00100	                    THE CHINESE CAN SO HAVE CARS

00200	
00300	                          by John McCarthy
00400	
00500	
00600		Pirages and Ehrlich declare it impossible  that  the  Chinese
00700	will ever achieve the same ratio of cars to people as the U.S. has at
00800	present. They also argue that since each American uses one twenty-two
00900	times  the  energy  per  capita,  raising  the  Chinese level two the
01000	American would double the environmental impact  of  humanity.    They
01100	don't  say  this  is  bad,  but  one  can  assume  they  consider  it
01200	unacceptable.
01300	
01400		It seems to me very likely that the Chinese  will  eventually
01500	achieve both the rate of automobile use and the rate of energy use of
01600	present day America and that this will be good for them and that  the
01700	side  effects  will not be harmful to themselves or anyone else.   On
01800	the level of detail of the Pirages and Ehrlich article, this  is  all
01900	that need be said; an unsupported opinion in an article needs only an
02000	unsupported opinion as a reply.  However,  Ehrlich  and  others  have
02100	given  more  details  elsewhere,  so  here  is a reply to some of the
02200	points they might have made.
02300	
02400		First, a substitute  for  gasoline  from  petroleum  must  be
02500	found; even present consumption rates cannot continue long.   Battery
02600	cars might work, but this is still not clear in spite of considerable
02700	development  effort.   Several  authors  have  proposed to use liquid
02800	hydrogen produced by electrolyzing water as a motor fuel.   It  works
02900	fine  even  in  present  engines,  but  it  promises  to  be somewhat
03000	dangerous to handle, perhaps more dangerous than gasoline.  I predict
03100	that  we  and the Chinese will accept the accidents rather than forgo
03200	personal transportation.  Of course, the electricity  for  extracting
03300	the  hydgrogen must be found, and this can come from breeder reactors
03400	for which the supply of raw materials will last for 1000 years.   (It
03500	would be insulting to the technological ability of our descendants to
03600	plan beyond that).  Operating these reactors will produce  local  hot
03700	spots in the water along the Chinese coast, but they will accept that
03800	price as will we.
03900	
04000		Consider mineral resources on which the U.S. now  spends  two
04100	percent  of  its  GNP.  We import high grade iron ore because this is
04200	cheaper than using lower grade ores, but when we have to, we can  use
04300	iron  at  its  5 percent abundance in the earth's crust; minerals may
04400	then cost 4 perecent of our GNP.  Copper may become genuinely  short.
04500	If  it  were  as  expensive as gold, we would substitute aluminum for
04600	almost all its uses.   The worst consequence of this  would  be  that
04700	electric  motors  and  transformers  would  be bulkier since aluminum
04800	conducts electricity worse than copper.   Before  that,  however,  we
04900	will  mine  AT&T's  underground  cables and replace them by aluminum.
05000	There are many more resource problems than  this,  and  many  of  the
05100	solutions  are  not  well understood, but the arguments that they are
05200	unsolvable are unconvincing, and how to solve  the  problems  of  the
05300	next hundred years is much better understood than the problems of the
05400	last hundred years were understood a hundred years ago. Incidentally,
05500	the   cartoon  that  accompanied  the  article  showing  the  Chinese
05600	landscape totally covered with cars was fraudulent; when the  Chinese
05700	have as many cars per capita as the United States, they will have 120
05800	cars per square mile which is half the present  car  density  of  New
05900	Jersey.
06000	
06100		The  question of whether the Chinese can eventually have cars
06200	is only a particular case of the  general  question  of  whether  the
06300	world  can support its future population at a high standard of living
06400	even granted that the population can be stabilized at a few times its
06500	present  level.    The conventional view until recently was that even
06600	several times the present population can have at  least  the  present
06700	U.S.  standard of living.  After considerable study of statistics and
06800	technology, I have remained convinced that the conventional  view  is
06900	right  and  that slow development of the poor countries is one of our
07000	main problems.  Another is the timely development of a substitute for
07100	petroleum   as   a   vehicle   fuel.   There  are  several  plausible
07200	alternatives but not enough well supported projects.
07300	
07400		On the other hand, if the increasingly  popular  gloomy  view
07500	that  Ehrlich  proposes  is correct, then the main problem is sharing
07600	and not development.  In that case, it should be pointed out that the
07700	main  resource  of  which  the  U.S.  has more than its share is good
07800	agricultural land, and the quickest way to share  that  would  be  to
07900	repeal the U.S. laws restricting immigration.  In my opinion, if this
08000	were done, the world standard of living would rise  sharply,  because
08100	the  American  people  would  really  have to scramble to prevent our
08200	standard of living from decreasing.  In the end, it would be good for
08300	us.