China Announces Plan To Boost Coal Output By 400 Million Tons/Yr By 2010 - AFP

[hatrack]

Energy-starved China will boost coal output by 400 million tonnes a year by 2010 by streamlining the industry and opening a string of new "super" pits, state media reported Friday.

Widespread closures and mergers will leave fewer than 20 firms, including six to eight new "super coal production enterprises' with a yield of 100 million tonnes each, accounting for more than 50 percent of the country's entire output by 2010, Xinhua news agency said. China reported a total coal output of more than 2.3 billion tonnes of coal last year.

Small mines that are illegal or inefficient and have given the industry its appalling safety record are already being weeded out, Wang Xianzheng, deputy director of the State Administration of Work Safety, was quoted as saying. Over the last two years, more than 9,000 small mines have been shut and another 1,000 will close by the end of 2007, Xinhua said.

As part of the streamlining process the country plans to build 10 large strip-mines with a production capacity of 10 million tonnes each and another 10 pits with a yield of 10 million tonnes each, Wang said.

EDIT

http://www.terradaily.com/2007/071005083430.y3kp54h7.html

[Systematic Chaos]

1. Thank goodness!!

I was afraid they might start a massive nuclear program instead. :scared:

:sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm:

[Fovea]

2. Good news for all clorophyll producing people everywhere!

And poison ivy lovers.

[hatrack]

4. True - shame about the oceans and all of that . . .

Drip Drip Drip.

[Gregorian]

3. Quick, everybody buy a Prius.

Sorry. It's just that this puts things in perspective. Do people see why I am so pessimistic now? Do people see why I keep mentioning POPULATION now? Because it is about population. Since we are all living with lights and stoves and hot water, etc., it is not as much a question of what we're doing as how many are doing it.

It's sad.