Two Trends for 2011: Declining Saudi Oil Production and China’s Aging Population

2011  – 2050 trends for the New Year affecting two competitors in a dangerous world: Saudi Arabia and China. Good news if we take charge of the situation; not so much if we wait, deer-in-the-headlights, in the mode of the current administration.

This may be disappointing news for our governing class that is eagerly planning to manage America’s decline, based on their straight-line extrapolation of today’s data into the future; but guardedly encouraging for the rest of us.

Saudi oil declines: Peak Oil from easy-to-get sources has, well, peaked.   Worst hit: the Saudis and other Middle East royals, who see now a declining future and are moving assets directly and through sovereign wealth funds into U.S., European and Latin American real estate, banks and blue chip stocks .  Benefiting: other producers with untapped oil and gas fields, producers working to get oil out of shale in Canada and the U.S., and alternative energy sources that couldn’t find private investors when the price of gas stayed under $4-$5.   Graphs showing the downward slope of Middle East oil in an  overview of various studies here and  here.  Hard on the global economy in the near term, yes, because demand is a near vertical line trending up, but with about 3 decades to adapt, this also encourages non-Middle Eastern energy development (coal, nuclear, domestic and shale oil, gas, methanol, cellulosic, biodiesel) by other nations and businesses who coincidentally AREN’T dedicated to using their energy wealth to  impose a global caliphate.  Even better: the transition can start in the 112th Congress with a new energy policy, reversing  the Obama administration’s limits on oil drilling and their nationalization of thousands of acres of land to prevent energy exploration.   The estimates of oil reserves are notoriously gamed (in both directions) but the expert consensus gives the Middle East one more – declining – generation, and then a sharp reduction after 2030.

China’s Population Disappears: The Stanford Longevity Project indicates an average 0.28% decline in Chinese population between now and mid-century.  China Daily captures it here as the “4-2-1″ problem – 4 grandparents, 2 parents, 1 grandchild.  By mid-century, China will have more than 400 million people aged 65 and older and more than 100 million aged 80 and older, with a declining overall population (Russian population declines even faster but becomes more Muslim).  By mid-century that’s estimated to be 1.6 working person for every aged retiree.  By 2050, over 30% of China will be over 60.  Implications?  Given an aging population worldwide, granted, we’ll all be redefining what we can do at 60 and older.  But China’s ability to field armies and build weapons will be limited.  And at least according to Stanford, at the same time China and Russia are shrinking, the U.S., Canada, India,  and even the UK grow.  The risks: without the manpower for conventional warfare or to keep factories churning out goods to bring in cash, a diminished China will be more likely to employ asymmetric means of warfare, either through cyberwar or other “unrestricted warfare” (Part 1 and Part 2).

Well, nothing’s easy.

But if we repair our economy, develop our energy resources, protect our borders, build a stronger national defense, keep having babies and encourage legal immigration from cultures NOT dedicated to the eradication of the Constitution, we might just make it out of the century in good shape.  Seem like reasonable goals for the next couple decades.