“Of all the environmental problems which confront China, there is none greater than that presented by the country’s abundance of coal. On the one hand, this bounty of coal has provided China with an ready source of energy with which to stoke its extraordinarily rapid economic growth rate (10-11% annually). Indeed, some 70% of China’s energy is derived from coal. And, because China is no longer self-sufficient in petroleum supplies – those felicitous days ended about a decade ago – it is ever more dependent on coal – on soft, dirty bituminous coal at that. Moreover, as the cost of oil rises, China becomes even more reliant on coal, especially in such industries as electrical power, cement, aluminum, and steel, which are all very energy intensive. (And approximately nine times less energy efficient than Japan and four to five times less efficient than the US).”