http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-parliament-steel-coal-idUSKBN16C00H
China will cut steel capacity by 50 million tonnes and coal output by more than 150 million tonnes this year, its top economic planner said on Sunday as the world's No. 2 economy deepens efforts to tackle pollution and curb excess supply. In a work report at the opening of the annual meeting of parliament, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said it would shut or stop construction of coal-fired power plants with capacity of more than 50 million kilowatts.
The pledges are part of Beijing's years-long push to reduce the share of coal in its energy mix to cut pollution that has choked northern cities and to meet climate-change goals while streamlining unwieldy and over-supplied smoke-stack industries such as steel. Speaking at the opening of parliament on Sunday, Premier Li Keqiang reiterated the government's plan to ramp up monitoring of heavy industry and crack down on companies and officials that violate air quality rules. "Officials who do a poor job in enforcing the law, knowingly allow environmental violations, or respond inadequately to worsening air quality will be held accountable," he said. "We will make our skies blue again."
Related: U.S. Quintuples Taxes on Chinese Cold-Rolled Flat Steel
China Is Grappling With Hidden Unemployment
China's Smoggiest City Closes Schools Amid Public Anger
China: Solar Installations Up 82 Percent in 2016; Coal Usage Down Again
Related Stories
The U.S. Commerce Department has massively increased the taxes on a particular kind of imported Chinese steel. U.S. steelmakers are separately asking the International Trade Commission to ban all Chinese steel imports:
The US has raised its import duties on Chinese steelmakers by more than five-fold after accusing them of selling their products below market prices. The taxes specifically apply to Chinese-made cold-rolled flat steel, which is used in car manufacturing, shipping containers and construction.
The US Commerce Department ruling comes amid heightened trade tensions between the two sides over several products, including chicken parts. Steel is an especially sensitive issue. US and European steel producers claim China is distorting the global market and undercutting them by dumping its excess supply abroad.
Bloomberg News reports
Cracks are starting to show in China's labor market as struggling industrial firms leave millions of workers in flux.
While official jobless numbers haven't budged, the underemployment rate has jumped to more than 5 percent from near zero in 2010, according to Bai Peiwei, an economics professor at Xiamen University. Bai estimates the rate may be 10 percent in industries with excess capacity, such as unprofitable steel mills and coal mines that have slashed pay, reduced shifts, and required unpaid leave.
Many state-owned firms battling overcapacity favor putting workers in a holding pattern to avoid mass layoffs that risk fueling social unrest. While that helps airbrush the appearance of duress, it also slows the shift of workers to services jobs, where labor demand remains more solid in China's shifting economy.
[...] "Underemployment is especially rampant at state-owned companies", said Zeng Xiangquan, a professor of labor and human resources at Renmin University in Beijing. "The government tends to overprotect them." That keeps laid-off workers from getting retrained and hired into new jobs in more thriving sectors like services or high-end manufacturing, Zeng said.
China's smoggiest city closed schools Wednesday as much of the country suffered its sixth day under an oppressive haze, sparking public anger about the slow response to the threat to children's health.
Since Friday a choking miasma has covered a large swathe of northeastern China, leaving more than 460 million gasping for breath.
Shijiazhuang, the capital of Hebei province, was one of more than 20 cities which went on red alert Friday evening, triggering an emergency plan to reduce pollution by shutting polluting factories and taking cars off the road, among other measures.
Nowhere has been hit as hard as Shijiazhuang, which has seen a huge rise in pollution.
But the city's education department waited until Tuesday evening to announce it was closing elementary schools and kindergartens, following similar moves in nearby Beijing and Tianjin.
The announcement said middle and high schools could close on a voluntary basis.
The statement on the education department's official social media account provoked anger.
Hmm, classmates in Beijing assured us air pollution in China came from Siberia.
Also at Channel NewsAsia: Chinese cities choked by dangerous smog for fifth day; factories, schools closed
Climate Change News reports
In 2016, China's solar capacity grew a staggering 81.6% to 77GW, double the total installed in the US. Wind power grew 13.2% to 149GW--roughly a third of all wind energy is located in China.
[...] [For] the third year in a row, the world's biggest polluter has cut back its use of the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel. [...] Coal use fell 4.7%. It is the largest year on year drop in a decline that has now been repeated since 2014.
[...] Greenpeace cautioned, [however,] that this was a measure of the physical weight of coal burned. When measured in energy units, the drop was just 1.3%. This could be due to an improvement in coal quality or discrepancies in reporting.
[...] Xu Zhaoyuan, head of research division at the industrial economy department of the Development Research Centre of China's State Council, said [...] "I don't think coal consumption is going to rebound in the next several years, but will rather plateau, meaning it will remain stable or decrease slowly."
US steel and aluminium imports face big tariffs, Trump says
President Donald Trump has said he will sign off on steep tariffs on steel and aluminium imports next week, hitting producers like Canada and China.
Flanked by US metals executives at the White House, he said a 25% tariff would be slapped on steel products, and a 10% tariff would be imposed on aluminium.
Mr Trump tweeted that the US was suffering from "unfair trade".
The US imports four times more steel than it exports, and is reliant on steel from more than 100 nations.
Related: U.S. Quintuples Taxes on Chinese Cold-Rolled Flat Steel
China to Cut Steel and Coal Production
Trump Administration Finalizes 300% Import Tariff on Bombardier Jets From Canada
US Government Puts Tariffs on Imported Solar Cells, Solar Modules, and Washing Machines
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Monday March 06 2017, @12:43PM (7 children)
http://www.businessinsider.com/china-suspending-coal-imports-from-north-korea-2017-2 [businessinsider.com]
Li'l Kim insists on playing with dangerous toys, such as ballistic missiles, and nuclear warheads. China has finally got tired of Li'l Kim's misconduct, tired of his silly tantrums. The Chinese government decided to punish Li'l Kim, and stop the coal imports that supply Kim with most of his negotiable currency.
Yeah, it's true that China has some very severe pollution problems, but there are political reasons for this as well.
If Kim should grow up some, and start acting like a respectable adult, China may reconsider, and start buying coal from Kim again. Or - maybe not. Promises are made to be broken, after all. Who is going to hold China responsible for those promises?
(Score: 2) by rondon on Monday March 06 2017, @01:25PM (4 children)
I'm curious what Soylentils think - is China truly tiring of NK, or is it simply a case of showing NK who is boss?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Unixnut on Monday March 06 2017, @02:12PM (2 children)
I imagine it is more of a quick slap across the back of the head to remind NK that they live or die based on the strings China can pull. The "showing who is boss" bit.
I mean, NK only had two neighbours, China and SK, and I doubt NK can substitute SK for China in support anytime soon.
However nukes complicate things a bit, but I doubt Kim will launch warheads at China or SK just randomly. However he can sabre rattle with them to try to win concessions or cause countries to back off.
IF NK actually used the weapons, they would become a smoking crater v.quick as the rest of the world piled into them both out of retaliation and in order to secure the weapons before they are used again (or they drop out into the black market somewhere).
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Monday March 06 2017, @06:26PM
I mean, NK only had two neighbours, China and SK
Japan and Russia too.
I don't agree that China escalated to this point because of the nuclear issue. North Korea is first and foremost a headache for the US and its allies, South Korea and Japan. A nuclear-armed North Korea might even be very divisive since Japan may in response go nuclear as well (assuming that they haven't already!). South Korea then ends up in the unenviable position of being surrounding by potentially belligerent countries on all sides. Under those circumstances, China may be able to offer a much better deal to South Korea than either the US or Japan.
I think what was going on was that China was hosting an exiled half-brother of Kim Jong Un, Kim Jong Nam, probably as long term leverage (say allowing them a credible threat of regime change down the road). North Korea recently preempted that by poisoning Kim Jong Nam with VX, a nerve gas active ingredient (yes, nerve gas) in Malaysia when he was traveling outside of China. That's pretty provoking even by North Korea standards. China doesn't have any real attachment to Kim Jong Nam, but some response has to be made. So this is the response.
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Monday March 06 2017, @08:57PM
Reunification would be an interesting idea.
The two countries are still at war, so they would have to negotiate some kind of peace treaty.
I have seen speculation that China likes NK as a buffer from American influence.
Maybe they can start small with a trade agreement.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 06 2017, @06:30PM
Kim's brother lived in China with a couple wives and a bunch of kids. Killing him in Malaysia probably pissed off China.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 06 2017, @04:35PM
Cutting domestic production while continuing to import coal from North Korea would make for bad optics.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday March 06 2017, @07:52PM
Kim saw what happened to WMD-free Saddam. He needs the toys to stay alive, regardless of cost.
Nukes and having Seoul within artillery range are his insurance policies (having Japan downwind also helps a bit).
Threatening China with instability and exodus is a fine line the Kims have been able to walk so far.
The Chinese are not in a rush to drop NK yet. They need Kim to keep looking like he's not worth being Trump's war.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 06 2017, @01:32PM (12 children)
China is 50 years behind the US, but playing with the advantage of following instead of leading. Funny that they make the same mistakes and corrections.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Monday March 06 2017, @02:42PM (11 children)
Or so you like to believe.
Wanna bet the orange one will slide** into "Making Pittsburgh great again, because... American steel"?
---
** if he doesn't implode 'til then under the burden of his own political clow... err, pardon... showmanship.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 06 2017, @03:01PM (2 children)
Oh yes keep up the narrative you salty bastard. When your Muslim Brotherhood plant B. Hussein Obama is nice and snug in GITMO we will see who implodes.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday March 06 2017, @03:23PM
Letting aside the empty threats... "my Muslim Brotherhood plant"?
Mate, I'm in Ozland, it's not mine.
I can't however ignore the showmanship of your elected one, far better than his previous "reality TV" show.
It would be entertaining if it wasn't tragic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 06 2017, @04:19PM
Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up!
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 06 2017, @03:28PM (3 children)
China has been ahead of the US in electronics production (handheld touchscreens, etc.) for almost 20 years, and they're on-par or better than the US in many many areas today. However, in the macro picture, they're still catching up with bringing their rural areas into the modern age, electricity for everyone, regulation of pollution, etc. London has been a great example of how to do urbanization wrong throughout the ages, and the U.S. rust belt should be a beacon for all who follow: coal and steel was good at the time, but it's just not worth it in the long run. Still, many of the big Chinese (and Indian) cities seem to be racing into the same pitfalls of growth outstripping infrastructure, pollution, exports that bring money but degrade the local resources and environment, etc.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday March 06 2017, @03:58PM (2 children)
All you said rings true.
The point I was to make is that these advances US enjoy may not last long and not because the Chinese advances by leaps and bounds.
E.g. I wouldn't be surprised to see the quality of the air degrade to a level the Chinese experience today - the orange one seems quite bent to gut EPA [sciencemag.org].
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 06 2017, @04:29PM
God will keep our air clean!
Old story. Giant flood, people in boats, houses washed away, and there's this guy who's retreated to the roof. A boat comes by him with with just two people on board. "Sir, jump aboard," says the man in the boat. "No sir, God's gonna take care of me," says the guy on the roof. Meanwhile, the water is rising an is almost up to the roof. Later on another boat comes by, but this one is crowded. "Sir, jump on board. We can make room for you." "No sir, God's gonna take care of me." Now the water's starting to climb up the roof, and the current is fast and cold. A helicopter hovers overhead and sends down a rope. A man with a bull horn shouts out of the side of the chopper, "Grab ahold of the rope, sir. This is your last chance." "No sir," the guy on the roof shouts. "God's gonna take care of me!"
A few moments later, the guy is at the pearly gates and catches God's ear. "I don't understand. I had faith you would take care of me, but you let me drown." To that, God replies, "What in the world do you mean? I sent you two boats and a helicopter!"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 06 2017, @05:04PM
The orange one seems quite bent, period.
If he wants to gut the EPA protections for his rural "base" because they think that there's so much open range that a few asbestos pits and lead dumps ain't gonna hurt nobody nohow, then he might get that. I'm hopeful that if the federal EPA gets gutted, the cities and other places with experience with industrial contamination will step up and put together their own regulations, which will likely be tighter than the current federal standards for things that matter to them. It probably helps that these are the same places that didn't vote orange in '16.
It would be unfortunate if we increased the output of mercury, lead and sulfur to the air - but, again, I think the people with experience of what that means to quality of life are strong enough now to stand up and fight to keep the regulations that make sense. Acid rain has killed lakes and streams already - the drop in violent crime in the 1990s isn't just due to freely available porn, lack of lead in the environment is also a big contributor, and we haven't really started an effective mercury cleanup program yet (quite the opposite with the whole CFL push last decade), but I'm hopeful that the contaminated fish stocks will return to edibility before I'm dead.
Actually, I looked at purchasing land in east Texas back about 10 years ago, and plenty of places I looked had plenty of experience with environmental problems - battery recycling superfund sites, leaky pipelines, cancer clusters, etc. All those people who have seen firsthand what lack of regulation means - at least a few of them will take a stand that somebody else's right to make a profit does not supercede their right to live in a decent environment.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Monday March 06 2017, @05:16PM (1 child)
Today's steel mills aren't dirty like they were fifty years ago. And, I'll add that the majority of the dirt and pollution didn't come from the steel mills, but from the electric plants that powered the steel mills. Today's power plants are ultra clean, compared to yesterday's plants.
We could reopen all the steel mills that were shut down in the 1980's today, and the level of pollution wouldn't go up much at all. Building clean power plants for starters, then installing furnaces and processing mills that meet today's environmental standards, would eliminate almost all of the pollution that I remember as a kid.
Much has been made over the fact that I live in Arkansas today. But, I grew up near Pittsburgh. 35 miles, taking the most direct roads, more like 25 miles as the crow flies. The Penn Power plant close to me was visible from many miles away, day or night. At night, the stacks spewed a flame that shot ten, fifteen, or twenty feet above the stacks. By day, the column of black soot flowing upward stretched out over the horizon. Back then, it was common to hang laundry out to dry. Home makers downwind of the power plant DID NOT hang laundry out - everything came back into the house black.
In the early 70's the EPA forced Penn Power to build new stacks, and install "scrubbers" in them. In the years that I lived there afterward, you never saw a flame, and very seldom saw any smoke at all. It wasn't uncommon to see a thin plume of steam rising from the stack, but mostly, there was nothing to see.
This being 2017, I'm fairly sure that technology has advanced beyond those 1970's scrubbers. The plume of steam that I remember would probably be unacceptable today.
Long story short - the US will not go back to the pollution of fifty years ago. It can't, it won't happen. Bring all the steel production in the world to the US, and you'll have difficulty measuring any significant increase in pollution.
I should probably add that the steel mills, even back then, weren't all dirty. Babcock and Wilcox tubular stainless, in Wallace Run, outside of Beaver Falls, Pa, was very clean. Even back then, it was clean. Well - let's define "clean". No, it wasn't like a clean room used in medical research. You could get quite dirty in the plant, if you cared to do so. But, my stepdad worked in that mill from 1955 until he died. Unlike the power plant people, he almost always came home from work in clean clothes. There were times, of course, when there was dirty work to be done. But, men and women worked there, and came home hot, sweaty, tired, but with little dirt and grime to wash off.
Steel doesn't require dirt and grime. In fact, the best steel comes from clean mills.
I wish that I could brag about all of our steel mills from that era. Youngstown Sheet and Tube was a notoriously filthy place to work. Weirton Steel was notoriously dirty in the sixties - by the '80's they had largely cleaned up their act.
(Score: 4, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Monday March 06 2017, @06:13PM
...he almost always came home from work in clean clothes.
Most likely because lead and chromium are used in stainless production. And therefore, changing into clean clothes before you leave work is required by OSHA so you don't track it home with you.
Steel doesn't require dirt and grime.
It may not require it, but, it's certainly an inevitable byproduct at every mill I've ever been to.
Source: I spent 10 years in the steel industry and visited 25 different mills in that time.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by nitehawk214 on Monday March 06 2017, @05:41PM
I live in Pittsburgh. And yes, every politician that campaigns here tries that. And nobody follows through on it, because politicians just cant will a long-dead industry back to life.
However, I do agree with the premise of this thread. China realizes that to make real money they need to have control of finances, not raw materials. The big companies of Pittsburgh moved from steel to banking decades ago.
Now, the individual workers will get fucked over in China just as they did in the Rust Belt, but China itself will be just fine.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DeathMonkey on Monday March 06 2017, @06:38PM
Wanna bet the orange one will slide** into "Making Pittsburgh great again, because... American steel"?
I'd bet against that. Keystone pipeline won't use US steel despite Trump pledge [foxnews.com]
Whose steel will it use? Is anyone actually surprised? [desmogblog.com]
Nothing to see here, move along...
(Score: 2) by bart9h on Monday March 06 2017, @02:24PM (6 children)
> China will cut steel capacity by 50 million tonnes and coal output by more than 150 million tonnes this year
Is it a 50% cut, or a 2% cut?
For these numbers to make sense, I would have to research what is the total production. Too much to ask for someone who doesn't even RTFA.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 06 2017, @03:23PM (2 children)
The Chinese bosses aren't completely stupid. My guess -- they will cut imports of coal (from N Korea) long before they will cut production at their own coal mines. Why risk discontent from laid-off coal miners? "Buy Chinese" is probably just as good as a nationalistic rallying cry in China, as "Buy American" is in USA.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 06 2017, @03:29PM (1 child)
Adding to my AC comment above, the fortune cookie I'm getting is:
The end move in politics is always to pick up a gun. -- Buckminster Fuller
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 06 2017, @04:29PM
"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun," said Chairman Mao.
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Monday March 06 2017, @03:25PM (2 children)
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 06 2017, @03:31PM (1 child)
6%, in the noise... derivatives traders will go wild, but nobody else should even notice.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 06 2017, @04:05PM
> 6%, in the noise
Ummm, maybe in the noise in USA, but not in China!
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-26/china-steel-cut-plan-risks-400-000-jobs-instability-institute [bloomberg.com]
> China’s plan to slash crude steel production capacity could eliminate 400,000 jobs and may fuel social instability, according to the state-run metals industry consultancy.
and further down the same article, it looks like a billion here and there start to add up:
> Social Stability
Even more workers will be affected across related industries, Li said, according to Xinhua, and could potentially become a destabilizing force. "Large-scale redundancies in the steel sector could threaten social stability," Li was quoted as saying by the state-run agency.
Li confirmed the 400,000 job loss estimate in an interview Tuesday. He said the association estimates that there are 1.8 million workers employed by its members, which exclude private steelmakers. He declined to give an industrywide estimate.
China’s steel producers have faced slumping steel prices and the industry lost an estimated $12 billion in 2015, according to Rajiv Biswas, Asia-Pacific chief economist at IHS Global Insight in Singapore. The industry faces a long period of restructuring and consolidation with excess capacity of about 300 million tons, he said.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday March 06 2017, @05:28PM (3 children)
Chinese leaders can just declare this policy, and it will happen. In the free-market economy, there's no similar path, for better or for worse. Certainly, the companies in the coal and steel industry would never suggest such a policy: When the demand starts sinking, rather than cut production they almost always opt for leaning on their workers to accept pay cuts in exchange for keeping their jobs.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Monday March 06 2017, @07:40PM (2 children)
Chinese leaders can just declare this policy, and it will happen. In the free-market economy, there's no similar path, for better or for worse. Certainly, the companies in the coal and steel industry would never suggest such a policy: When the demand starts sinking, rather than cut production they almost always opt for leaning on their workers to accept pay cuts in exchange for keeping their jobs.
For better certainly. Look at who's in charge in the US. Do you really want Trump making Chinese-like authoritarian decisions? Let's also keep in mind that he already tried and failed to ban legal residents of the US from entering the US.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday March 06 2017, @08:24PM (1 child)
Not really, but I'm not convinced that the people currently running the businesses in the industry in question in the US are making decisions that are any smarter than the ones Trump (or the Chinese leadership) would make. And market competition is not a magic wand that gets rid of fools in charge of major businesses: After all, Trump was still in business long after he had demonstrated multiple times he was an idiot.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday March 07 2017, @02:37PM
Well, to be fair, he *was* eventually forced to find a new job...