Weekly Letter from the ASPO …

                   Weekly Letter from the ASPO
                   President Kjell Aleklett
                   Week 43, October 22-28

What an exciting week in China. It all started with a two day meeting with John Liu and
discussions about the Loess Plateau Watershed Rehabilitation Project
(http://www.earthshope.org/). One of my students was in China during the summer to
make an energy systems study of this successful project. One interesting finding is that it
looks as though there are large fossil fuel requirements at the early stages of the project
but by the end of the project the use of fossil fuel will decline. On a bigger scale one can
say that some of the remaining fossil fuels will be needed for the global transformation to
a sustainable future.

On October 26 China University of Petroleum in Beijing (CUPB) organized a workshop
about Peak Oil. The host of the workshop was the Chancellor of CUPB, professor Jiang
Qingzhe. Experts invited from outside of the university were:

Zeng Xingqiu, Former Chief Geologist of Sinochem,
Chen Yuanqian, Professor, Research Institute Petroleum Exploration and Development,
CNPC
Yan Lin, Professor, Chinese Academy of Social Science,
Yu Chunlin, Vice Director of Strategy Office, China Energy Office
Jiang Xingmin, Institute of Energy Research, National Development and Reform
Commission of China
Zhao Oingfei, Senior Engineer , Petroleum Research Institute of Sinopec
Pang Xiongqi, Vice President of CUPB, and 8 more professors from CUPB.
and other representatives from these organizations.

Werner Zittel should have been present, but unfortunately his flight was delayed.

I gave an introductory Peak Oil seminar for one hour with a simultaneous translation to
Chinese. Professor Pang gave his Cork seminar in Chinese, and we then had a discussion
about peak oil open to everyone who attended the seminar.

The seminar participants concluded that they all agreed that Peak Oil is real threat, that
there are differing opinions on its timing, but the timing is so close that action is needed
in the here and now. At the end of the meeting Professor Pang announced that ASPO
China had been formed and that the Chancellor of CUPB, professor Jiang Qingzhe, will
be president of ASPO China. Professor Pang will be Vice President and Professor Feng
the secretary. Professor Jiang Qingzhe thanked everyone participating in the workshop
and added that the government of China must formally approve ASPO China. With a
number of individuals at the seminar representing the government I think that there will
be no problems in attaining this approval.
On the 27th October the "2nd International Forum on China's Energy Strategy" was
organized by the "China's Energy Strategy Research Center" at CUPB. Officials and
experts from China were given seminars in Chinese whilst we international guests were
given seminars in English. Unfortunately the program is not available on the web and it
would take a long time to summarize. Suffice to say awareness of the issue of Peak Oil in
China is moving rather fast and it is time for the rest of the world to wake up.

Beijing, China, October 28, 2007




Kjell Aleklett
aleklett@tsl.uu.se
Phone: +46 70 4250604

My fall agenda can be found at: www.peakoil.net