Hoarding is exactly what the government is doing right now by filling the SPR, and frankly it's the best thing that could happen. It drives prices up. High prices encourage demand destruction. They also finance new well development. The hoarded oil gives us a buffer to fall back on once shortages become more prevalent. High prices are what we need in order to adapt to what's coming, and the sooner they happen, the better.
Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 12:27 am Post subject: Changing China
the Chinese realize the enviromental problems mass coal burning is causing in there country but with the Chinese economy growing so fast coal will remain the dominant source of power generation for the immediate future. the government wants to reduce dependence on coal burning as much as possible and to reduce CO2 emissions.
I know im not supposed to advertise for Shell here but the Group is playing a big role in cleaning up China for the future. It is to us they have turned. In addition to running a coal gasification project in China Shell has leased the coal gasification technology to 12 Chinese companies. The process produces a relativly clean burning syngas from coal, filtering out sulfur and mercury considerably reducing pollution. Shell clean burning syndiesel is fueling China's civic transport industry and a syngas to diesel project is underway. Also the Group is natural gas projects in China to provide natural gas to urban areas. The Chinese government wants to increase natural gas as much as possible as soon as possible. the methane gas project in Shanxi province also has a lot of potential.
China is changing there dirty ways. Slowly but surely.
Joined: May 14, 2005 Posts: 2125 Location: Along the banks of the muddy Mississippi
Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 8:30 pm Post subject: Re: Changing China
In this thead in the Current Energy News forum, it is brought to our attention that China is experiencing a coal shortage. Sort of hard to gasify coal when peak coal in China has already arrived. _________________ “Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.” (Ted Perry)
Joined: Mar 04, 2007 Posts: 504 Location: Hong Kong
Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2008 5:46 am Post subject: Re: Changing China
TheTurtle wrote:
In this thead in the Current Energy News forum, it is brought to our attention that China is experiencing a coal shortage. Sort of hard to gasify coal when peak coal in China has already arrived.
That article is about power plants shutting down because they refuse to sell electricy at a loss. The government has put a cap on electricity rates, and rising coal prices have made power generation unprofitable.
China does have a coal shortage. They became a net coal importer in the first quarter of 2007, although for the full year they remained a net exporter, of a paltry 2.15 million tons. This may be because the government shut down some 3,000 unlicensed coal mines. I guess they were tired of China hitting the international media every week when hundreds of miners got trapped in a collapsing shaft.
Another factor is railroad bottlenecks. It may be cheaper and quicker for power plants in southern China to import coal from Australia or Malaysia than to ship it down from the north, but I'm not sure about that. I'd have to check.
The Chinese have begun importing LNG into Shenzhen, and new gas deposits have been discovered in Sichuan and western China, so that should take some of the pressure off of coal generation, but I'm not sure when the newly discovered gas is coming online. There's also a large deposit in the East China Sea, but it's in both Chinese and Japanese territory, so geopolitics could keep that out of play for a while.
The Chinese have also begun building more nuclear power plants, but I'm not sure that's something to be celebrated. I probably shouldn't mention this, but a friend of mine spoke with the representative of a U.S. nuclear power company that is working with the Chinese. The representative said that the new Chinese nuclear plants aren't safe.
A few years ago, there was talk of China building power plants in Russia and Kazakhstand and then importing the electricity. I don't know if that's gone ahead. China also exports electricity from Yunnan province to Vietnam. I don't know if that's going to continue.
Joined: Mar 04, 2007 Posts: 504 Location: Hong Kong
Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 5:47 am Post subject: Re: Changing China
Kylon wrote:
WHy don't the Chinese simply swtch to Nuclear Power?
There are 11 nuclear power plants operational in China, the earliest having been put online in 1991. There are another six under construction, but like I said before, I've heard that they aren't all safe. Most of the power plants in operation are about 600-1,000 megawatts per year.
China generated 63 billion kilowatt hours in 2007. Electricity consumption, however, has been growing at around 200-300 billion kilowatt hours per year for the past few years. Furthermore, it takes around 5-7 years to build a nuclear power plant, though it may be possible to do it quicker in China because once you have government approval, you don't have to deal with any environmental restrictions or NIMBYism. But you can't do it nearly quick enough to keep up with rising demand for electricity. _________________ "We shall live in interesting times, and we shall die in them too." - Heineken
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