SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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
(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...