During the past weeks, most of the Chinese provinces, especially in the north and east of China, began to face a crisis of power cuts in a way that China has not witnessed for many years, as entire cities with all their factories and homes are cut off from electricity for hours and days, as the electricity is cut off from traffic lights in the streets. To save electricity, the government asks the residents to climb the stairs instead of using the elevator, and they also ask the owners of shops and shopping centers not to illuminate the advertising banners at all, and the sales of candles have increased tenfold due to this crisis.
The southern province of Guangdong, which is one of the largest industrial provinces in China, and its economy is larger than that of countries such as Australia, asked the residents to try to rely on the natural environment as much as possible, and the Chinese CCTV station said that there are more than 20 people who were transferred to hospitals due to poisoning with CO gas after The ventilation devices stopped working because of the power outage, and the Energy Administration in Jilin City issued a statement warning the residents of the power outages for unlimited periods, without a plan and without any warning, and said that this situation will be from now to March, but after that Delete this statement and apologize for the incorrect wording of this statement.
In short, China is facing an unprecedented energy crisis, and this crisis is causing great inconvenience to the authorities there and to the Communist Party due to the risk of social instability and the impact on the gross domestic product of the second largest economy in the world.
What exactly is happening in China, and why did the electricity crisis suddenly appear, and why are the Chinese, with all the experiences they have, unable to solve it quickly, and for how long is this crisis expected to remain?
The answers to all these questions will be found in the rest of this blog
The energy crisis in China did not suddenly appear in a day or a month, but it was a problem that remained for many months to the extent that it appeared in this way these days. The main reason behind this great crisis in China is coal because coal depends on it to generate electricity.
The beginning of the story was on September 22, 2020, when Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged before the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York a plan to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, and said that by 2060 China would eliminate carbon dioxide emissions, and this is the number one cause of global warming that It leads to many changes in the Earth’s climate, and China’s goal was to convert this gas into renewable energy such as solar energy and to dispense with dirty energy sources such as coal.
If China succeeds in achieving this goal and eliminating emissions after 30 years, it will be faster than the goal of Europe and It is to eliminate emissions after 40 years and is also faster than the goal of the United States of America, which is to eliminate emissions after 40 years.
What is forcing China to do this and why is it putting a pledge to the world by doing something that is not so easy like this?
The answer to this question is that this gives it greater influence on world affairs, and because of the coming domination of China on the world, there must be a responsibility that China must impose on itself, and certainly China now is not the same after 10 years and not as after 30 years, and also China is greater A source of carbon dioxide in the world, which is the main cause of global warming, as we mentioned earlier, and there is great pressure on it to reduce these emissions from the whole world due to the many disasters that occur annually due to climate change.
Why is China the largest producer of carbon dioxide in the world?
During the past 40 years, China relied on industrialization strongly, and this saved millions from poverty, and it was the great shift from a backward country to the second largest economy in the world. That is why it is called the “Factory of the World” because in recent decades the world has become addicted to Chinese goods and has become completely dependent on them. Until last year, when the global economy was all suffering due to the impact of the Covid-19 virus, the Chinese industrial output reached 3.8 trillion dollars, and this figure represents a third of the global economic output.
70% of the electricity in China depends on coal, which is about two-thirds of the electricity in China. Therefore, China extracts and burns about half of the coal in the world, and every year, China alone produces 3.8 billion tons of coal, and it is certainly the main source of the most polluting energy and This is the first reason for carbon dioxide emissions, and therefore, after the pledges of the Chinese President, the Chinese government's direction has become to reduce coal production, and from here, coal mines and power generators that rely on coal to generate electricity are facing restrictions from the Chinese government.
After the Chinese economy began to recover from the Covid-19 epidemic, the factories that worked very quickly returned, and here coal production was at its highest levels, which caused many deaths for coal miners until February 2021, when the Chinese government in March amended the law to raise penalties for owners Mines and owners of coal mining companies from a fine to imprisonment if there are any safety violations, and this made the mines reduce their production because their owners are hesitant and afraid of imprisonment, in addition to many mines that China has closed because they do not meet safety standards, all of this is the reason for a shortage of Coal production, and consequently, a very large shortage of coal stocks, and certainly this is the reason for the rise in coal prices at record levels, and prices have tripled in China during this year only until mid-October, this made many plant owners stop working because of these prices.
There are three regions in China that are responsible for producing the majority of local coal. They are Mongolia, Shaanxi Province, and Shanxi Province, The huge quantities of coal that China burns annually produces 90% of them locally and 10% is imported from abroad.
Shanxi Province experienced devastating floods in the first week of October, and these floods displaced more than 120,000 people and closed 60 coal mines, and this increased pressure on China, which became unable to control the energy crisis.
The remaining 30% was for renewable energy
The bad weather led to the disruption of supplies from some renewable energy sources such as hydropower and wind energy due to the rainy season, which began late in China, and also there was a sudden decrease in the supply of wind energy from northeastern China, and therefore the quantities of electricity generated from these sources decreased also.
All this came at a time when China needs electricity more than any other time due to the return of global demand for Chinese goods terribly after the Covid 19 crisis, and also because of the harsh winter and the use of electricity for heating.
The Chinese government is trying to solve this problem as soon as possible, and it will raise electricity prices by 20%, all to stimulate production and make the stations to return to work at full capacity, and the Chinese government said a few days ago that it would intervene with these high coal prices and issued direct and strict directives to coal mines to increase production as soon as possible.
Certainly, after all these problems, the Chinese president's plan to reduce carbon emissions has now stopped until the current crisis is resolved, and most expectations say that the crisis will remain until the winter season ends almost until next March, and this unfortunately causes a great danger to the global economy because of the lack of coal It causes factories to stop working, and therefore a huge increase in prices.