China calls for huge boost in coal output at Inner Mongolia mines to fight power crunch
What about global warming?
Chinese officials have ordered more than 70 mines in Inner Mongolia to ramp up coal production by nearly 100 million tonnes as the country battles its worst power crunch and coal shortage in years.
Record-high prices and shortages of electricity have prompted power rationing across the country, crippling industrial output.
The proposed increase would make up nearly 3 per cent of China's total thermal coal consumption.
In an urgent notice dated October 7, the Inner Mongolia regional energy department asked the cities of Wuhai, Ordos and Hulunbuir, as well as Xilingol League, or prefecture, to notify 72 mines that they could operate at stipulated higher capacities immediately, provided they ensured safe production.
An official with the region's energy bureau confirmed the notice but declined to say how long the production boost would be allowed to last.
The state-run Inner Mongolia Daily reported the notice followed a meeting on the same day that regional authorities mapped out measures for winter energy supplies in response to mandates from China's State Council, or Cabinet.
"The [government's] coal task force shall urge miners to raise output with no compromise, while the power task team shall have the generating firms guarantee meeting the winter electricity and heating demand," the newspaper said.
"This demonstrates the government is serious about raising local coal production to ease the shortage," said a Beijing-based trader, who estimated the production boost would take two to three months to materialise.
The 72 mines listed by the Inner Mongolia energy bureau, most of which are open pits, previously had authorised annual capacity of 178.45 million tonnes.
The notice proposed they increase their production capacity by 98.35 million tonnes combined, according to Reuters calculations.
"It will help alleviate the coal shortage but cannot eliminate the issue," IHS Markit senior director Lara Dong said.
"The government will still need to apply power rationing to ensure the balancing of the coal and power markets over the winter."
China's Zhengzhou thermal coal futures briefly slumped 6 per cent on Friday morning after opening up nearly 3 per cent. The contract was down 3.2 per cent at 1,287 yuan ($274) per tonne.
Authorities increase imports
Inner Mongolia is China's second-biggest coal-producing region, churning out just over 1 billion tonnes in 2020 and accounting for more than a quarter of the national total, official data shows.
But that output was down 8 per cent in 2020 and was falling every month from April through July this year, partly due to an anti-corruption probe initiated last year by Beijing targeting the coal sector, which led to lower production as miners were banned from producing more than was allowed.
Neighbouring Shanxi province, China's biggest coal region, had to close 27 coal mines this week due to flooding.
Coal inventories at major Chinese ports were at 52.34 million tonnes in late September before a week-long national holiday that started on October 1, down 18 per cent from the same period last year, data compiled by China Coal Transportation and Distribution Association showed.
Meanwhile, coal consumption is climbing as north-eastern China enters the winter heating season, with major power plants having stockpiles for about 10 days of use, down from more than 20 days last year.
To ensure power and heating supply to residential users, China has reopened dozens of other mines and approved several new ones.
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In One Place, For One Fish, Climate Change May be a Boon
In the past Greenies have agonized about global warming cutting salmon numbers
On a mid-july afternoon, when the tide was starting to come in on the Naknek River, the Bandle family’s commercial fishing nets lay stretched across the beach, waiting for the water to rise. With the fishing crew on break, Sharon Bandle emerged from a tar-paper-sided cabin that serves as kitchen and bunkhouse with a plate of tempura salmon and a bowl of cocktail sauce. Everyone dug in.
Here in southwestern Alaska’s Bristol Bay, the Bandle family has fished by setnet for nearly 40 years, anchoring nets hundreds of feet long on the beach, then stretching them perpendicularly into the river’s current. The webbing hangs like a curtain from a line of softball-size corks, intercepting sockeye salmon as they swim upstream to their spawning grounds. Crews of two or three in small aluminum skiffs pick the salmon from the nets; processing plants on the far side of the river head and gut the catch, then ship the bulk of it to China and elsewhere for additional processing.
Bristol Bay’s sockeye harvest has long made up about half of the global catch of this species, in a seasonal blitz as short as it is enormous: The fishery lasts a mere six weeks. Each summer, 15,000 seafood processors, boat-based fishermen, and setnetters—including families such as the Bandles—gather here to support an industry worth more than $2 billion in 2019. Some fishermen will net enough cash to live on until the fish come back the next year. And this year, Bristol Bay outdid itself, notching the largest sockeye run in the region’s recorded history with an astonishing 66 million returning fish. Even more astonishing, this season capped nearly a decade of extraordinarily high salmon returns in Bristol Bay, where sockeye harvests have reached more than 50 percent above the most recent 20-year average.
https://www.perishablenews.com/seafood/in-one-place-for-one-fish-climate-change-may-be-a-boon
***************************************Facebook launched a Climate Science Information Center last year
The platform steers users to the site when they search climate related terms, and in countries where it is not available, the site directs users to the United Nations Environmental Programme website.
In February, the social media giant added a section aimed at 'debunking myths' about climate change, in consultation with experts from George Mason, Yale and the University of Cambridge.
The social network also debuted a program in the UK that starts adding labels to some users' posts on climate, which would steer them to the Center.
'We want to expose people to information that helps them interpret and react to common myths around climate change they may encounter,' Edward Palmieri, Facebook's sustainability director told Axios at the the time.
John Cook, a George Mason expert in climate communication, also said research shows that simply telling people they are wrong is not enough, 'You also have to explain why or how it is wrong,' he said of the idea of the Climate Science Information Center.
'That is important from a psychological point of view.'
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Australia: Kimberley fracking project's exemption from gas export ban sparks Conservation Council fears
Introduced last year, the change to WA's domestic gas policy prevents gas extracted onshore from being sent to the eastern states or overseas.
The only other exemption to the policy was given to the Kerry Stokes-backed Waitsia project, with Premier Mark McGowan defending the move on the grounds Waitsia was a "shovel ready" development that would deliver hundreds of jobs.
At the time the policy was changed, the Valhalla project being developed by Bennett Resources had been submitted to WA's Environmental Protection Authority (EPA), with plans for six wells on Noonkanbah Station, near Fitzroy Crossing.
But a recent announcement by Texas-based Black Mountain, which owns Bennett Resources, revealed it had now been granted an exemption from the export restrictions.
It was the first application for a fracking project since the state government lifted a ban on the practice in 2018.
The latest EPA document, released on August 4, reveals Bennett Resources now plans to build up to 20 "exploration and appraisal wells" at 10 sites.
The exemption has upset the WA Conservation Council, with the group saying it went against what was promised when the moratorium on fracking ended.
"It was lifted after an inquiry found that any gas fracking would likely be only small scale and only for the domestic market, and therefore have very limited environmental impact because the size of those developments would be very small," Council director Piers Verstegen said.
"We raised concerns about that at the time and said that we didn't think that was accurate and that those fracking companies would be trying to build very large fracking projects to access the export market. "That appears to be exactly what's happening now."
Minister for State Development, Jobs and Trade, Roger Cook, said the exemption was granted because the project would help build gas pipelines to connect the area to the broader WA network.
"We've said to [Black Mountain] … if they need to export a portion of their initial off-take in relation to this in order to make the project successful, then we would be prepared to consider that," he told ABC Goldfields.
"But we've also said that that would be on the basis that they commit in the long-term to domestic gas agreements, but also that they build pipeline infrastructure to make sure that the rest of the Kimberley benefits from this particular development."
The government said the project would still need to obtain all relevant approvals, including environmental, before going ahead.
Black Mountain president Ashley Zumwalt-Forbes said the company had been negotiating with the WA government since the export ban was put in place last year.
"All parties came to the conclusion that to get this project up and running, we'd need access to a pipeline and would inevitably need to export at least a portion of the gas, " she told ABC Kimberley.
She said the company was still in negotiations over just how much of the gas extracted from the project would be reserved for the WA market.
With local and statewide environmental groups already gearing up to campaign against the project, Ms Zumwalt-Forbes said the company would be fully compliant with all state environmental requirements.
"Give us an opportunity to prove ourselves, prove that we're good operators and we are good stewards of the environment," she said. "We plan on doing right by the community, and certainly following and exceeding all requirements.
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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