• Chinese Coal Mines Kill 3,865 - BEIJING  - January 12, 2008 — Accidents in China's notoriously dangerous coal mines killed nearly 3,800 people last year, state media reported Saturday — a toll that is a marked improvement from previous years, but still leaves China's mines the world's deadliest. Coal is the lifeblood of China's booming, energy-hungry economy. The mining industry's safety, which has never been good, has often suffered as mine owners push to dig up more coal to take advantage of higher prices.  Chinese mines produced 2.5 billion tons of coal last year, nearly 8 percent more than in 2006. ~~ Read the complete news article HERE
• Seventy percent of China's energy comes from coal, the dirtiest of all fuels to produce energy. China will build 500 coal-fired power plants in the next decade, at the rate of almost one a week. This massive appetite for coal means equally huge greenhouse gas emissions. China has 5 million coal miners and the search for coal kills thousands of them each year.  (Source)
• China is the world’s largest coal producer, accounting for nearly 28% of the world’s annual production. (Source) 
• Coal is one of the biggest pollution sources in China, which some experts think is on the verge of an environmental crisis.  (Source)
• China’s major coal mining equipment is generally 10 to 15 years behind that of other countries with respect to mining efficiency, equipment quality, environmental protection of mines, and safety. (Source)
• Accidents in 2005 killed over 6,000 coal workers.  In 2006, China saw 4,236 deaths in the first 11 months, the lowest number in the past three years. The Chinese government is trying to close 4,861 small coal mines (below 30,000 tons of production capacity) without sufficient protection on coal mine safe production 2006-2007.  (Source)
• In the U.S., which produces about half as much coal as China, 47 miners were killed in 2006, up from 22 in 2005. (Source)
• One fifth of the power plants in China are illegal, according to government estimates -- enough to light up all of the U.K. (Source)

Let's put this into perspective (courtesy of CARMA - Carbon Monitoring for Action) -  a large red circle indicates that a plant produces a lot of electricity and a lot of CO2 - dots go to green which indicates a plant producing almost no CO2:

Doesn't look so bad, huh?  Until you view the entire world in perspective:

This site is © Copyright PDL 2008, All Rights Reserved
Steve's free web templates