Grand Transitions: How the Modern World Was Made

by Vaclav Smil

And what has China done recently? In order to bring a modicum of prosperity to its nearly 1.4 billion people, in the 25 years between 1990 and 2015 China had increased its consumption of total energy more than fourfold; and of cement and steel, the two infrastructural foundations of modernity, 12-fold; and it now accounts for about 50% of worldwide output of steel and nearly 60% of cement production. Even just to extend China-like improvements to nearly half of the world’s existing population (more than 3.5 billion people in 2020), whose level of economic development remains a fraction of the current Chinese level, would entail efforts that would require at least twice as much energy and material inputs as China consumes now.