To express a fear of the Chinese, economically is an irrational fear. After you read all of that just look at this page. bls.gov/cpi/cpid1301.pdf The problem is food and energy are not fixed costs. The have flat lined and the over all average movement is upward. An economy based on growing food and extracting fuel may not be glamorous but these old standbys are the at the root of American purchasing power. China no matter what her other comparative advantages must rely on a deadly and dirty fuel, coal. One can check the quality of their coal but it appears when one flays towards China that their coal is high sulfur coal. The means less BTUs or heat per ton. sciencedirect/science/article/pii/S0048969701011366 If you have doubts about the conclusion you can look at the data in the paper. But it is wise to build nearly everything on coal ash? If the Greeks are handicapped by low quality Greek coal how can the Chinese be better users of coal of equally low quality? Food and fuel are baseline costs. Nothing can run, machines, and there is no metabolism, humans and their beasts of burden, with out food and fuel. 7. Conclusions China and Greece are two countries heavily relying on coal to meet their electricity generation needs. China, which is the largest producer of coal in the world, generated around 1300 TW h in 2002 from coal-fired power plants and produced around 160 million tons of fly ash. Greek lignite satisfies over 67% of the country’s needs in electric power, producing around 10 million tons of fly ash yearly. Selected samples from China (Hebei Province) and Greece (Ptolemais) were analyzed in order to determine their mineralogical and chemical composition. Chinese ash contains mullite, calcite, dolomite and quartz (76%) and amorphous material (24%) while the main mineral phases included in coal are quartz, kaolinite, calcite, dolomite and bohemite. The mineralogical composition of the Greek fly ash includes calcite, quartz plagioclase, anhydrite, lime, portlandite, gelehnite, hematite and amorphous material. The Chinese fly ash is classified in type F, according to ASTM C 618, while the Greek fly ash in type C. The examined Chinese fly ash is rich in Al2 O3 (35%) while the Greek fly ash is CaO-rich (28%). As far as the trace elements is concerned, the Chinese fly ash contains lower concentrations of Ni, Cr, Zn, Ba, La, Sr and B compared to the Greek fly ash. This is due to the surrounded the coal basin rocks’ composition. Fly ash is used in China in the construction industry since 1950s. At present it is used as blending material to produce cement, in road construction, and in brickworks. The ‘‘Three Gorges Project’’, a 185 m height dam, is also constructed using 15 million tons of fly ash. On the contrary the utilization of fly ash is only extended in the construction of Platanovryssi dam (82% participation of fly ash in the concrete) and in cement production. References [1] Ye Z. Set up new standard of coal fired power plant and facilitate the continuous development of electric power industry. China Environ News, 8th August 2001. [2] Filippidis A, Georgakopoulos A, Kassoli-Furnaraki A, Misaelidis P, Yiakkoupis P, Broussoulis J. Trace elements contents in composited samples of three lignite seams from the central part of the Drama lignite deposit, Macedonia, Greece. Int J Coal Geol 1996;29:219– 34. [3] Finkelman RB. Modes of occurrence of trace elements in coal. US Geological Survey Open File Report, OFR-81-99. 1981. 301p. [4] Finkelman RB, Stanton RW. Identification and significance of accessory minerals from a bituminous coal. Fuel 1978;57:763–8. [5] Finkelman RB. The inorganic geochemistry of coal: a scanning electron microscopy view. Scan Microsc 1988;2:97–105. [6] Georgakopoulos A, Fillipidis A, Kassoli-Foumaraki A, FemandezTuriel JL, Llorens JF. The content of some trace elements in surface soils and fly ash of Ptolemais Lignite basin, Macedonia, Greece. In: Anagnostopoulos A, editor. Proceedings of the 3rd international conference environmental pollution, Thessaloniki. 1996. p. 114–8. [7] International Energy Agency. World energy outlook. 2004. 577p. [8] Iordanidis A, Georgakopoulos A, Filippidis A, Kossoli-Fournaraki A. A correlation study of trace elements in lignite and fly ash generated in a power station. Int J Environ Anal Chem 2001;79(2): 133–41. [9] Kolker A, Crowley S, Palmer CA, et al. Mode of occurrence of arsenic in four US coals. Fuel Process Technol 2000;63:167–78. [10] Koukouzas N, Vassilatos C, Glarakis I. Mineralogical and petrographical study of Concrete by using fly ash from Ptolemais. Bulletin of the Geological Society of Greece 1st conference of the economic geology, mineralogy and geochemistry committee. Kozani, Greece. February 2000. p. 261–72. [11] Koukouzas N, Kakaras E, Grammelis P. The lignite electricitygenerating sector in Greece: current status and future prospects. Int J Energy Res 2004;28:785–98. [12] Rietveld HM. J Appl Crystallogr 1969;2:65–71. [13] Snyder RL, Bish DL. Modern powder diffraction. Reviews in mineralogy, vol. 20. Mineralogical Society of America; 198 blogs.wsj/economics/2013/08/01/decoupling-comes-back-to-bite-asia/?mod=WSJBlog
Posted on: Sat, 03 Aug 2013 05:47:44 +0000
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