I’m back from another amazing trip down to North Carolina to be with family! I ate enough to bicycle back to New York City, but of course we took the rental car and train with our Christmas presents and luggage 
There have been some major energy developments that I’d like to begin discussing today… For instance, China is reported to have much slower coal consumption growth in 2008 than years past. China is expected to have 4.5% demand growth for coal this past year, compared to 7.5+% growth the last couple of years. This helps my estimate of global coal consumption fall toward 3% rather than the 4.5+% growth of late — which would have devastated the climate without significant deceleration. Next year’s global coal demand should be very interesting. If demand is flat, it could mix with projected lower oil demand to make 2009 the first year of carbon emissions reduction in a long time.
The other major news I noticed was the continued decline of Mexico oil production. PeMex reported last week that total liquid production for November was even lower than September’s extremely low number. In September, Mexico had the excuse that they shut off some wells because the Gulf Hurricanes put a plug on US refinery demand. But these numbers for November show the high risk that Mexico oil production will inevitably continue to slide toward zero net exports within a few short years. Cantarell’s output continues to decline at an astounding rate of ~33%, sending its production for November to only ~860,000 barrels per day. It will be interesting to see if Mexico’s decline trend continues in December and into 2009 or if there is some stabilization close to November’s low level (which is already ~3.5% below the 2008 average).
As the New Year approaches, I hope SET will be a strong resource for everyone trying to understand the global energy system and how we can change it to lower greenhouse gas emissions and costs.
Onwards in the Sustainable Energy Transition-
Dennis
Tags: China, coal demand, energy, Mexico, Oil