China down to 12 days of coal reserves!?

China down to 12 days of coal reserves!?

environment. newscientist.com

China's booming economy could be running out of steam – literally.

At the end of a cold and stormy winter, the country has just 12 days of coal reserves at most power stations. Some provinces, including Hebei, bordering Beijing, have less than a week's coal left. This is a record low, the state electricity regulatory commission revealed on Tuesday.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Wow just in time for the Olympics. Brownouts and Blackouts are expected in many provinces. I dont really see how they can get around this, especially with coal imports not even helping. Nuclear Reactors are an idea, but they take years to build.

How crazy. We have artificial rice shortages. Speculators completely messing up the commodities markets but not affecting silver and gold. Bird Flu outbreaks and other such insanity. I can't even imagine whats next.

environment. newscientist.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

here comes the boom

here comes the boom...

Originally posted by MikeboydUS

Nuclear Reactors are an idea, but they take years to build.

Well China definitely will be building some nuclear reactors. Sure, they will, indeed, take a number of years to build. But China seems to be trying to compensate for the lengthy construction times by building a lot of nuclear reactors....and I do mean "a lot".

Under plans already announced, China intends to spend $50 billion to build 32 nuclear plants by 2020. Some analysts say the country will build 300 more by the middle of the century. That's not much less than the generating power of all the nuclear plants in the world today. Source

I would like to see where they are getting this information from. I checked the International Energy Agency website but found no mention of the "12 day supply" I find it highly doubtful that china would put themselves into this boat. I do know they build coal plants like they are going out of style but, 12 days?

Also I am aware that china is the largest coal producer CHART

I do not think they have tapped their resources yet, not to say they are not on a fast track to doing so. Until I see the report with the numbers or at least see where the new scientist is getting their numbers I am going to stick with that assessment.

[edit on 113030p://444 by shizzle5150]

reply to post by shizzle5150


Other sources say that this is just a few days less than what they usually have (but still abnormal).

i.e., yes China uses coal for 70% of it's energy, but it doesn't keep more than a few weeks supply on hand at any given time.

reply to post by Sublime620


Can you point me to these other sources, I would like to give them a read and see who is saying that.

reply to post by shizzle5150



New Scientist is a pretty reliable new source, I can't imagine them publishing false info.

The story is being carried by major news organizations and spreading.
There's 44 articles of it on Google News.


I tried to post a link, but it did not work. Just go to google and type in Coal, 12 days and China.




[edit on 25/4/08 by MikeboydUS]

reply to post by shizzle5150


Google Search

News.com

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.

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.

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.

[edit on 25-4-2008 by Sublime620]

Originally posted by MikeboydUS
reply to post by shizzle5150

 

New Scientist is a pretty reliable new source, I can't imagine them publishing false info.

The story is being carried by major news organizations and spreading.
There's 44 articles of it on Google News.


I tried to post a link, but it did not work. Just go to google and type in Coal, 12 days and China.




[edit on 25/4/08 by MikeboydUS]

I am not saying that I find the new scientist unreliable. I read their pages quite regularly and they have some cool articles. I did the google search for "12 days of coal China" Most of what I found were just links back to the new scientist article. I am simply stating that it would shock the hell out of me to see china put themselves in this position and I would like to see where this information originated from. Thats all.

Ok, so news.com.au reported it citing Xinhua news agency as their source. A search on the Xinhua news site comes back without any mention. xinhua. I am not throwing rocks at anybody here just trying to find what started the story thats all. Thanks for the link sublime.

Here's official Chinese State Energy News.

www.sp-china.com...

China's coal production meets domestic demand
www.sp-china.com...

Power plants urged to invest in coal sector
www.sp-china.com...

They also seem to be connected to Xinhuanet

Don't believe anything China reports. It may an excuse to go searching for and seizing Coal somewhere else like Africa.

Originally posted by MikeboydUS
I can't even imagine whats next.

How about a USA presidential election.

(seriously, what better way to distract the populace but with cloak and dagger (terrorism and world calamity) distractions)

Where is Brittany when you need her.

reply to post by smirkley


We already have the good distractions. Alot of Americans don't really care about news or politics. They care about Dancing with the Stars and American Idol. The Gas Prices right now are about the only thing making Americans aware of the wider world that exists beyond their living rooms.
No one seems to really care or be aware about the oil prices, food crisis, bird flu and especially whether or not China has coal issues.

Maybe the US can sell them some coal. Can you transport enough of it that far though?

reply to post by BlackProjects



I dont know if we could send enough in enough time. I think their best bet is Russia. I'm wondering if the rest world is going to end up sending Coal Aid, just to make sure there arn't brownouts and blackouts in Beijing during the Olympics.

This is an interesting development. Unfortunately, I know that China will just quit giving their citizens electricity and keep the power flowing to the factories that produce all of the cheap junk we buy at walmart.

I work in the energy industry and kind of knew the story.

First it was about the coal inventory amount in power plants. The required level should be around three weeks. This three-week level inventory has been up and down in the past. However, in most time the level is slightly below three weeks.

Under some extreme situtations the level could be very low. For this time, the cold weather in winter time, therefore extra electricity demand, contribute partially the shortage. And in heavy snow disaster in January and February in many areas of China worsen the situation, when all traffic were halted.

This shortage is just a rare situation. After all, China is rich in coal and the output is the biggest in the world.

Let's pay more attention to the oil. The price is killing us.

[edit on 25-4-2008 by fuelcell]

for your information:

In the industrialized areas the power plants can not supply all the factories 24 hours 7 days a week. So you will see AT LEAST in the Pearl River Delta that the local government imposed mandaroty power outages to the factories. Currently in DongGuan it is 3 days a week without any electricity. Factories keep their main machines running with their own power generators, but this is only affordable to the medium-big sized factories. Effectively making the smaller factories less competitive and the costprice for medium-big sized factories much higher.

[edit on 25/4/08 by IchiNiSan]