You can barely move in Beijing without seeing at least one huge crane putting up yet another office tower or apartment block. I learned last week that the Chinese population has now reached 1.36 billion. To meet their needs the country is building around 2 billion m 2 a year. That uses about 50 % of the world's cement production.
All figures coming out of China are mind-blowing. While I was there last week the authorities reported that the economy is growing even faster than the last few months of 2006 – and that was more than 10%.
To (literally) fuel that growth, China is making huge investments in power plants. The country installs on average nearly 500 MW capacity every day, nearly all based on coal. Someone told me that it corresponds to putting 3 million new cars on the streets every day. China will soon become the world's biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, although emissions per capita will still be far lower than in OECD countries.
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