China's Coal Production & Consumption - Chilling Post From TOD

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Coal production and consumption are in balance

In light of press stories describing rapid growth in Chinese coal imports, I was both surprised and puzzled when I plotted the Chinese coal production and consumption data and saw that these have always been roughly in balance (Figure 3). I sent the chart around the TOD email list and copied to Professor Dave Rutledge at Cal Tech. It was DaveR who came up with a possible explanation. DaveR pointed out that in countries like the UK, coal stock piles equivalent to roughly 4 months consumption are maintained. If China does similar then stock piles will be around one third of 3 Gt equal to 1 Gt. With consumption growing at 12% in 2009, stock pile growth would need to be around 120 Mt to maintain the 4 month buffer. China People's Daily reported that Chinese net coal imports were 104 Mt in 2009 - barely sufficient to maintain stock pile growth.

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Should China ever fail to match coal consumption with indigenous production then 1 of 3 things may happen. The first option is that consumption is pegged back to match stalled production and this would stall Chinese economic growth with knock on effects to the global economy. The second option is that China tries to meet any shortfall buying coal on the international market. As already pointed out China is such a huge consumer of coal this would create great competition in the international market for limited supplies leading to severe upwards pressure on coal prices. The third option is that China somehow manages to install sufficient nuclear capacity to plug any energy gap.

The People's Daily reports a doubling of Chinese coal imports for the first 5 months of 2010 and upwards pressure on coal prices and it therefore looks like option 2 may be under way. Should Chinese coal imports double this year and next then China will be competing for about 50% of the coal on the world market and that may be like a wrecking ball going through the global economy that is founded on abundant and cheap supplies of energy.

Reserves and peak production

Finally a note on reserves. BP report China to have 114.5 Gt of coal reserves. BP in fact report coal reserves figures from the World Energy Council and the figure of 114.5 Gt has been reported every year since 1992. Thus we have the same unsatisfactory non-varying reserves reporting for Chinese coal that exists for Middle East OPEC crude oil reserves. Since 1992 China has produced 31 Gt of coal and the reserves should be reduced by that amount leaving 83.5 Gt reserves as of end 2009.

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http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/6700#more

all that coal use represents, from air you can cut with a knife in the northern cities in winter to the unseen mercury and other heavy metals that are affecting everyone to the toxic ash left behind.

They're pouring money into renewable energy research and will leave our own country in the dust if we don't wake the hell up.

For the time being, their industrial revolution is having disastrous consequences.

We knew they were building coal fired boilers as fast as they could.

> coal reserves figures from the World Energy Council and the figure of 114.5 Gt
> has been reported every year since 1992. Thus we have the same unsatisfactory
> non-varying reserves reporting for Chinese coal that exists for Middle East
> OPEC crude oil reserves. Since 1992 China has produced 31 Gt of coal and the
> reserves should be reduced by that amount leaving 83.5 Gt reserves as of end 2009.

"Don't worry about finite resources, that's an old-fashioned, Malthusian approach.
We believe in infinite growth instead!"
:crazy:

They maybe building a coal plant just about each week, but they still need coal to burn in them.

Many of the interior areas have been having brownouts and or blackouts.

Just because their demand is going up, doesn't mean they can meet it.

It reminds me of something, Peak something, I can't quite put my finger on it. ;)