The Ghost of Electricity 2

The BBC reports that China is suffering from power shortages. Have they just woken up? This has been going on for years - and gets worse every year.

Apart from the reasons in the BBC report (weather, dry weather etc), the shortages are also the result of increased affluence among city dwellers. People can now afford air-conditioners / heaters. Today, I walked past a large local electrical goods supplier. The shop was full of people buying heaters. In the past they just put on more clothes or lit a fire in the middle of the sitting room!

My mother-in-law proudly showed off her new air-con/heater and wasn’t in the least fazed when someone suggested it would be much more interesting if she actually had any electricity to run it.

The local newspaper prints schedules of when each district may or may not have any supply and local factories are also rationed.

These grave shortages, of course, don’t prevent the local authorities wasting millions of yuan of electricity every year by covering every downtown building in flashing neon lights.

And it certainly doesn’t mean that the government staff housing compound is ever cut off! I know. I live next door and am on the same supply. I almost always have electricity.

tags: china  power  electricity  liuzhou  

links: digg this    del.icio.us    technorati    reddit