Energy / Coal

• China to Invest in Coal Gasification - with GEs help

  First, the bad news for China’s economic miracle.According to a quarterly report issued last month by China’s China Electricity Council (CEC), some parts of China will experience severe blackouts this summer as the result of an electricity shortage of 30-40 million kilowatt hours. The CEC warned, "The shortage will hit about 30 million kilowatt hours during summer peak days and may expand to 40 million kilowatt hours if heat waves persist," with China's more developed eastern and southern regions bearing the brunt of the shortages. Aside from soaring demand is an unwillingness on the part of China to abandon its…

• Nuclear Plants in Germany Sit Idle as Coal use Grows by 13.5%

  Coal use will rise an estimated 13.5 percent in Germany this year, resulting in at least 14 million metric tons of additional carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, even as the nation continues to idle two-fifths of its nuclear power fleet.The major reduction in European energy demand and industrial output caused by the global recession has led CO2 emissions to slide faster than the emissions reductions mandated by either the Emissions Trading Scheme or the EU's commitments under the Kyoto Protocol. Yet instead of accelerating emissions cuts, the ironic economics of the carbon trading system have justified a return to coal in…

• India's Traditional Power Sources on Razor Edge of Supply

  The biggest economic story of the 21st century has been the dramatic emergence in the last decade of the “BRICs” – Brazil, Russia, India and China.Their dramatic emergence onto the world’s global economic stage has produced a middle class in all BRIC countries, whose growing clout wants reliable 24/7 power. The Russian Federation is awash in oil and natural gas, Brazil after the 1973 oil embargo developed ethanol alternatives and last year became an oil exporter, which leave energy and resource-starved China and India scrabbling to meet the expectations of their rising bourgeoisie for reliable energy. While their political systems…

• EPA Proposals: End of Coal or Dawn of New Energy?

  The Environmental Protection Agency this week proposed measures that it said would cut emissions for new power plants. Critics are lining up to say this marks the end of coal-fired power generation in the United States and in some ways they may be right. Despite the fervor over things like the Keystone XL oil pipeline and the fracking of natural gas, coal still dominates the energy sector and has been since at least the 1960s. While critics of the EPA's proposals may have a point, is that necessarily a bad thing? The Supreme Court in 2007 ruled that carbon dioxide is…

• An Eulogy for the Industrial Revolution's Power Source

  The capitalist world has little time for nostalgia, as its primary mission is making money, but a recent pronouncement out of Britain is sounding the incipient death knell for a power source that fuelled Britain’s Industrial Revolution, and, by extension, the modern capitalist world. INING group UK Coal is currently in discussions to shutter Britain’s biggest remaining coal mining pit. Nothing personal - INING group UK Coal wants to restructure its business. The potential cost, for those on the coal face is hundreds of jobs. The balance sheets rule and the firm is considering closing its Daw Mill near Coventry…

• Can China Kick Their Coal Addiction?

  World coal production and consumption data for 2011 are not yet compiled and published, but one key number is in. China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology reports that the country’s coal output rose 8.7 percent from 2010 to reach 3.88 billion short tons last year. For comparison, US consumption in 2010 was just over 1 billion tons—and holding steady (mostly due to cheap natural gas prices). If the current trend continues, China will burn well over 4 billion tons of coal in 2012, four times as much as the US. Asia-Pacific coal consumption dwarfed that of the rest of…

• Green Australia Still Experiencing Massive Coal Boom

  Australia, despite being deeply committed to curbing greenhouse gas emissions GGEs, is nonetheless experiencing a fossil fuel surge. The growth comes despite a carbon tax, due to be implemented later this year, which is deeply unpopular with the country’s mining industry. According to the government agency Geoscience Australia, in fiscal year 2011 coal exploration spending in Australia surged by 62 percent, with investment in exploration for new coal deposits reaching $520 million, with spending on exploration surging faster than any other mineral commodity. Australia’s coal is abundant and considerably less expensive than other energy sources, with the country’s black coal reserves…

• Enter the Dragon - China to Increase Energy Investment in Pakistan

  The current administration of Pakistani President Asif Zadari is beset by multiple problems. Relations with its ally in the “global war on terror,” the U.S. have plummeted to their lowest ever level. But for the average Pakistani, of more immediate concern is the country’s ongoing energy crisis. The nation’s problem is summed up by the following figures. Pakistan’s current electricity demand is about 25,000 megawatts per day but national current electrical production is less than 20,000 megawatts per day, leaving a deficit of slightly more than 5,000 megawatts, and by 2015, domestic demand is projected to rise to 30,000 megawatts per day. The result?…

• Australia's Ongoing Coal Boom Could Provide a Safe Haven for Investors

  Investors spooked by three years of global recession have nervously scanned the globe for failsafe, sure-fire places to park their surplus capital. The rise of the non-Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries is fundamentally altering the world's energy markets, which underwent a historic shift in 2007 when non-OECD demand surpassed that of OECD. Demand growth outside traditional OECD markets is now the driver in the world's energy, with fossil fuels continuing to account for 88 percent of global energy demand and for over half of the annual increase in total energy demand. Another historic shift occurred last year, when…

• India’s Coal Shortages to Worsen as Coal India Reduces Production Target

  State-controlled Coal India Limited (CIL) announced that it has lowered its production target for the fiscal year to 440 million metric tons, down from the 452 million tons initially outlined in the company’s annual plan, according to an Economic Times article. Indian news agency PTI has quoted CIL Chairman N.C. Jha as confirming that they have kept the production target of at least 440 million tons. While speaking to media on the sidelines of the International Conference of Safety in Mines Research Institutes in New Delhi, the chairman cited various reasons such as heavy rainfall, strikes and delays in obtaining…