What's Next?

From the "it was only a matter of time file"...

The International Energy Agency (EIA, no those initials are not backwards just French...so maybe the same thing?) reported yesterday that China had surpassed the United States as the world's largest energy user. China put away 2,252 million tons of oil equivalent last year compared to 2,170 for the US. The oil-equivalent metric represents all forms of energy consumed, including crude oil, nuclear, coal, natural gas and renewable sources such as hydropower.

Given China's population size I suppose it was only a matter of time, but the urgency with which it happened is shocking. Ten years ago, China's energy consumption was half that of the US. Whoa.

If you're looking for an energy category we still lead, fret not there are still a few. According to the same report by the EIA the average American uses five times as much energy annually compared to the average Chinese citizen. We also annihilate an impressive 19 million gallons of crude a day compared to 9.2 million in China. At TCD we definitely do not look forward to the day when China surpasses us in that final statistic because it's the same day we will have to cash out of the blogging biz, call up Branson, and have him take us on his space ship to the next inhabitable planet.