Introduction

Only a few years ago Chinese government leaders were optimistic that their country could quadruple its GDP between 2000 and 2020 while only doubling energy consumption. For any other developing country this would be considered an unrealistic goal, as energy consumption during development tends to grow as fast as or even faster than GDP. Yet, China had quadrupled GDP while only doubling energy use from 1980 through 2000, so government officials reasoned they could do it again. However, China is already off track in meeting its 2000-2020 energy consumption goals, and the country is ...