Voracious Surging Coal Demand in India and China Defeats Climate Change Mitigation Efforts

Coal Demand continues to grow at steep pace in India and China defeating the efforts of Climate Change Activists in the Developed World.Building a Thermal Power Project in Europe and USA has become exceedingly difficult due to concerns of the detrimental health,air quality and pollution effects of Coal Derived Electricity and Heat.Coal is considered as the Dirtiest Form of Fossil Fuel Energy making it a prime target in Climate Change Fighting Efforts.However China with around 3 Billion Tons of Coal Consumption and India with another 500 million Tons depend on King Coal for majority of their Energy Needs.While China generates 80% of its Electricity from Coal,India generates around 65%.While both countries have Huge Reserves and Production of Coal,their voracious demand is leading to surging imports.These Imports are being sourced from countries like Australia,Canada and USA which are going through Coal Mining Booms.Ports are getting congested as Infrastructure failed to meet the growing coal needs of India and China.

China which was a major coal exporter till a couple of years ago is importing 160 million tons while India will import a whopping 60 million tons up from around 36 million tons a year ago.Increasing Coal Trade means further Global Warming as Sea Transport of Coal leads to further Carbon Emission from burning of Oil.There is little that can be done to change this Energy Trajectory as the Abundance and Cheapness of Coal makes it unsubstitutable in the short term.Massive Supercritical Thermal Plants are being built in India which will further exacerbate the situation.The Coal India IPO was a huge success with investors due to the inevitability of its growth.With Climate Change put into Cold Storage and the upcoming Cancun Meet almost certain to be Dud,Global Warming looms as dangerously as ever

Importing Coal, China Burns It as Others Stop – NY Times

Even as developed countries close or limit the construction of coal-fired power plants out of concern over pollution and climate-warming emissions, coal has found a rapidly expanding market elsewhere: Asia, particularly China.“This is a worst-case scenario,” said David Graham-Caso, spokesman for the Sierra Club, which estimates that its “Beyond Coal” campaign has helped to block 139 proposed coal plants in the United States over the last few years. “We don’t want this coal burned here, but we don’t want it burned at all. This is undermining everything we’ve accomplished.”This summer an Australian company signed a $60 billion contract with a state enterprise, China Power International Development, to supply coal to Chinese power stations beginning in 2013 from a vast complex of mines, called China First, to be built in the Australian outback. It was Australia’s largest export contract ever, the company said

Last year, the United States exported only 2,714 tons of coal to China, according to the United States Energy Information Administration. Yet that figure soared to 2.9 million tons in the first six months of this year alone — huge growth, though still a minuscule fraction of China’s coal imports.