News bits: Authoritarianism and fertility rate; Global warming cost watch; Electric battery improvement

A WaPo commentary by several staff writers about the economic slowdown in China raises some interesting insights. A fertility rate of about 2.1 children per woman is requires to maintain a stable population. Sebastian Mallaby writes:

Demographics are destiny

The deep cause of China’s economic slowdown — and the strongest reason to believe it will be lasting — is its demographic collapse. Last year, the country’s population fell for the first time since 1961, a landmark that had not been expected until 2029 or later. .... The United Nations projects that the country’s head count will plummet from today’s 1.4 billion to below 800 million by century’s end. You have to go back to the plagues and famines of the late medieval period to find a loss of population so severe.

China is following the pattern of other high-saving, high-investment economies in Northeast Asia. Economic systems that suppress consumption and living standards eventually face a comeuppance: They create legions of stressed young couples who don’t want to make babies. Accordingly, China is one of the world’s most expensive places to raise a family, a fact that has driven fertility down to an all-time low of 1.2 children per woman.

China’s rock-bottom fertility also reflects distinctly Chinese characteristics — specifically, the authoritarianism of the Communist Party. Because of selective abortion and neglect of baby girls, China has about 30 million fewer females than males. And because China experiences steady net outward migration, it cannot fix its problem by attracting foreigners. Mobile and aspirational people tend to shun aggressively authoritarian regimes.

Thoughts that (i) young couples are burned out and don't want to make babies, and (ii) immigrants don't like dictatorship strongly suggest that China's dictators face problems they cannot fix. To stay in power, another writer suggests that the dictators can play the nationalism card and attack Taiwan. 

Until now the deal was that the Chinese people gave up their freedoms and meaningful political participation in return for an increasing standard of living. After decades of delivering on the deal, the dictator's imposed quid pro quo is now failing. That raises pressure on the dictators to deliver something. Taiwan is something.

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Articles discussing various effects of global warming are increasingly popping up. Paying some attention to a topic like the costs of global warming make sense to keep this developing story in context. The NYT writes:

Grab-N-Go, a drive-through and walk-up convenience store in New Iberia, La., has a central air-conditioning system, a window air-conditioning unit and two small, portable air-conditioners. On a recent afternoon, all of them were running. Cool air swirled through the devil-red metal box of a building.

Still, Don Vitto, the shopkeeper, was sweating anyway.

“It’s a sticky, heavy heat,” Mr. Vitto said, disgust dripping from every drawn out syllable. “You can feel it in your breathing — I know I can. I can feel the thickness in the air.”

The air has felt swampier and more suffocating. Yet, confoundingly, as moist as the air has been, a scarcity of rain and clouds has made the sun all the more blistering, leaving the earth as dry and cracked as peanut brittle.

But what has made recent months so punishing is the relentlessness of it all, as the conditions have dragged on for days on end and the volume of excessive heat warnings has broken records.

“It’s been an incredibly aggressive summer,” said Barry D. Keim, Louisiana’s state climatologist. “We normally have spells like this most summers. But this summer has been very, very persistent. The breaks are the fleeting moments, and it’s been oppressive most of the time.”

For fairness, the standard global warming denier response: This isn't caused by global warming. It's just weather. Global warming is a socialist, communist hoax. Next year will be different, just like all the other years.

Now that that propaganda is out of the way, one can rationally to consider the misery of high heat that global warming causes. Heat is starting to kill people who have to work outdoors without air conditioning. It's a quality of life thing. At worst, global warming causes the quality of life to decrease so much that it literally kills some people. That is a fact, not an opinion.

Of course global warming deniers, especially ones who mostly live and work in air conditioned workplaces will argue that you cannot put an economic value on quality of life, and therefore there is no economic value to be had. That is false. Value can be and is being assigned as the damage becomes measurable. 

An experiment I would love to do is this: Force those air-conditioned blowhards in high heat areas to live and work for 1 month in July or August without air conditioning. Then poll them to see if they still believe there is no economic damage from global warming, and instead we are merely experiencing weather. Even thought they will still deny it, they will be forced to know that global warming imposes economic costs. 

What a wonderful experiment.

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The Independent newspaper reports about one of those too good to be true electric battery things:

World’s first ‘superfast’ battery offers 400km range from 10 mins charge

Tesla, Toyota and VW supplier CATL says production will begin in 2023

The world’s largest battery maker has launched what it claims is the first ever “superfast charging” battery capable of delivering 400 kilometres (249 miles) of range from just a 10 minute charge.

China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Limited (CATL) said its new lithium-ion battery would open up a new era for electric cars and eliminate range anxiety for owners.

On a full charge, the battery holds enough charge to travel over 700 km (435 miles) without needing to recharge – roughly 60 per cent further than the average electric vehicle in 2023.

What makes this seem like it is for real is the fact that CATL says that commercial scale production will start in 2023. For those who are unaware of it, 2023 is not very far off in the future. Actually, the end of 2023 is not very far off in the future, i.e., the manufacturing plant has to be close to completed and ready for production. Maybe this is for real, ~85% chance according to my minions.

If this is for real, it will revolutionize the way people think about electric cars. The next barrier is getting enough lithium to meet skyrocketing consumer demand.

In 2022, ~14% of new car sales were all electric (~10%) or hybrid

For 2023, electric/hybrid car sales are expected to hit ~18%