| Submit your comments on this article |
| China-Japan-Koreas |
| China down to 12 days worth of coal |
| 2008-04-24 |
| CHINA only has enough coal for 12 days of consumption, three days less than a month ago, state media reported Wednesday, sounding the alarm bells over the nation's most important source of energy. Do Tibet, Taiwan, or Zimbabwe have coal? In certain parts of China, such as densely populated Hebei province in the north, reserves are down to less than a week, Xinhua news agency reported, citing the China Electricity Regulatory Commission. In the period since early March, coal reserves have slumped by 12 per cent to 46.7 million tonnes, according to the commission. Reasons for the shortage were "multi-dimensional," the commission was quoted as saying, without elaborating. Demand for coal has risen rapidly since China experienced brown-outs early this decade, motivating a construction frenzy in the power industry, with large numbers of new coal-fired plants emerging across the country. No wonder they don't give a rip about the environment or the locals when they mine coal. China counts on coal for about 70 per cent of its energy consumption, a proportion that has stayed almost unchanged for the past nearly three decades despite a skyrocketing rise in demand for power. |
| Posted by:gorb |
| #16 You can have another laugh on me FOTSGreg, The Chi-Coms treated our Fathers and Grand Fathers worse than you would treat animals for market. I'm not disputing their lovely long culture, but be sure to include that in China's fucking exalted history they have been particularly brutal to the Chinese themselves, and World Class sadistic to their captives. |
| Posted by: RD 2008-04-24 22:38 |
| #15 Oddly enough Zimbabwe has huge coal deposits, and is short too http://www.namibian.com.na/2006/September/africa/064BAD2916.html |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2008-04-24 21:30 |
| #14 #8 liberalhawk, a bit of background on Chinese exports here The socialist government of NSW aren't helping much by dragging their feet on the expansion of Newcastle port facilities (the largest coal exporting port in the world) There is presently a 28 day queue, but as the price of coal is skyrocketing, no one seems worried, except the Chinese of course. |
| Posted by: tipper 2008-04-24 18:29 |
| #13 somehow i can't find thaT TEAR FOR THEM FUCK EM IN OTHER WRODS |
| Posted by: sinse 2008-04-24 18:20 |
| #12 Every time I hear somebody disparage China and suggest we allow them to descend back to the stone age from whence they came I laugh in their general direction. China's one of the oldest civilized cultures on the planet. We only think badly about them because they act badly - like today when it was announced that there are hundreds or thousands of Chinese spies conducting industrial espionage against US industries (known that for 4 years, ever since I started working at LBNL) - or when their government does something stupid or communistic (like suppressing discent in Tibet or sending special police to escort the Olympic flag). China's culture and history is thousands of years old. The Maoists have, and continue, to try to suppress Chinese culture and history and in doing so, act badly upon the world stage. But they're not America. That is no reason to disrespect the Chinese people and no reason to want to see them descend into the stone age. It's in our best interest to respect China and its people and culture because, right now, they stand on the brink of being a world superpower. We must not become so arrogant in our own strength that we come to disrespect others. We can actively dislike their government and their government's plans against the USA, but we should seek to lift the Chinese people up out of their servitude to the Maoists and to help them in any way we can without endangering our own freedoms. |
| Posted by: FOTSGreg 2008-04-24 18:09 |
| #11 The Chinese government's energy and food subsidies are probably unsustainable. One consequence is inflation. The government will wait until after the Olympics to do something about the problem, becuase of the risk of social disruption when subsidies are reduced. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2008-04-24 17:08 |
| #10 The [PRC] government in January froze electricity prices to prevent rising coal costs from flowing through to end users and contributing to inflation Must be nice living in a workers paradise with the government there to protect you from high prices. Gosh, I wish our government could do something like that for gasoline. |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2008-04-24 16:42 |
| #9 let em build another 3 gorges dam. they are going to need it if the predictions of 3G#1 coming apart are realized for power production, and if it doesn't collapse, then there is a new source of electricity. too bad. |
| Posted by: USN,Ret. 2008-04-24 14:47 |
| #8 IIUC China in recent years has exported coal, but as their own demand has increased theyve stopped exports. Tipper says theyve temporarily increased exports to take advantage of the spot market, I wouldnt know. The main reason US coal would be costly is the shipping cost, coal being very heavy and bulky relative to value. Historically the US mainly exports metalurgical coal - high quality coal used in steel making - our steam coal (coal used to generate electricity) is used at home. From time to time utilities on the gulf coast have imported coal from Colombia, SOuth Am, but thats mainly due to their unique transport position (long rail haul from US coal fields, versus not to long water shipment from South Am). |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2008-04-24 13:53 |
| #7 There is no shortage of coal in China. The world spot price is higher than the local price, so they are trying to do a juggling act, supply local demand and take advantage of the higher spot prices. If the situation gets out of hand, especially leading up to the Olympics, the central govt may impose export restrictions. |
| Posted by: tipper 2008-04-24 11:46 |
| #6 Wouldn't US coal cost a lot more than the Chinese stuff? After all, we have some rules about pay levels and safety and worker death ratios and all. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2008-04-24 11:27 |
| #5 More info from Xinhua (caveat emptor) via the China Daily : The [PRC] government in January froze electricity prices to prevent rising coal costs from flowing through to end users and contributing to inflation. "We need to comprehensively consider the situation before adjusting power prices, to take into account the affordability to both consumers and producers," Wang said. Lifting electricity prices would push up the consumer price index, which was already running high, he said. China produced 569.3 million tons of coal in the first quarter this year up 14.6 percent year on year, according to the Beijing-based China Mainland Marketing Research Co. The winter storms earlier this year disrupted power supplies, prompting the country's power grid companies to lift spending on repairing and upgrading their transmission lines. Rocketing domestic demand for coal, fueled by such energy-intensive industries as iron and steel, and chemical engineering pushed up prices. The national crackdown on illegal coal mines as well as transportation bottlenecks also contributed to the rise. The country became a net coal importer in the first quarter last year, as the government scrapped the tariff rebates for exports as well as the duties on imports in 2006, in a bid to meet domestic demand. Plagued by the rising costs, 70 percent of power plants had suffered heavy losses, said Liu Nanchang, an official with the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission on April 11. Decades of central planning and industrial scale corruption will do things like that. Now the PRC is "officialy" announcing a "shortfall" of 10 Gw for the year. Uh huh. When Commies announce failure, adjust the stated number by an order of magnitude. I hope they don't have fires, plagues, and drought this year - they'd have to start a war or something - for the pain. |
| Posted by: mrp 2008-04-24 11:17 |
| #4 Well, if they only respected mother Gaia and lived in harmony with nature... Hey, why aren't there any IPODs available? Damnit now I'm mad! /liberalgreen |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2008-04-24 11:05 |
| #3 let 'em eat dirt and return to the stone age from whence they came |
| Posted by: Kublia Kahn 2008-04-24 10:06 |
| #2 I expect al-Gor to offer scathing criticism of ChiCom coal power any day now. |
| Posted by: Excalibur 2008-04-24 09:31 |
| #1 All those ships dropping off commodities at our ports for Wally's Mart et al can pick up a load of coal at the same time for their return trip. So what's the problem? I'm sure there's a cost benefit cross over when the Chinese reserves run really low, since the central government has been hording dollars. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2008-04-24 08:53 |