China Increases Imports Of Australian Coal By 51% In 2006 -

[hatrack]

China’s appetite for Australian coal is in the news again. Let’s put China’s coal needs in perspective, or at least in numbers. China bought $491 million worth of Aussie coal last year, a 51 per cent increase from the year before. It also bought $3.8 billion worth of iron ore. That was a 100% increase from the year before.

“According to forecasts by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics, from to 2001 to 2050 China will more than quadruple the amount of power it produces from coal-fired stations-surpassing the United States as the world’s biggest generator of coal-based energy,” reports today’s Australian Financial Review.

This is bad news for the air, inasmuch as Chinese coal-fired plants are not “clean.” China has been happy to trade growth for dirty air, using the advantage of lower energy costs for its factories to keep its manufactured goods cheap on global markets. It has also managed to rack up large export surpluses, nearly keeping up with oil exporters, as this chart shows.

There’s nothing new here in terms of the economic growth model. It’s a trade that Britain, America, and Australia were also happy to make to build domestic industry. Eventually, workers get wealthier and become voters. Wealthier voters decide that rising standards of living are no good if you don’t have a long, clean-breathing life to enjoy them. And in any event, energy tended to get cheaper as it got more efficient in Japan, Britain, America, and Australia.

EDIT

http://www.dailyreckoning.com.au/china-aussie-coal/2007/01/16/

[Deja Q]

1. Does anybody think China, US corporate interests, or anybody else

will bother making the plants 'clean' with filters and other means?
:(