BBC oil and gas and coal will run out in 5 yrs

[Jace]

Regarding the Chinese and their cars - when I first visited China in the late nineties, private cars made up less than 10% of all vehicles on the roads. Over the past decade of so that I've been living here, the figure has been steadily increasing, with many families now getting to the point of wanting two cars. However, grid lock, smog and lack of parking have got so bad that many cities are now restricting access to license plates. In Shanghai they auction the plates, with them going for tens or even hundreds of thousands of pounds.

This is only the big city though. In the smaller cities and countryside you don't see so many cars, however I'm sure that they will take off pretty quickly, just as you now see peasants in from the boonies with smart phones, whereas a few years back they wouldn't have any mobile phone at all.

If India ever sees the growth that China has been having (poverty levels have been substantially lowered in a couple of decades), I imagine that the price of oil will skyrocket. Then again, when the oil price skyrockets, more money can be made and then pumped into exploration and development, thereby meaning that more can be provided.