China Down to 12 days worth of coal

it seems china may run out of coal in less than a fortnight, some places less than a week.

China down to 12 days worth of coal - report

From correspondents in Beijing

April 23, 2008 03:22pm
Article from: Agence France-Presse

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CHINA only has enough coal for 12 days of consumption, three days less than a month ago, state media reported Wednesday, sounding the alarm bells over the nation's most important source of energy.

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i didn't know where this should go, or what/how i should write it, if there is already a thread i apologise.

Hey yeah, I came across this story as well, I wonder what they mean by running out of coal. Is the whole country going to closed down or what? There's not a lot of detail, but I guess that's to expected when things like this come out of China.

It might clean the air up a bit for the Olympics at least.

I think what this means is that if China stopped all mining today, they'd have enough coal stockpiled to last 12 days. Of course, there's no reason to suppose China will suddenly cease all mining.

Since reserves a month ago were 15 days, it means that China is currently using coal at a faster rate than it is mining it - so either more mines need opening or they need to cut consumption. This is probably in part due to greater consumption during the recent cold winter they've had, and a general increase in consumption as more coal fired power stations come on line.