fuels.

must be time for me to mention again, that sailing ships are going to make a come-back. it will be a mixed-drive system, of course, with a substantial solar cell to electric motor and a small diesel auxiliary for when nature is totally unco-operative.

So how long before the incoming Chinese problems grow to resentment for other nations and the need for a common goal for the people to end the despair via improving their resources through war?

These guys wil be the first to get serious if it has 1.3 billion people in crippling times.

they will feel they will have no other option. Even though we donthave Oil, Australia will be one of the nations they would be keen to acquire due to our size, resources and minimal population and resistance (or so they think).

2010 will be a big year for the world, thank god Kevvie got in and can rattle off some cantonese and maybe delay the inevitable.

Geez Dave - love your work in Dave's ESL Cafe, but you've gone a bit over the top here, mate.

Given that this article was published a year ago and obviously written before that, (as in one place you tell us to watch out for something that will happen in November)what relevance has it got at all to-day?

Where's all the starving workers and the rioting citizenry? Why have car sales gone up in the past year to all-time highs so that demand exceeds production? And um..what about the drop in fuel prices that occurred in the interim?

And please! Yeah, the stampede that happened? Hell, you know perfectly well that the Chinese love of a bargain ensures that in any sale on anything it is unfortunate but true that people get trampled to death. Good god, I've seen people trampled (and narrowly escaped it myself) just to get on a bus. If there was a sale on artificial flowers or toothpicks the results would be the same.

As for the clever implication that desperation was lurking implicit in the statement about how violence had not yet occurred because police and army were on duty? C'mon! Tell me when did you last see a punch up or a blue or a serious barney in the streets here? While they wait they smoke, they play cards, they cackle into ubiquitous cell-phones,they sleep, they drink flasks of tea...they are not exactly a seething mass of restrained violence held in check only by the presence of their pretty laid-back police.

A year on from publication of this article and the Government has now stepped in to make housing more affordable, construction is booming, consumerism is spreading into many village economies which are cashing in on the tourist trade. And yes, sea routes are being increased, alternate fuels are being experimented with, and those guys in Shanghai who've come up with the fuel-less vehicle are hailed as heroes.

Do we live in the same country?

Whoa. Was my face red! I misread the date and apologise profusely.

However, all comments re Govt. subsidised housing schemes, the work in alternative fuel and transport strategies, the booming economy and the complete absence of violently dissatisfied citizenry still stand. I simply do not buy into the China-poised-on-the-brink hyperbole.

Romany, try reading http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070901faessay86503/elizabeth-c-economy/the-great-leap-backward.html and concluding that China isn't on the brink of something not too pleasant.
Which is not to say it will necessarily topple over said brink, but it seesms mighty close.

I do wonder whether it's fair to say current diesel shortages are entirely based on economics. Oil demand has grown far more rapidly than oil supply in the last 5-10 years, pushing up the price dramatically (even allowing that some of the price rise is due to geopolitical tensions and speculative trading). If geology wasn't an issue, then a) supply would have been ramped up to meet expected demand by now, b) we wouldn't be desperately trying to extract oil out of tar sands and deepwater deposits, and consequently oil would be much the same price it was 5 or 10 years ago, and China should easily be able to afford to refine and distribute as much diesel as it could conceiveably need.

Whether it is China or the U.S. that first really starts to feel the pain of skyrocketing oil prices and potential shortages is anybody's guess, but the consequences will be felt almost everywhere.