When Will the U.S. Go the Way of Rome?

[touchring]

Re: When Will the U.S. Go the Way of Rome?

While theoretically China has the capability of burning more coal, the reality is that China has not been able to grow its electricity generation potential in line with demand.

Building power plants is just a matter of time. The only problem is freak weather caused by the pollution, but China has already planned it all, that's what the new dams are for, to divert all the water from Tibet plateau to drought patched land to the east and north.

[c1ue]

Re: When Will the U.S. Go the Way of Rome?

Building power plants is just a matter of time. The only problem is freak weather caused by the pollution, but China has already planned it all, that's what the new dams are for, to divert all the water from Tibet plateau to drought patched land to the east and north.

In the most general sense, you might be correct.

But in the actual real world sense, you are completely wrong.

Building a single electrical power plant requires finding the site, preparing the site, building the infrastructure, buying/building the equipment, building out the transmission grid to/from the plant, training personnel, and building/maintaining the supply channel into the plant.

If a single power plant or even a dozen were all that is needed, the problem could be resolved with the application of huge amounts of money.

But an examination of China's electricity usage growth shows the true story:

http://www.indexmundi.com/china/elec...nsumption.html

2004	1,312,000,000,000	2	0.00 %	2001
2005	1,630,000,000,000	2	24.24 %	2003
2006	2,170,000,000,000	2	33.13 %	2004
2007	2,494,000,000,000	2	14.93 %	2005
2008	2,859,000,000,000	2	14.64 %	2006
2009	3,271,000,000,000	2	14.41 %	2007
2010	3,438,000,000,000	2	5.11 %	2008 est.

The above numbers are kilowatt-hours.

The growth of electricity usage has been between 300 and 400 billion Kwh each year since 2004 - or 300 and 500 thousand Gwh - until 2010.

This is the equivalent of 34 to 57 1-GW power plants per year - factoring for transmission losses it is closer to 50 to 75 1-GW electrical power plants per year.

But more importantly, if China is to achieve the equivalent electricity use per person of the EU, this would require a minimum increase of 230% of total electrical power generation.

This would be the equivalent of 400 electrical power plants, 600 factoring in transmission losses. At $1.3B to $1.5B per plant, this totals up to roughly $1 trillion dollars in capital expenditure.

Doable, certainly.

Cheap or easy, certainly not.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: When Will the U.S. Go the Way of Rome?

The above table, with its headers:

Year	Electricity - consumption	Rank	Percent Change	Date of Information
2003	1,312,000,000,000	2		2001
2004	1,312,000,000,000	2	0.00 %	2001
2005	1,630,000,000,000	2	24.24 %	2003
2006	2,170,000,000,000	2	33.13 %	2004
2007	2,494,000,000,000	2	14.93 %	2005
2008	2,859,000,000,000	2	14.64 %	2006
2009	3,271,000,000,000	2	14.41 %	2007
2010	3,438,000,000,000	2	5.11 %	2008 est.

The "Rank" of 2 means that China was second to the United States in electricity consumption.

The years in the first column are, I guess, the date of the report, and the years in the last column the year for which the report applied (despite the confusing headings.)

[dummass]

Re: When Will the U.S. Go the Way of Rome?

This would be the equivalent of 400 electrical power plants, 600 factoring in transmission losses. At $1.3B to $1.5B per plant, this totals up to roughly $1 trillion dollars in capital expenditure.

Doable, certainly.

Cheap or easy, certainly not.

Time to sell more US Treasuries.

[touchring]

Re: When Will the U.S. Go the Way of Rome?

The above table, with its headers:
The "Rank" of 2 means that China was second to the United States in electricity consumption.

The years in the first column are, I guess, the date of the report, and the years in the last column the year for which the report applied (despite the confusing headings.)

Apologies, but I would doubt any statistics from China. In other countries, statistics might be exaggerated maybe 20-30%, in China you might need to remove or add one or two zeros to get the real data.

In the West, accountants will do the accounts and try to add expenses, real or fake, to the books to reduce the tax to pay. In China, the accountant will ask the CEO how much profit and sales should the company make this year, how much cash should there be in the bank, and he will create the books to show that amount of profit and sales growth in the annual report.

You need to see the thing before you can believe it, and sometimes the thing you saw may not even be the real McCoy. 'Fakery' is part of everyday life.

[c1ue]

Re: When Will the U.S. Go the Way of Rome?

Apologies, but I would doubt any statistics from China. In other countries, statistics might be exaggerated maybe 20-30%, in China you might need to remove or add one or two zeros to get the real data.

This is a complete non-sequitur.

Are you disputing that China's electricity usage is increasing rapidly?

If so, are the "official" numbers high or low?

And in either case, just exactly how is the conclusion changed?

Just because you don't believe China's official figures doesn't itself mean a damn thing.

[LazyBoy]

Re: When Will the U.S. Go the Way of Rome?

So, what is your back-up country and why?
(I need one!)

Texas

I did recently hear someone say that travel to Texas goes much better if you approach it like you do travel to another country. (Anthony Bourdain, TV travel/cooking guy)