China's Soaring Natural Gas Output Unable To Meet Demand -- Reuters -- February 5, 2018

Link here. Data points:

• China’s natural gas production is rising at the fastest pace in four years 
• production will not meet China's demand for natural gas
• policy decision some years ago: government program to raise gas usage in order to clean the country's polluted air
• record production in 2017, up 8.5% from 2016
• forecast to climb another 6 to 8 percent per year through 2020
• demand will fuel growing imports of LNG or piped gas
• China: now the world's largest energy consumer
• China: was the sixth-largest gas producer in 2016 after rising investments over the past 20 years
• consumption is climbing even faster -- climbing 15% in 2017

Much, much more at the link.

From the article:

China holds the world’s largest reserves of shale natural gas, according the U.S. Energy Information Administration. However, much of that gas is considered recoverable only if cost were not a constraint.

Furthermore, the country is among the top ten holders of proven natural gas reserves, gas that could be produced at current prices, at 5.4 trillion cubic meters, according to the most recent BP Statistical Review.

Together, China’s three biggest gas basins, the Ordos in northern China, the Tarim in the Xinjiang region in the west, and Sichuan in the southwest, make up 90 percent of the country’s output. But each of them are beset with geological or technological difficulties.

State-owned PetroChina boosted production at the Ordos’ Changqing field to 36.9 bcm last year but only after drilling over 2,000 new wells. Output there peaked at 37 bcm in 2013. 

Something not said in the aritcle that should have been said:

• there is no way wind/solar energy can substitute for fossil fuel or nuclear energy. An inconvenient fact.

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Meanwhile, Prince Salman Plans To Go On Tour

If you google Trump state dinners you will get 3 million hits, all with some variation of this headline: President Trump breaks tradition; first president to host no state dinner in his first year of office.

Well, la de dah! Saved a lot of taxpayers' money, perhaps to offset the cost of Melania's air travel before she moved to the White House ($675,000).

Michelle's family vacation to Hawaii in 2015: $4.8 million.

Many of Obama's state dinners costs are "shrouded in mystery" (i.e., kept secret); state dinners under Obama soared in cost; and, link here,

The 300-guest November 2009 dinner for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh — best remembered for Michaele and Tariq Salahi’s ability to crash the party — cost $572,187.36. [One state dinner: almost exactly the price of Melania's flights to DC; I wonder if she got to keep the frequent flyer miles?]

It was the president’s first state dinner and also the most expensive of the five state or official dinners Obama has given about which costs are now known. (The cost of the March 2012 dinner for British Prime Minister David Cameron remains shrouded in mystery, and the Hollande dinner was arranged after CBS made its request for the information [I guess the writer couldn't update his own article].)

Folks may remember that President Trump's first visit overseas was to visit Saudi Arabia. Will President Trump's first state dinner be to host Prince Salman? Will the CIA ensure there is no coup in Riyadh when the prince is out of town? Do bears poop in the woods?

Perhaps, also on tour, Simon Helberg's brother or doppelganger:

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I stumbled across this video, maybe a year ago, but never had an opportunity (or reason) to post it.

The Taliban forbids kite-flying, dancing, and singing. It starts to make sense. I suppose.

Memo to self: new tag, "Folk Music."

As for myself, I'm sticking with Sophia Loren: