Mark Englehart Evans Rotating Header Image

environment

More on Changes to China’s Power Price Ceiling

Jun 2nd, 2011
by Mark.
Comments are off for this post

Power Price Ceiling Bloomberg carries a few more details about Beijing’s changes to the PPC:

The increase will affect the consumer price index “indirectly” by 0.05 percentage point, China Central Television reported yesterday, citing Liu Shujie, head of economic research at the NDRC. Inflation was 5.3 percent in April and has been above the government’s 2011 target of 4 percent every month this year.

So State TV calculates the power price compromises will effect the CPI, slightly.   They are also in the business of downplaying bad news, though I don’t have any data to contradict them.  Based on Reuters’ quotes from earlier this weekthat suggest the completed increases were outpaced by increases in the price of Coal, I can only imagine that we’ll see the CPI climb more, and not just based on power price increases.

The Catch 22 is obvious, right? The Central Government must control inflation to maintain consumer confidence and economic growth. Both of those roughly add up to “Social Stability”. Two of the biggest contributors to inflation are inter-related and out of their direct control: the price of Thermal Coal, and the ongoing, worsening drought. The effects of drought are obvious, and the worse it gets, the more dependent the Chinese power infrastructure becomes dependent on coal power, and thus coal prices. State Owned Power Producers won these rate concessions, but surely will demand much more.

It’s going to be an interesting summer.

Beijing Blinks

May 31st, 2011
by Mark.
Comments are off for this post

Not 3 days after I posted about the showdown between Beijing and China’s State Owned power producers over price ceilings, Beijing announces a 3% increase for some industrial customers. That doesn’t seem like much, but check out the quote below from Reuters, who broke the news. (more…)

State Grid vs Beijing: a familiar game of Chicken

May 28th, 2011
by Mark.
2 comments

Chinese Coal MinerChina is heading for a summer of energy shortages reminiscent of the 2000 California Energy Crisis. The shortages are real: China is suffering a tremendous drought, which cripples hydroelectric production and endangers China’s food system and available drinking water. If that wasn’t bad enough, shortages are also being created: international coal prices are rising, which has created a dangerous set of circumstances for China’s power producers.
(more…)

“Worst Air Ever: Shanghai hit with a dust storm

May 3rd, 2011
by Mark.
Comments are off for this post

Shanghai Dust Storm

It was worse this morning

Shanghai is suffering the first dust-storm of my career here. They are exceedingly rare, apparently, but our lungs hurt. Looks like it’s time to update my pollution graphs. From the People’s Daily today:
A sandstorm which hit Shanghai on the first two days of May has significantly increased the level of respirable particles in the city and made Shanghai one of the most polluted city in the country, with Shanghai’s air pollution index 87 points higher than that of the runner-up on May 2.

Shanghai seemed to be covered with a grey lid on May 2. The air was full of dust, leading to poor visibility. The buildings in the city proper looked vague in the dust, and the cars parked outside were covered with a thick layer of dust.

The Shanghai Environmental Monitoring Center (SEMC) said that as the sea wind blew the dust back to Shanghai, the city’s respirable particulate matter index rose to 500 at 4 a.m. on May 2, and the air pollution in the city reached “severe” levels. According to a diagram drawn by the SEMC, Shanghai has been in “severe” air pollution levels for the past two days.

Environmental Data Transparency in China

Feb 16th, 2011
by Mark.
3 comments
statsignificant

From Baseball to Internet Entrepreneurs, to politics and elections, to movie predictions and on to basically every other industry, we are experiencing a massive increase in the use of statistics and metrics to track and evaluate performance.  This is absolutely, unequivocally a good thing, but here in China, we have a long way to go.  Environmental researcher extrordinaire and friend of the blog Angel Hsu told the English speaking world about IPE‘s new Air Quality Transparency Index for China, which is a great look into the quality and veracity of emissions data (or lack thereof) provided by city governments in China.

I touched on this issue when I analyzed 10 years of Shanghai’s Air Quality data, but Angel’s post (and the AQTI) give tremendous additional context to my post.  I Won’t ape all of Angel’s post to make my point, so go read it. There are even more troubling reports about the veracity of Chinese environmental statistics, so … (more…)

← Earlier Posts Newer Posts →