China’s Down to 12 Days Worth of Coal and Counting – What Does it Mean to Us?

What would it mean to the world if China went dark? What would it mean to America?

That’s what people are starting to ponder as news has hit that most power stations in China are down to just 12 days worth of coal, and some have less than a week. That’s three days less than a month ago. Coal provides China with 70% of its electricity, and while production is up this year, demand is rapidly growing in this country of nearly 1.3 billion people. This report, which came out of Beijing on April 23rd, doesn’t elaborate on the exact reasons for the shortage.

One reason reserves are low is the dark and cold winter that has just passed, and a hotter than average upcoming summer along with lower than average rainfall is going to continue the strain. This summer’s Olympic Games will also put a squeeze on the country’s coal and power supply, something the Chinese government is currently scrambling to manage without much luck; the figures involved just can’t seem to agree to a compromise. China started importing coal last year, but so far, it hasn’t made much of a dent in the shortage.

Never mind, for the moment, what this means to the environment, as coal is the dirtiest of all fuels that produce energy. Never mind that according to many estimates, pollution is the number one cause of death in China. Never mind that China has plans to build nearly one coal plant a week for the next decade, causing a huge increase in greenhouse gas emissions that might just completely undo the efforts of every other nation in the world. It’s on the tail of the United States, headed toward becoming the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.

Most of us are aware of just how pervasive Chinese-manufactured products are in our everyday lives. Trying to live entirely without anything that has been produced in China is likely to be fruitless, unless you’re living very low-tech out in the woods or the desert somewhere. The average American family couldn’t do it while maintaining their current lifestyle. What would happen if imports of Chinese goods temporarily stopped? Many American businesses rely on China for their daily operations. If they don’t have their China-made products, they don’t have anything to manufacture and/or sell. In an already damaged economy, this could be really bad news.

Not to mention the fact that China’s leaders aren’t exactly known for playing well with others. Constant expansion plus imperialism plus a desperate need for a particular asset in order to retain the current status quo could equal very, very bad news for the world. Who’s to say that, backed into a corner, China wouldn’t begin to wield its frightening potential for power as a weapon against the rest of us? The US-China trade deficit doesn’t exactly put us in a good position if such a thing were to happen. Our government has already allowed the destruction of our industrial base for the good of a communist country’s industrialization.

In the end, won’t there be a price to pay for the cheap goods and labor that Americans have enjoyed courtesy of the Chinese? We’re all so embroiled in a society of more, more, more. We are deep into a mess of dependence on China. Think about what’s in your own house. If someone suddenly came in and took away everything that was made in China, what would you have left? Not much.

Many are predicting that China will find a way to manage the situation fairly quickly, and it will all blow over. Americans will go on with their obsessive consumerist ways, constantly buying more than we need, and continuing to rely on China for a startling quantity of the products used daily in this country. I hate to say it, but, a close call won’t teach Americans anything – in fact, the vast majority of us probably don’t know about the coal situation in China and don’t care.

Some are of the viewpoint that China will soon realize that continuation of their current pace of growth is simply impossible, and they’ll be forced to slow down. This is a fairly optimistic take on the situation, and maybe – just maybe – we could see a change in daily life in America if that were to happen.

No one can accurately predict the consequences of this coal scenario; but one thing we Americans might want to consider is learning Mandarin – just in case.

Link [news.com.au]

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons + Wikimedia Commons

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