OGPSS - China's coal industry

In this run-up to the election, the American Energy future seems to have faded into the quiet background. Gone are the concerns of past years, as both parties seem to have bought into the idea that the nation is well on track toward a much reduced need to import oil. Wood Mackenzie are forecasting that tight oil production will rise from 1.5 mbd this year to 4.1 mbd in 2020, with the Bakken producing 1.3 mbd, the Eagle Ford 1.3 mbd, the Permian plays (Bone Spring, Avalon, Wolfcamp and Cline) will produce 440 kbd, and the Niobrara should be good for 90 kbd. With the decline in production from the impact of Isaac in the Gulf not yet over, it is not yet clear whether the plateau in US production that was starting to form will continue, or whether the gains in production that these projections require will continue. But there are some signs that these projections are, shall we say, a little ambitious. Well costs are now running in the $9 - $11.2 million range and, to sustain production, in these formations where wells have a high annual decline rate, increasing numbers must be drilled each year to offset that decline, and the poorer quality of newer wells. But declining rig counts and other concerns are for the future, and if no one coughs too loudly we can pretend that everything remains fine until we get past November.

China does not have that luxury, since the country, having set its people on an upwardly mobile quality of life path, must continue to provide the power that such a ladder requires. As I noted last time, the potential gains from the increased use of natural gas have been noted. Actions have already been taken to make sure that future supplies will meet anticipated needs and work has begun to tap the gas shales of the country.

But despite those efforts the underlying strength of the Chinese power industry comes from coal.

In 2007 Chinese coal production contained more energy than total Middle Eastern oil production. The rapid growth of coal demand after 2001 created supply strains and bottlenecks that raise questions about sustainability.

In 2010 China produced almost half of the world’s coal tonnage.

Figure 1. A decade of coal production growth (EIA )

China produced some 4.52 billion tonnes in 2011 and some 45% of that was shipped from the mine to the customer by rail. As demand continues to grow those volumes will also increase.

Figure 2. The changing picture of Chinese coal demand and production. (Energy Export Databrowser)

Rail takes a much longer time to install than does a pipeline, and thus Chinese recognition of this need is timely. Between now and 2015 Government plans call for an increase in transportation capacity to 3 billion tons/year almost doubling current capacity, as production of coal is anticipated to decline slightly to around 4 billion tonnes domestically, which may only exist as a target value. Nevertheless to move the coal to the power stations where it is needed, not only trunk lines, but also a large number of shorter branches will have to be created. This will be particularly true if the market shakes out and many of the smaller companies, which are apparently currently seeing some cash flow problems may fade out of business.

Figure 3. Planned expansion of the Chinese Rail network (China Coal Resource )

The Chinese have always been willing to find creative ways of improving their mining technology. I remember back some 45-years ago, when the European coal industry was still strong though waning, and the Chinese arrived seeking to purchase up-to-date mining equipment. Given that coal demand and thus equipment demand was in decline, manufacturers were willing to meet the conditions of the sale. These included that engineers and technicians be at the manufacturing plant during the entire time that the equipment was being built, and that they fully how understand the process. (The argument was so that they would be able to maintain it, after arrival). Well needless to say after those initial deliveries, further orders were rare, and Chinese versions of the equipment appeared, and many of those European manufacturers are no longer around.

New developments of technology in the West are much harder to come by these days. Research and innovation in coal mining in particular has fallen on hard times in both Europe and the United States (to the point of almost disappearance) and thus as China moves toward automation of its mining, particularly in thin seam conditions they are less able to draw on external sources, and must develop more of their own.

Life is a little different in other ways also, and Western companies can now get into the country and collaborate on development. Peabody, for example, is now developing coal mines in China. It has also been working with the government of Mongolia and will help develop mines in the Tavan Tolgoi region. This may be the only growth region for the company at a time when the current Administration in the United States, not to mention those in Europe, seem bent on closing the industry down as fast as they practically can. Given the amount of power that will be required to sustain current qualities of life, and the disappointing, and expensive costs of recent alternatives, the question as to how long this long-term unrealistic view will prevail is a matter of conjecture. China seems to retain a more realistic view of what is going to be needed, and planning accordingly.

There have been some thoughts given to the possibility of sequestration of all the carbon dioxide that will be generated from the various power plants that use this coal. However the power plants are not necessarily close to places where it might be easy to sequester the gas.

Figure 5. Location of the major Chinese coal-fired power plants (The American)

Figure 6. An integrated map showing the power plants (CO2 sources) and the fuel regions together with the location of deep saline formations into which CO2 could be injected (NYT )

The Oil Drum has been fortunate over the years to have had a number of high quality posts on the development of the coal industry in China. These include a review by Dr. Minqi Li, hosted by JoulesBurn. In this review of Peak Coal and China, Dr Li noted that Chinese coal production is projected to peak in 2027, at a level of 5.1 billion tonnes. He estimates a total ultimate recovery of around 257 billion tons. Euan Mearns wrote about Chinese Coal when their consumption first approached 50% of global demand, and followed that with a second piece on the role of imports.

In addition Rembrandt has recently taken note of the developing Chinese coal to chemicals industry. As conventional oil becomes less available as a feed stock, so the growth of this effort will likely justify the development.

Although China has, in the short term (perhaps the next ten to fifteen years) enough coal to sustain internal growth in demand, it is nevertheless also moving pro-actively to ensure that it will have adequate supplies in the out years. Much has been made in the past of their activities in Australia, but, as I have noted, several times in the past the Chinese are becoming well established in Botswana, inter alia, in a country with almost no coal industry yet, but up to 200 billion tons of what are not even counted as reserves yet, because of lack of demand. This may be a lesson for the rest of us.

Native American features and history - an introduction

This post originated when I began to model Indians in Poser (a 3-D computer modeling program) for my own amusement and as a way of learning how better to use that program. (Indians at around the time they first met with Europeans and through early Colonial days did not wear much in the way of clothing, making the models easier to make.) But the obvious initial question was “who did they look like?” My curiosity was driven from an early illustration my Dad had sent me of an Indian miner on the shores of Lake Superior in the early 19th Century. I imagine that he was mining for copper, (native in the region) and I was struck by his appearing quite European.
 
Figure 1. Sketch of a 19th Century Native American miner on the shores of Lake Superior.
 This is also how Robert Griffing (a currently popular painter of early Indian encounters) has been painting them. Given that this seemed to conflict with what I remembered of their origins, which was that they crossed into America from Asia, I began to read the odd book on the subject, and since it has a little to do with earlier climate changes, I thought to write a post on where I see the state of the current debate on the subject.
 When I started writing this I thought it would be relatively easy to just find a couple of references with the dates, from which the European influence would be easy to pick out. Well, after re-writing this post several times, I have to confess that was a bit naïve. It turns out that there are several controversial pieces of information out there, which mean that this is not the simple story I had expected to tell. And that one post is multiplying into a short series.
 For a start there are several different groups that might have made the migration from Siberia, although recent results from the Genographic Project suggest, according to Dr. Wells that their results favor the group that started in Mongolia.
 Then there is the question as to when the original group came. The oldest excavated archeological site in Alaska is at Swan Point and dates from about 14,300 years before the present (BP). But there is a site in Southern Chile, at Monte Verde which may date as early as 14,220 BP, and David Meltzer (in “First Peoples in a New World”) noted that there was some site evidence that might go back as far as 33,000 BP. 
The debate on when Europeans first arrived on the American continent has grown to include debate on both the shapes of the early weapons that were used, and the origin of the “Clovis Point” point shape that became most common, as well as the more recent debate on the origin of one of the genetic markers (the X2 haplogroup) that appears in members of a number of Indian tribes. 
 As I read more material, the different views became more complex to explain, and so one post is now morphing into three or more, particularly given the recent press release from UCSB on a paper that has evidence of a meteor strike which initiated the Younger Dryas cold period some 12,900 years ago.

These new data are the latest to strongly support the controversial Younger Dryas Boundary (YDB) hypothesis, which proposes that a cosmic impact occurred 12,900 years ago at the onset of an unusual cold climatic period called the Younger Dryas. This episode occurred at or close to the time of major extinction of the North American megafauna, including mammoths and giant ground sloths; and the disappearance of the prehistoric and widely distributed Clovis culture.

I do not plan on getting into the somewhat detailed and complex set of arguments as to what was the cause of the Younger Dryas. Some say it was caused by the collapse of a very large ice sheet covering North America that flooded the Atlantic and changed the circulation patterns for a while, others – as above – point to the evidence of meteoric impact. But it does give a point of reference relative to the time periods involved.  

 

Figure 2. Greenland temperatures over the past 20,000 years (From:
Quaternary Science Reviews Volume 19, Issues 1-5, 1 January 2000, Richard B. Alley, as referred to by Rodney Chilton 

However, even as I was writing this new version, there is apparently some new controversy over the temperatures that have been calculated in Greenland, with Anders Carlson at University of Wisconsin –Madison suggesting that the temperature drop may be smaller than that shown above (perhaps half). 

 A second original question related to the exact color of the paint that covered the Indians at the time of first contact, since it was reported that while wearing few if any clothes, Indians often were covered in some form of red paint. (And for now I’ll be mainly talking about the East Coast, though there are texts that cover the West.) Well this led into a discovery of the Red Paint People, which also feeds into the debate that apparently has been going on, with some intensity, among archaeologists, as to where that culture came from and where it went, some 7,000 years or so ago. 

 And then, as a more recent source, there is the discussion as to exactly how much influence, if any, that the Vikings exerted when they dropped by the coast some thousand years ago or so. So perhaps three different time frames, and maybe therefore three posts. 

 With no apology, this is the background upon which I, an admitted layman, am going to try and discern the current state of the evidence and belief, after having read recent books, articles and posts. It will include the odd thought on survival characteristics, and the possible creation of “journeymen” flint-knappers along the lines of the journeymen blacksmiths of which my great-great grandfather was one. But, since this post keeps increasing in length beyond this point, I will conclude this introduction with a few comments about the land that was above water at the time that the first settlers arrived.  

Figure 3. The Beringia land bridge from Siberia (Thinkquest), over which the PaleoIndians entered the American continent.  

Historians have long considered that North America was populated by a migration of some size from Siberia into Alaska, and then down into the body of what is now the United States. With the ebbing and flowing of the ice sheets the land route is thought to have first crossed on the dry land between the two continents, an area which has been given the name Beringia. From Beringia there has been debate as to whether settlers moved down the Mackenzie Valley, and thus inland, or down into the present USA along the coast. 

 Since that coast is now underwater it is more difficult to look for archaeological evidence of this alternative, but there is increasing evidence (including the DNA information which I will discuss in a later post) that the migration could have followed both routes. When these hunters arrived both mastadons and mammoths still walked on the continent as shown by the presence of stone spear points near the remains of some of these animals. (You needed spears to get through the skin, arrows – as Stanford and Bradley pointed out – work better when, in later years, bison were more prevalent). And next time I will about some of the controversy that these spear point shapes has brought into the argument.