Global Energy and Environment Update

China Continues to Sail Forward with Coal

As the U.S. government wages war on coal, China is moving ahead with a number of large coal-mining projects to provide cheap, reliable energy to meet their ever-growing demand. The latest, in the Xinjiang region, is a project with U.S. based Peabody Energy Co. It is expected to produce 50 million metric tons per year, about 2% of China’s 2010 production of 3.3 billion metric tons and 3 times the annual U.S. production of roughly 1 billion metric tons. As China’s energy needs continue to increase, their production and consumption of coal is projected to steadily rise well into the future.

‘Fuel Poverty’ Soars in EU, ‘Green’ Energy to Blame

A new report from the Consumer Focus group in the United Kingdom discovered that roughly 20% of residents in the UK are living in ‘fuel poverty,’ meaning they might be required to choose between heating their homes and a hot meal this winter. This is only expected to rise as utilities continue to raise the price of electricity in response to various EU caps on carbon dioxide emissions. Current electricity prices in the United Kingdom are roughly 50% higher than the U.S. average. In other EU countries, such as Denmark – the so called ‘leader in the expensive energy revolution—average electricity prices per kilowatt hour are over two-and-a-half times the U.S. price.