Atmospheric CO2; Chinese Coal; And All That Soot -- February 10, 2021

January, 2021:

January, 2020:

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Could This Be The Problem?

China? From a reader:

The engineering marvel that is the recently opened Haoji rail line is, mysteriously, not getting much public attention. 

At near $30 billion cost, this >1,000 mile long railway carries about 200 million tonnes per year of coal to Chinese power plants. 

That is sufficient to fuel 60 massive 1,000 Megawatt coal plants.

Each. Year.

Several of these Inner Mongolian coal mines are amongst the biggest open pit mines in the world.

From wiki:

[The 1,127-mile railway] was built to facilitate coal transport from Inner Mongolia and Shanxi to China's southern provinces at up to 200 million tons a year. 

The railway is also the first north-south railway in China that is dedicated to coal, and is built to bypass existing coal transport routes that go via coastal cities by ship. 

The line will reduce transit time from 20 days by sea to just 3 days. 

The line connects to existing railways at several points to share maintenance facilities. The design speed of the railway is 75 mph. 

The line was approved in 2014 at a cost of US$27.2 billion, financed by China Railway and several large domestic coal mining companies. The railway was inaugurated on 28 September 2019.