Word: coal
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DIED. RONG YIREN, 89, the original "red capitalist" who helped open China's economy to the world; in Beijing. Rong, who opted to stay on the mainland after the 1949 communist takeover while other industrialists fled abroad, was forced to sweep streets and haul coal during the Cultural Revolution before he was rehabilitated by Deng Xiaoping to help promote international commerce during the economic reforms of the 1980s. His China International Trust & Investment Corporation became a key player in attracting foreign capital, and although the billionaire was never a member of the Communist Party, he served as China's Vice...
That cities in the world's largest country are thirsty for oil is no secret. But China's countryside, home to 900 million, has energy woes of its own--low tech, but no less important to the nation's development. Most rural Chinese households depend on coal braziers and open wood-fueled hearths for their cooking. That is why Yunnan province, nestled between Tibet and Burma in the country's southwest, boasts forests that are among the world's most biodiverse--and most imperiled. Consumption of wood for fuel in the area averages about 6 tons per family of four...
...cover hillsides near Palm Springs and Altamont Pass in California and are springing up in the breezy Midwest and on the Atlantic Coast too. Solar cells can churn out electricity at around 25¢ to 35¢ per kilowatt-hour, falling but still a multiple of the cost of energy from coal-fired power plants. Canada is extracting oil from the tar sands of Alberta for an amazingly efficient price of $15 to $20 per bbl., and the technology exists to convert the U.S.'s huge supply of coal into petroleum. This process, called coal liquefaction, creates a fuel that could power...
...this explosion of innovation has a problem, however, it may be that the developments are coming too late to allow a smooth transition to the postpetroleum era. Hydrogen fuel cells, ethanol from vegetable matter, solar cells, wind power, synthetic gasoline from coal--all could make a dent once they are available in sufficient quantities. But that won't be for years, maybe decades, says Richard Heinberg, a professor of culture, ecology and sustainable community at the New College of California in Santa Rosa and the author of The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies. Twenty...
...year-old SUV to buy a new hybrid. Most people can't afford to abandon houses built in developments 100 miles out in the countryside when oil was cheap. And although energy and power companies are investing in new technologies, they can't create a massive new infrastructure overnight. Coal liquefaction, nuclear power, wind power--"all of these things need an enormous lead time," says Heinberg. The problem with the free market, in short, is that while it may sort things out over the long run, people have to cope in the short run. "Price signals," he adds, "come much...