China to Set Coal Output Record

Top energy planners are seeking, in the next five years, to raise China's coal output to an unprecedented level and, at the same time, reduce the number of large mining disasters.
China's coal output will be between 2.5 billion and 2.6 billion tons in 2010, as compared with 2.19 billion tons in 2005, according to Guo Yuntao, director of the China Development Research Centre for the Coal Industry, in an interview with China Daily.

The growth rate being forecast by the planning team led by Guo is much slower than in the last five years, when China's coal output rose from about 1.3 billion tons in 2000.

More from the Houston Chronicle.

Technorati tags: Energy, Politics, China, Coal, Electricity

Comments

Anonymous said…

It is a good thing that Chinese coal has no impact on global warming. It is too bad they are using so much of it. If we could buy it from them, then we could reduce our global warming impact as well.

March 21, 2006 at 12:53 PM

David Bradish said…

don,

Maybe I'm missing something but how does Chinese coal have no impact on global warming?

March 21, 2006 at 1:07 PM

David Bradish said…

Here's a link to CO2 emissions from coal by country: http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/
international/iealf/tableh4co2.xls

In 2003, China emitted more CO2 from coal than the U.S.

March 21, 2006 at 1:11 PM

Anonymous said…

Don was being tongue-in-cheek. Under the Kyoto agreement, burning coal in China and India was apparently not considered a global warming issue since it was not required to be controlled.

March 21, 2006 at 2:51 PM

David Bradish said…

That's funny, now I feel like an idiot.

March 21, 2006 at 3:49 PM

Anonymous said…

Sorry David, my fault. You can't see a tounge in a cheek on the internet.

I think the Chinese are actually buying some coal from the US also.

March 22, 2006 at 9:10 AM

Activists' Claims Distort Facts about Advanced Reactor Design

Below is from our rapid response team . Yesterday, regional anti-nuclear organizations asked federal nuclear energy regulators to launch an investigation into what it claims are “newly identified flaws” in Westinghouse’s advanced reactor design, the AP1000. During a teleconference releasing a report on the subject, participants urged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to suspend license reviews of proposed AP1000 reactors. In its news release, even the groups making these allegations provide conflicting information on its findings. In one instance, the groups cite “dozens of corrosion holes” at reactor vessels and in another says that eight holes have been documented. In all cases, there is another containment mechanism that would provide a barrier to radiation release. Below, we examine why these claims are unwarranted and why the AP1000 design certification process should continue as designated by the NRC. Myth: In the AP1000 reactor design, the gap between the shield bu...

How many nuclear plants does it take to meet the world's energy needs?

Several weeks ago Joshua Pearce at Clarion University in Pennsylvania released a study titled “ Thermodynamic limitations to nuclear energy deployment as a greenhouse gas mitigation technology .” In the study he stated... nuclear energy production would have to increase by 10.5% per year from 2010 to 2050 to both replace fossil-fuel-energy use and meet the future energy demands. This line, of course, made the headlines and has been picked up by several outlets and blogs . When looking into his calculations for this statement, he made one assumption error that overstated the above sentence by nearly a factor of three. Page 121, Section 4.1 of the study states: Richard Smalley pointed out that in 2004, the global economy consumed the equivalent of 220 million barrels of oil per day, which converted into electricity terms is the equivalent of 14.5 TeraWatts (TW), or 14,500,000 MegaWatts (MW) (2005). … With a nuclear plant having about 1000 MW (1 GW) of capacity, we would need 14,500...

What Happens During a Refueling Outage?

You may have noticed over the past few weeks that a number of nuclear plants are shut down for refueling outages or are resuming operations after just returning from one. This type of routine outage usually occurs in the spring or fall when electricity demand is low so that nuclear reactors can replace about one-third of the spent fuel rods with new fuel and conduct other routine maintenance and repairs at the plant. To get a better sense of how refueling works at a nuclear energy facility, I spoke with Marcus Nichol, NEI’s senior project manager for used fuel storage and transportation, and asked him to explain the basics. Why does a nuclear plant need to replace one-third of its fuel? Nichol: The main purpose of a refueling outage is to replace older fuel that is depleted—meaning it can no longer efficiently produce energy from nuclear fission reactions—with new fuel. This “used fuel” has typically been used in the reactor for four-and-a-half to six years before it is pe...

NEI Nuclear Notes

Search This Blog