China fuels demand for fuel

Washington Post:

Nodding his head to the disco music blaring out of his car's nine speakers, Zhang Linsen swings the shiny, black Hummer H2 out of his company's gates and on to the spacious four-lane road.

Running a hand over his closely shaved head, Zhang scans the expanse of high-end suburban offices and villas that a decade ago was just another patch of farmland outside of Shanghai. To his left is a royal blue sedan with a couple and a baby, in front of him a lone young woman being chauffeured in a van.

"In China, size matters," says Zhang, the 44-year-old founder of a media and graphic design company. "People want to have a car that shows off their status in society. No one wants to buy small."

Zhang grasps the wheels of his Hummer, called "hanma" or "fierce horse" in Chinese, and hits the accelerator.

Car ownership in China is exploding, and it's not only cars but also sport-utility vehicles, pickup trucks and other gas-guzzling rides. Elsewhere in the world, the popularity of these vehicles has tumbled as the cost of oil has soared. But in China, the number of SUVs sold rose 43 percent in May compared with the previous year, and full-size sedans were up 15 percent. Indeed, China's demand for gas is much of the reason for the dramatic run-up in global oil prices.

China alone accounts for about 40 percent of the world's recent increase in demand for oil, burning through twice as much now as it did a decade ago. Fifteen years ago, there were almost no private cars in the country. By the end of last year, the number had reached 15.2 million.

There are now more Buicks -- the venerable, boat-like American luxury car of years past -- sold in China than in the United States. Demand for Hummers has been so strong that starting this year, Chinese consumers can buy a similar military-style vehicle called the Predator at more than 25 new dealerships.

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The United States is the world's single largest consumer of oil, burning through more than 20 million barrels per day last year. This year, U.S. usage is on track to decline the most in 25 years, the result of high fuel prices and a sluggish economy. Still, about one of every eight barrels of oil produced worldwide ultimately ends up in the fuel tank of an American car or truck.

Demand in many developing countries, in the meantime, is accelerating because of the spread of middle-class lifestyles and populist policies that subsidize fuel to keep it cheap.

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Who knew that it wasn't evil speculators driving up the cost of fuel? Democrats must have been misleading us on that among other things. What the story points out is that their insistence on conservation to control the cost of fuel will not work. It also points out the importance of finding and exploiting all domestic resources for energy.