China's push on coal...

What an amazing statistic - every 7-10 days a new coal-fired power station opens in China.

THE ancient city of Ningbo, today a stylish and thrusting metropolis of 5.6 million people, is building China's biggest coal-fired power station at a cost of $2.5 billion.

The plant, which will dwarf anything seen in Australia, is symptomatic of the eagerness by Ningbo to rival its neighbour to the north, Shanghai.

And it is symbolic of the development that will see China replace the US as the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases by2010.

Cars, mobile phones, ships and petrochemicals are already made there, but Ningbo is determined to keep developing - after recording growth of 13 per cent last year.

So construction is now under way on a power station that, when it starts up in three years, will have a capacity of 5000 megawatts - about six times that of Kogan Creek, which will be Australia's biggest power station when completed, in Queensland's Darling Downs.

Another of China's economic hot spots, Fujian province, south of Ningbo, is considering developing a coal-fired power station with more than twice the capacity even of the Ningbo giant.

Coal accounts for 66 per cent of China's energy consumption - half of it used to generate power -- and over the five years to 2006, coal consumption grew by 800 million tonnes.

Every seven to 10 days, a new coal-fired power station is opened somewhere in China.

It seems useless for Canada to spend billions to limit carbon dioxide emissions with China going all out on coal.