China? What China? It's India One Has To Keep One's Eyes On -- August 25, 2015

The Apple Page

That failed Apple Watch story?

It's now being reported that Best Buy is accelerating its Apple Watch rollout to all 1,050 stores "amid" strong demand.

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The Coal Page

Whenever I see another story on intermittent energy and how important it is to the global economy, I keep going back to this graph:

and this graph:

Did anyone really pay any attention to this graph the first time is was posted? I know I did not. Generally when there is such a huge delta between "consumption" and "production" it is a graph projecting into the future how bad things might become. But in this case, this graph is "real-time." If I understand the graphic correctly, this is all domestic coal production, domestic coal consumption. Therefore, the delta represents the amount of coal that India must import every year, and for the past five or six years that delta is really becoming quite striking.

I doubt India can close the domestic-import delta. If not, it will be interesting where all that coal will come from.Washington state ports? LOL.

But this is really scary for the warmists: regardless of where the coal comes from, look at the "total production target for 2020 -- that's just five years from now. India's total production target is set at 1,500 million metric tons, compared to barely 700 million metric tons in 2014. I'm pretty poor at math, but going from 700 to 1,500 seems to be more than double. In five years.

From wiki:  India ranks fifth in global coal production at 228 mtoe in the year 2013 when its inferior quality coal tonnage is converted in to tons of oil equivalent. Coal-fired power plants account for 59% of India's installed electricity capacity. After electricity production, coal is also used for cement production in substantial quantity. In the year 2013, India imported nearly 95 Mtoe of steam coal and coking coal which is 29% of total consumption to meet the demand in electricity, cement and steel production.

So, if I read that correctly, India's "real" domestic coal production is 228 metric tons (2013); India imported 95 metric tons that year (2013). Compare to graphic above which suggests India domestically produced 600 metric tons -- but it's low quality coal. [Indian coal is of low quality as it has a high ash content.]

More from wiki: India is largely dependent on fossil fuel imports to meet its energy demands — by 2030, India's dependence on energy imports is expected to exceed 53% of the country's total energy consumption. In 2009-10, the country imported 159.26 million tonnes of crude oil which amounts to 80% of its domestic crude oil consumption and 31% of the country's total imports are oil imports. The growth of electricity generation in India has been hindered by domestic coal shortages and as a consequence, India's coal imports for electricity generation increased by 18% in 2010.

Something tells me Soros follows India closely.