What a spoiled, Western-centric, historically ignorant point of view. Without coal mining in England, there would have been no steam engine, no railways, and no modern economy. Preaching to the Chinese about the evilness of coal is a classic case of pulling up the ladder after you've climbed on it.
Second, coal is not the desirable thing of modernization: energy is, and energy is available through many means. China seems to be very fond of solar, for example. Also the Chinese pay the externalities just as we all do; and if you've visited China your aware that they see perhaps more pollution than the rest of the world. I have no doubt that these externalities made visible will influence the nation to take them realistically, which we in the western world are not.
Even a wealthy economy like the US still draws almost half of its electricity from coal [1]. If Americans couldn't afford to switch to solar already, how are the Chinese supposed to?
>the Chinese pay the externalities just as we all do
And so did the US. The first (very weak) Clean Air Act was not passed until 1963 [2], at which point the economy was already very energy intensive, very wealthy, and could afford to take an economic hit by implementing more stringent environmental regulations. The holier-than-thou crowd expects China to hobble itself with environmental regulations in advance of the US, while developing an economy that is still decades behind. All this preaching is of course done from countries that have gone through centuries of unrestricted industrial development, and while taking full advantage of the benefits thereof.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_power_in_the_United_States
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Air_Act_(United_States)
But how do you calculate such a cost - keeping in mind that you would also need to factor in non-environmental benefits like new inventions, more free time for education, higher quality of life, etc.
I'm all for a system that's fair. I just object to environmentalists deciding what the true cost/benefit analysis is. Their squeaky wheel one-issue outlook has heavily biased the discussion.
Isn't that rather like saying that there wouldn't have been a strictly monotonic route from the pre-industrial society maximum to the industrial society maximum? There might have been, or might have not been, but a priori it's not absurd to postulate that with coal tax from day 1 the road to a more efficient final state wouldn't have been blocked.
However, this argument has limits. Clearly China doesn't intend to limit themselves to the technologies that existed when the best way to get from London to San Francisco was by coal powered ship and train. Will they also use asbestos insulation? Will they perform surgeries without anesthesia? Will they treat infections with primitive or no antibiotics?
Fortunately, China's leaders are scientists and engineers, and I don't believe for a second that they are unaware of the environmental catastrophe that could result from a stupid energy policy. When they have a drought, they won't lead their state in a prayer for rain. China's leadership is well aware that the survival of their nation depends on getting to clean energy first - and that this may in fact be the best way to become the dominant power of the next century. I think the whole "you used coal in 1850, so now we get to" is more a point of argument to get the west to make concessions (which is a reasonable demand) rather than something they'd actually do.
China's leaders may be engineers, but they are also an unaccountable elite whose primary goal is and continues to be their own aggrandizement and enrichment. Who do you think causes environmental damage in the US? Populist governors leading prayer meetings or the technical and economic elites who actually build, own, and operate polluting entities? Mock the U.S. political system all you like, but it contains mechanisms that allowed popular pressure to produce a tremendous environmental turnaround and a raft of effective environmental legislation. That China's political system will do the same is by no means guaranteed.
In this specific case, I think there probably is an alliance between this particular politician and the business interests that pollute and who would like to dismantle the political mechanisms you mentioned. My biggest problem with the "prayer for rain" was that it came from someone who tends to mock the US political system (though he was unable to specify the third govt agency he would like to replace, he did reassure us that he didn't want to eliminate the EPA, he just wanted it "rebuilt", and I can only imagine who he'd put on that panel). He also rejected the conclusions of the vast majority of the scientific community about what might be causing and/or exacerbating chronic droughts.
The real issue would have been ships, but considering how much coal was used for home heating that's a tiny fraction of overall demand.
The English begged to differ. The early Industrial Revolution was powered by water [1], but they switched to coal as soon as they could.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_mill#Water_.281770.E2.80...
The fundamental principles of electricity generation were discovered during the 1820s and early 1830s by the British scientist Michael Faraday. His basic method is still used today: electricity is generated by the movement of a loop of wire, or disc of copper between the poles of a magnet.[1] So the time period was not quite consistent. But, they where also still using hydro power in the industrial revolution 1760-1840 and could have kept going at a larger scale after switching to electrical power.
PS: Without electricity or large scale dam's coal is ridiculously easier to use in a city, however most factory's use electricity not coal today for a reason.
The development of the stationary steam engine was an important element of the Industrial Revolution; however, for most of the period of the Industrial Revolution, the majority of industrial power was supplied by water and wind. In Britain by 1800 an estimated 10,000 horsepower was being supplied by steam. By 1815 steam power had grown to 210,000 hp.[38] Note: The industrial revolution started in 1760 and ended between 1820 and 1840. So, in my hypothetical situation England may have imported coal for shipping and railways but industry would have probably looked at imported coal as to expensive and used alternatives. Edit: Another possible exception iron / steel production.
PS: There where steam engines before the industrial revolution, but they gained prominence because of design improvements and as a drop in replacement for other power sources.
Every third world country will use the exact path the 1st world used to get to where we are because it is proven reliable, doesn't cause political turmoil (nuclear), and is cheap to implement. If the 1st world wants it to be different then we have to provide the game changing technology. That has not been done.
Really? They'll do this without the internet? without anesthesia? without antibiotics? or will they re-invent these things themselves?
No, of course they won't take the same path. There are far better paths.
China is industrializing in an era when we have technologies that can increase survival rates and extend lifetimes dramatically, when we have greater awareness of the negative externalities of dirty fossil fuel technology, and we have far greater options for generating energy. This leads to a different set of obligations and opportunities.
I don't think that the "west", or the US in particular, has come close to meeting those obligations. But that's a different issue. My point here is a more narrow one - if you're going to pick and choose which technologies you're going to use, the claim that you get to do this the 1800s way loses almost all its moral force. Instead, this is "if it benefits us to do things the old way, we will remind you that you did it this way and insist that we get to do it that way too. If it benefits us to do things the new way, hey, we're a modern country, why on earth should we be shacked to the crappy old way you used to do things"
No, it boils down to "I did it this way and nothing has come along to replace this way". There is no energy revolution at scale, reliability, and continuous 24x7 (through the night / in the calm) production.
"China is industrializing in an era when we have technologies that can increase survival rates and extend lifetimes dramatically, when we have greater awareness of the negative externalities of dirty fossil fuel technology, and we have far greater options for generating energy. This leads to a different set of obligations and opportunities."
Yet, they still use coal to an excess. It is simple economics. Nuclear has been demonized, and coal is cheap, easy, and well understood. The 1800's way is the 1900's way is the 2000's way. Coal and oil are still the way.
Until someone beats coal and oil on all features, it won't change. It is that way in a lot of human activities.
What price on early deaths, reductions in labor force and increased medical bills? I've been to China a couple times, the pollution is bad. Any place where hello kitty surgical masks are a fashion item, that should tell you something about the air quality.
This is why China is actually investing a ton in renewables now -- it's not about the US pulling up a ladder behind us (as if we could), it's about what's best for Chinese and for the world.
They are not obligated to use coal for 100 years before moving up the ladder -- heck, they can beat us up it, since they're actually willing to invest in infrastructure and we're not.
China's challenges are very different from what England faced in the 1850s. But in that sense, perhaps their path will be similar - they will face unprecedented challenges, and will have to innovate to solve them. And if they do solve them, they will now have a massive first-mover advantage.