Discovery of a huge coal field or for that matter a huge oil field, won't do us much good if we can't use it due to what we're told is the possibility of our world coming to an end from global warming.

The problem with China's and for that matter the world's economies is not any shortage of hydrocarbonaceous stuff like coal, shale, peat, et cetera. The problem is that our world-wide atmosphere's capacity for absorbing all that CO2 is limited.

Regarding China, their coal-burning power plants and the world-wide CO2 problem, it would behoove them not only to build more nuclear power plants but also, do something to put out all those horrible underground coal fires. The latter are wasting good coal and also, contributing to the world's CO2 problem.

Now would be a very good time to build a bunch of clean coal plants in China, if they actually are a viable solution.

If the supply of coal is abundant and puts a pressure on cost, it will add more incentive to install more desulfurisation units to coal power plants.

That is enough coal to for 400 million years for one 1000 MWe power plant.

Most of the nuke plant being built are along the coast in southeast China.

Pity poor China. Already 650,000 people die annually from the most polluted air on the planet. This will only make it worse.

China should become the methanol capital of the world. Methanol can be made from coal and will store for many years, and can be converted to gasoline if necessary, but it can be burned directly and cleanly.

People forget that CO2 is not the worst disaster to happen to human creatures who are being told that the world CO2 production of 1899 is better for the earth, but there were far fewer Human Creatures back then.

Every pound of carbon in coal was once CO2 and it had come from somewhere. This is true of the carbonate rocks as well. A thickness of 140 meters at one mm a year is only 140000 years of growth.

UK and European towns and cities had the smell of Coal before North Sea Gas and Russian gas. Braunkohlebriketten gave Delmenhorst bei Bremen an autumnal fragrance. There were also massive piles of them along tracks in Berlin.

There seems to be not a single operating coal mine in all of France.

Methanol production removes the ash and the sulfur and converts the tars. Methanol stoves are simple.

The two CANDU reactors in China were built quickley and under budget, but China ordered no more.

China may have been wondering why it closed its steam locomotive builders a decade ago. The Porta gas producer combustion system was not even given a Chinamans chance in China. ..HG..

Kit P,
Maybe you can share your math with us. 400 million years of operation for a 1000 MW power plant looks a little much.
According to wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal
Coal has an energy content between about 28000 and 35000 kJ/kg. So 23 billion tons would have an energy content of 35 * 10^6 * 23 * 10^9 * 1000 J = 805 * 10^18J.
In kWh this is 2.23611E+14
In GWh it is: 223611111.1
in GW Years: 25526.38
Assuming an efficiency of the power plant of 40%, the 1 GW power plant could run for 10211 year on 23 billion tons of coal.

@Alex:

"The problem is that our world-wide atmosphere's capacity for absorbing all that CO2 is limited."

At 0.0385% atmosphere we have a long way to go before even 500 ppm. And remember that the climate system on Earth is vastly complex and little known at this juncture. As much as the atmosphere absorbs CO2 so too do the oceans.

In a recent study changes in the ocean uptake of carbon in response to a sustained increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration of 1.2 ppm per year over an eleven year period yielded increases in the air-sea CO2 flux of 17%, 45% and 78% in three marine ecosystems.

http://tinyurl.com/6pcbqb

The coal fires are a tragedy. China desperately needs heavily scrubbed flu gases if it builds new coal fired plants. Their primary concern is toxic and particulate emissions which are killing people and ecosystems around the world.

This is bad news. Pulling carbon out of the ground and pumping it into the air is not the way to build a sustainable future.

This is VERY BAD news.

The Chinese don't give a damn about global warming and Chinese entrepeneurs don't give a damn about the health of the Chinese people (or any other people for that matter).

If they are allowed to fire that coal they will do it in no time and with the cheapest (dirtiest) technolgy they can lay their hands on.

Discovery of more resources is good. What is done with them can be bad.

China already has a lot of coal and abundant coal supplies from overseas. Finding more domestic coal is useful only if it is cheaper. (Cheaper usually means closer to point of use.)

It is hard to read the minds of Chinese leaders. And harder still to know what their thoughts will be in three, five, or ten years.

China's deliberate political stance is to ignore and defy others about their internal affairs. It is a "take no crap from anyone" position unlikely to change soon or publicly.

IMO it is a mistake to say the Chinese leaders care, or do not care, about pollution. All we can say is they intend to handle it independently of our preferences.

At the cost of 650,000 deaths annually due to toxic air pollution - I'd say they really don't care.

Hope that US invests in Clean Coal Technology and succeeds. Then they could export it to red dragon bully.

When the economy tanks over here because of Obambi and his antiamerican antienergy policies its good to know the educated class, can migrate to china and live like we used too. NatGeo has a great article about China's growth they showed a suburb that looked like any American Mcmansion burb compleate with 4000+ sqft homes and pools in every yard. The people who have a marketable skill can and will leave the USSA in mass leaving the unwashed masses to live with rolling blackouts and fuel shortages as no new baseload capacity will be build and dont even think about a refinery. Solar and wind are pipe dreams as are biofuels we use 100+ quads of energy a year physics is not on "renewables side" I sure am glad i moved my investments offshore this taxyear so Nobambi cant redistribute my earnings.

Ouch, Thomas is right. I was only off by a few orders of magnitude. That what you get for doing math in your head. A geologist friend was giving a lecture about the age of the planet and when the sun would nova. He incorrectly stated it in millions and some poor woman panicked.

The human mind has a problem handling big and small numbers. Anyhow China like the US has a lot of coal and I will be long dead before running out is a problem. France ran out of coal rather recently and at time in their history when depending on Germany for coal was not an option.

The reason China is building nuke plants is the same reason the US did 30 years ago. Long supply lines and pollution. I am not sure why China is not building more CANDU reactors. The main advantage of the CANDU reactors is that they are less dependent on a large industrial complex. China is now capable of building 1000 MWe versions of western PWRs.

@CCP Officer seeya...

Doubt many 'mericans will be going to Shanghai soon unless they're shanghaied. Reason is: China is world's most polluted country; world's largest emitter of GHG, and the most repressive political system outside its own puppet Burma. Ask anyone of a 100 million Chinese who practice CCP-forbidden meditation.

China is happy to have "workers" but if you're poor, elderly, sick, or hungry - you'll end up in a forced labor camp disguised as a hospital/school. Minority rule countries like China should be a thing of the past. With the world economic downturn shutting Chinese factories and new manufacturing growing in homelands - the onetime Sino eco-miracle has come to a grinding halt.

So much for pop control via GNP.