Gary Miller

The Asian nation's oil demand is expected to grow this year by 800,000 barrels per day and represents more than one-third of the total growth in global demand, according to the Energy Information Agency.

In the United States, oil demand is projected to grow by 340,000 barrels per day this year and gasoline demand is projected to grow nearly two percent, averaging 9.3 million barrels per day for the summer.

The historical novelist has to consider what has actually happened, while the SF writer is dealing in possibilities, but they are both in the business of imagining a world unlike our own and yet connected to it.