Filed under: sustainability
i have a copy of ‘Manufactured Landscapes‘ as recommended by Graham - looks absolutely stunning - great photography of Chinese manufacturing etc. Has some footage of 3 Gorges damn… which led me to look at this graph:
Since the year 2000 China has more than doubled it’s fossil fuel produced eletctricity! For comparison Ireland produces about 24 TWh per year which would hardly register on this graph! However, what is more amazing to me is that China’s population is nearly 300 times larger than Ireland (and it produces most of the stuff we in the West use.) If I multiply Ireland’s annual electricity production (24TWh) by 300 we get 7,200. That means that if the Chinese were to catch up with Ireland’s per capita electricity usage then they’d need to double their generating capacity again. In fact it’d probably be more than that given that much of their electricity is used to make ’stuff’ for export… Time for a power-down in the cash rich countries I think.
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Ah, don’t be such a doom-monger! According to Gordon Brown in this Guardian article, China is “part of the solution”. Why? Because they are building “a low-carbon fossil fuel power station”.
Yes, that’s right, one whole low-carbon power station! That should cancel out those 2000twh no problems.
Ummm, by the way, can anybody actually tell me what a “low carbon fossil fuel” power station actually is without using the word ‘oxymoron’…?
Comment by Simon B 01.21.08 @ 9:50 pm