China faces coal shortage

[lovuian]

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=c854dc78f6fc779c

China faces coal shortage
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Big News Network.com Thursday 27th January, 2005 (UPI)

A coal shortage will rank as the worst of energy-related problems in China this year, the Asian giant's development commission reported Thursday.

China faces overall power shortages of coal, oil and electricity, among which coal shortage will rise to be the first concern, said Cao Yushu, deputy secretary-general of the commission. To balance the demand and supply of coal will be the major task for China's economic control in 2005.

China's coal production exceeded 1.9 billion tons during 2004, a 15 percent increase year-on-year, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

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You can tell China is on a collision course on Energy sources!!!

[Spinzonner]

1. Well, it's an opportunity to export a lot of US natural resources

and improve the balance of payments defecit,

if we don't mind lots of strip mining and its environmental consequences.

[spinbaby]

8. No joke

Here in SW Pennsylvania, coal mining is booming because China is buying so much. Especially the high-quality coal they use to make steel. Well, it's not like we need it with our huge steel industry.

[Old and In the Way]

2. I don't know why they don't push solar, wind, and nuclear energy

Seems they'd be pursuing these technologies given the escalating costs of oil, with the transportation costs/risks factored in. They'd be a whole hell of a lot further ahead then building their economy on imported oil.

[makhno]

3. They are pushing nuclear pretty heavily

A recent article in the Times mentioned that the government plans to build two nuclear plants a year between now and 2020. By 2020, the goal was to have something like 5% of the country's energy needs fulfilled by nuclear power, which is immense, especially considering the situation today.

I doubt the Chinese government is as short-sighted as ours in terms of energy policy and the overall strategic future of the country. Recent developments in relations with Latin America and Russia seem to point to the existence of a long-term strategic plan.

[NEOBuckeye]

4. As compared to ours, which pretty much seems to be "go for broke" on Oil

You know what the Bush regime has planned: Seize the Earth's last remaining cheap oil reserves at any cost. Never mind that the $500 billion we'll ultimately spend on this PNAC/NeoCon Iraq & Iran lunacy could have been far better spent investing in an alternative energy infrastructure, and restoring the nation's mass transit system for the days and years ahead when oil becomes prohibitively expensive, if not entirely unavailable.

Invading Iraq and Iran isn't about finding a long term solution to our energy problems. It's much more like a last gasp for air by an entrenched American capitalist regime whose days of unmatched global dominance via control of fossil fuel reserves are now quickly slipping away.

[Psephos]

6. So maybe we should follow the example of the Three Gorges Dam?

The Chinese are actually being quite ruthless in the quest for more electricity.

Without question, this is one of the greatest ecological traumas inflicted by humankind on a river system in the last half century. Not to mention the displacement of 1.9 million people, and the loss of irreplaceable cultural and archaeological sites.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Gorges_Dam

I'm not saying * and company have things figured out well either, just that the Chinese are hardly a good example of how to do things.

PS I wonder where they're going to dump the waste from those two nuclear plants they build every year for the next two decades.

[NEOBuckeye]

7. LOTS of things will be sacrificed in the coming years.

And a lot of rivers will look like good sites for hydro-electric dams, regardless of the ecological, social and cultural cost.

Though I don't particularly care much for it either, I really don't think the Chinese had much of a choice. And neither do we, if only we'd start acting like it.

[The_Casual_Observer]

5. The booming industrial economy in china will soon be restrained

by a lack of cheap raw materials and energy. The sooner the better. It is folly to believe that US industries could ever compete with Chinese slave labor.

[sweetheart]

9. Yet they export coal

I'm burning chinese coal to heat this house right now. It seems
that the economics of exporting are better than domestic consumption.

[dbt]

10. Famine Flashback!

Food was being shipped out of Ireland to England while people died eating grass in Connemara.

:freak:
dbt

[BiggJawn]

11. But they can afford 60 new 7E7 boeings....

I think they want to charge Chinese people more to heat their shacks.

[bleedingheart]

12. Wonder if they will end up leading the world in Solar Energy

wouldn't that be a hoot...if Red China ends up kicking our ass by developing new technologies to meet their needs?

just a thought...