Part II: China's Coal Future

Comments

• I am ... giffut on 01/05/2007 at 3:02 AM

  Posts: 1

  ... somehow disturbed, as you didn´t mention at all the enormous and hazardous underground cole fires burning in many places in China,  destroying gigantic masses of Chinas coal resources which no longer can be mined, produce huge wastelands and unbelievable toxic polution already many chinese people are suffering from - as large cities are always nearby. Those fires are mostly created by man himself, due to corruption and extreme misorganisation on behalf of the mining corporations, illegal mining because of poverty asf. China couldn´t possibly run efficient plants for this method. Those coal fires can´t be stopped right now and are delivering around 3% of worldwide carbondioxide pollution, maybe even more, as exact figures are hard to come by. This is a disaster and already happening. http://www.gi.alaska.edu/~prakash/coalfires/causes_hazards.html Rate this comment: (Reply)

  • VERY disturbing Ecowriter on 01/06/2007 at 1:50 AM

    Posts: 7 Avg Rating:

    The thought that 1.5 billion people are going to be increasingly dependent on such a dirty source of energy is quite disturbing.  ANYTHING times 1.5 billion is a huge number, and the additional pollution could totally negate all the work done in the past five years to reduce carbon. We really need to do whatever is necessary to HELP China to use alternative, clean energy sources, not poison the world with the same stuff that already poisoned places such as early industrial England and America. Lisa Hart Rate this comment: (Reply)

    • Re: VERY disturbing kailangyu on 01/06/2007 at 2:03 PM

      Posts: 1

      I wonder how it is that we can help?  It doesn't seem like there is technology that we can transfer since the problem seems to be incentive based not technology based.  Scary as it may seem, the best hope may be for China to develop quickly, at the cost of producing massive amount of pollution if need be, to a level where more of its people can demand and afford clean technologies. AY Rate this comment: (Reply)

      • 	Re: VERY disturbing BandOfGypsies on 01/11/2007 at 1:58 PM
        Posts: 2	It kills me that environmental concerns -- in the wake of global warming and EXTREMELY polluted air -- isn't enough of an incentive to get the US or China to pass and enforce the necessary regulations to stem the greenhouse gas emissions and switch the power systems over... Rate this comment: (Reply)

    • Re: VERY disturbing lawrenceindyk on 01/18/2007 at 10:39 AM

      Posts: 1

      It's worth seeing China's per capita energy consumption in comparison to the countries it is seeking to match.  Here is how much electricity consumed (in Megawatt-Hours per person per year) for various countries: Canada: 18.2 US:     14.1 France: 9.4 Japan:  8.9 UK:     6.6 Mexico: 2.2 China:  1.7 India:  0.6 Most Development agencies think 5 is a valid long term target for emerging economies and China and India have both expressed interest in getting there eventually.  If just China and India were to do that, it would require raising total global electricity generation by 55%. So far, both these countries are fueling their expanding generation capacity primarily (over 75%) on coal.  India has begun constructing the world's biggest coal-fired plant in Orissa state at 10 Gigawatts which will consume about a ton a second. China will do that 20 times over in short order. Its 11th 5 year plan calls for an increase of 200 GW by 2012 (which in total would then equal US consumption) and again, almost all the increase through giant conventional coal plants. I think it is unrealistic to expect these still very poor countries to do anything but expand their energy consumption as quickly and cheaply as possible (which unfortunately means in a dirtiert way than we might like) and even massive changes in first-world emissions and technology (itself somewhat unlikely) simply cannot even begin to compensate for this Asian growth.  Call me a pessimist but it's hard for me to see how the war on CO2 isn't lost unless some miracle occurs. Rate this comment: (Reply)

      • Re: VERY disturbing pjduncan on 03/06/2007 at 7:18 PM

        Posts: 3 Avg Rating:

        Those certainly are some sobering numbers and I can understand why many people are rather pessimistic regarding meaningful change in the time-frame necessary. It would seem that it is up to men of reason and science to come up with convincing arguments that clearly demonstrate that the likely economic costs in the mid and long term of not acting far outweigh the economic gains in the short term.  Then it is up to the politicians to find the courage to be leaders, and develop the popular support necessary to prevail in the face of entrenched financial interests opposing change. Gee... now I've just convinced myself there is little hope. Rate this comment: (Reply)