The European press has been buzzing with the news of a
severe energy crisis in China, driven largely by a severe coal shortage.
China now accounts for 50% of the world's coal consumption. However their coal reserves I now learn are dwindling. They can't buy coal anywhere, as other countries are shuttering coal mines. The UK has lots of coal mines, but I don't think it has had a working mine in years. It does have some coal reserves though, and was forced to start four moth balled coal power stations recently, when wind power was becalmed for four straight days. This is coupled with a world shortage of natural gas, especially in Europe, where prices are going up off the clock, and UK gas companies going bust at an alarming rate. The UK came close to revolving power cuts and it is not even winter. Factories have gone on reduced hours, especially high energy ones like fertilizer plants. This interrupted perishable food supplies due to lack of CO2 production!
There is a shortage of HGV drivers in the UK, USA and continental Europe. This now has a knock on effect of over 100 container ships at anchor off the California coast, because they can't be unloaded.
However, by far the worst affected appears to be China, with industrial production plummeting and also fuel shortages as in the UK. They are having rolling power cuts and limiting elevator use in buildings.
The stock markets today in the US and Europe have fallen dramatically today.
Some financial advisers in Europe have advised converting retirement funds to cash for safe keeping, which sounds drastic to me.
One thing I do know, that industrial output in China has now gone into free fall, and is compounded by a massive failure of the JIT logistics transport system world wide.
One thing for sure is that our electronic toys are going to become very scarce with huge price rises. We have one thread on this about severe SVS price rises. There will be a lot more to come.
My advice, is to really look after your equipment and try and buy for longevity and not exotic features.
My sense is that this energy, production, and transport mayhem is going to substantially worsen at least in the short to medium term. It may well be the long term as the switch from fossil fuels to renewables continues apace, with total neglect of bass loads. Planning for all this with the commissioning of large numbers of nuclear power stations for the lions share of energy production has been left too late.
My sense is that we are in big trouble, with not only the chickens coming home to roots, but massive flocks of turkeys!
