to the west in china

While reading Steve Andrews’ article “An Energy Postcard from China,” I looked out my office window at the gray smog blanketing Chongqing, a district of the city of more than 30 million people in central China, and had some ideas to contribute regarding the expansion. of this economy.

**The Chinese government continues the Go West Campaign. It is designed to convince those heading to the big cities for work to go to the cities of the West and stimulate the same economic boom that is occurring along the East Coast. This includes improved and new infrastructure, additional power generation, and the intensification of natural resource extraction in the western regions.

** All roads across the country are being repaired with concrete. From highways to once-dirt single-lane roads, almost all roads in all provinces are being upgraded to allow movement of goods and people at a faster pace. This would represent China’s use of 45% of the world’s cement year on year. It is expected to grow at an average annual rate of 8.5% (or 90 million metric tons) during the 2006-2007 period.

** Traveling by rail through Sichuan province and elsewhere, parallel rail lines are being built alongside existing lines for rapid transit and high-speed delivery of goods and people. From now until 2010, the Chinese government plans to complete an additional 19,800 kilometers of new roads and improve 15,000 kilometers of existing roads.

**Where development and economic growth compete against environmentalism, conservation always falls on deaf ears. One of the most pristine areas in the western part of Yunnan province is the Nujiang Valley, in which a series of 13 dams will be built covering a 700 km section of the valley built by the Huadian Corporation. This is one of the last two large dam-free rivers in China. The 100 billion kilowatts per year of electricity generated would go to factories on the EAST coast of the country. In addition, the power will be used in new factory complexes that are scheduled to enter the western region to take advantage of tax breaks and special incentives to relocate there.

** One of Yunnan province’s biggest tourist attractions for hiking is at the Tiger Leaping Gorge, but a series of eight dams along a 564-kilometre section of the Jinsha River to provide power will alter the gorge . Lancangjiang Hydropower Development Corporation, a subsidiary of China Huaneng Group, states that “the dam will have a total capacity of 20 million kilowatts, it is almost the same size as the Three Gorges Dam, but the water storage capacity in the reservoir Tiger Leaping Gorge will be even bigger.” In addition to generating electricity, this dam is supposed to help solve the sedimentation problem that threatens to block the Yangtze Three Gorges Dam, 1,500 kilometers downstream.

**The new sources of hydropower will be for mining operations in the western parts of China as resource extraction intensifies. China’s domestic mining capacity will only keep metal consumption for manufacturing at breakeven. Mining as an industry has experienced 20% year-over-year growth. Antimony and molybdenum along with gold, silver, copper, aluminum, zinc, nickel and lead lead the growth.

** Highways leading to the Myanmar border are being widened to four lanes as new seaports and oil loading platforms are easily accessible on the Bay of Bengal from western China.

** A new natural gas field discovery containing 3.8 trillion cubic meters near Dazhou in the northeastern part of Sichuan province is instantly slated for smelters, plus hydropower to come online .

**The new oil discovery in Bohai Bay is just a drop in the bucket compared to the needs of this insatiable economy; at best it will add 200,000 barrels a day of production, and that was the amount of new increase in oil use across the country last year alone.

**The Chinese government is giving incentives for recent graduates to relocate, or “population transfer” as it’s sometimes called, to second- and third-tier cities in the west. Job placement and guaranteed minimum wages are just some of the gems on offer. Also, students who use state loans to finish their college studies may lose their loans. The loan, of up to 24,000 yuan (US$4,000) per student, is paid by the Chinese government if the graduate promises to work in a western or remote region for at least three years.

**On a recycling note, not a single plastic bottle, cardboard box, or glass container is left uncollected by the endless stream of individual collectors digging into dumpsters on the side of the road, alleys, and curbs in search for China’s new treasure, recyclable materials. Collectors scour the cities daily looking for anything that can be sold for scrap. I watched as an old apartment building was torn down by hand and a woman came out of the building with a bag of old light switches. At first I thought she would use the entire switch, but she took out a small hammer and smashed them into pieces, carefully separating the copper from the plastic. Recycling is a huge multi-billion dollar business, gobbling up our western disposable products and growing exponentially every year.

**Ethanol production is soaring as the largest ethanol producer, China Agri Industries, which is the grain processing unit of Cofco Ltd., China’s largest grain trader, plans to open two more refineries this year, a 100,000 ton project in Hubei and a 300,000 ton project. project in Liaoning. These projects will use sweet potatoes as raw material. An additional one million tons of capacity will be added by the end of 2008, pending authorization. China Agri is using several different grains and feedstock plants to produce ethanol. As explained, the diversification of raw materials reduces the dependence on a single crop in case of poor harvests. Sinopec and PetroChina have partnered with China Agri in the downstream ethanol blending business.

** Lastly, as I listen to the endless car horns below, I remembered reading a recent article saying that approximately 3000 cars are added to Chongqing’s roads every day and currently 70% of the city’s road space is full during the day. My own experience of traveling six miles the other day taking two and a half hours, with 30 to 40 story buildings along the entire distance, leads me to believe.

There is a lot of talk around the world saying over and over again that China’s 8-10% growth rate cannot be sustained, that may be true on the east coast, but as economic productivity stabilizes there of the country, grows in the west. New land routes to the sea through Myanmar are giving an economic boost to this region. The boom is in its infancy, and if anything like massive growth in the east results, the growth will be long and steady.