Obama and the Environment

Today, Obama will unveil a series of executive actions — taken on his own authority rather than through new legislation — to clamp down on power plants and otherwise reduce the country’s carbon footprint. Meaning raise our price of energy, redistribute “wealth”, make our costs of doing business higher, making our products and services more expensive. All, again by executive fiat. Ideology trumps truth and facts every time. Why you ask, well, let’s review.

The People’s Republic of China is the world’s largest consumer of coal, using more coal each year than the United States, the European Union, and Japan combined.^[1] Coal power has been the dominant source of energy used to fuel the rapid economic development of China in the past two decades, with significant impact on its physical environment and human population. China relies on coal power for approximately 70-80% of its energy, with 45% used for the industrial sector and the remainder used to generate electricity.^[2] By 2010, China comprised 48% of world coal consumption.

In September 2010, Greenpeace reported that China's huge number of coal-fired power plants generate so much toxic coal ash that the coal waste could fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool every two and a half minutes. According to the report, China consumed more than 3 billion tons of coal in 2009, more than triple what is used by the second-ranked United States, and generated 375 million tons of coal ash in its single-largest source of solid waste.^[71]
China depends on coal-fired power for 70 per cent of its energy, and Greenpeace found that China's methods for disposing of the ash are inadequate, with disposal sites often located near residential areas, allowing for contamination of surface water and deeper well water. China's coal ash production has grown by 2.5 times since 2002, when the country began a rapid expansion of coal-fired plants. Roughly one coal-fired power plant was being built each week in China, which currently has an estimated 1,400 such plants.
In 2006, the Chinese government deregulated coal prices, undoing its practice of specifying coal prices for electricity producers. Since China deregulated its coal market in 1992, the government had set coal prices for power-plants at a much lower level than the prevailing market price in order to sustain low electricity retail prices.^[54]
In 2007, China’s demand for coal outpaced its supply and it became a net importer of coal for the first time. The World Coal Institute estimates that in 2008 China imported approximately 47 million tons of coal.^[9]
In 2009, China overtook the U.S. as the world’s biggest energy user (annually), according to the International Energy Agency. China surpassed the U.S. in carbon emissions in 2007, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. China released 6.533 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2008, compared with 5.832 million for the U.S

Source: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/China_and_coal

 China's coal demand set to double - Wood Mac 

Source:  http://www.miningweekly.com/article/chinas-coal-demand-set-to-double---wood-mac-2013-06-04

China consumes nearly as much coal as the rest of the world combined

 

 

Source: http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=9751

So, unless green house gases are addressed with the world's largest energy user, CHINA, this is all just another ideological stroke that hinders America. I favor responsible stewardship of our eco-systems and our environment. But, to continually take unilateral action that harms the USA is unacceptable.