Maybe the wind chill factor was down, but we didn't actually notice that yesterday was apparently the coldest day Shanghai's experienced this winter. The power plants did though, as electricity consumption hit its all time peak of 20 million kilowatts. About 7,000 plants have been alerted to the potential of a power shortage today, with usage expected to reach 20.5 million KW (generally, power demand is highest the second day of a weather change, apparently). We're not sure if this was related, but our apartment lost power this morning. It sucked. The rest of you out there, please, for the grid's sake, put on an extra sweater rather than turning the heat up another degree... or something. more ›

Meanwhile, the Chinese have reduced exports by over eight percent, idled more than 60 coal plants and announced they will lower import tariffs on the commodity, all because of shortages. It’s more than foreign competition and transport prices the country has to worry about — energy supplies within the PRC are dwindling to dangerous lows. We in Shanghai got a taste of what such scarcity might mean when blackouts struck the scorched city earlier this month. more ›

It's been a scorcher of a week and those little AC units are working on overtime. So much so, that it threatens to plunge us all into darkness. Okay, maybe the situation hasn't gotten that melodramatic, but according to Xinhua News we used a whopping 22.43 million kilowatts yesterday afternoon, or roughly one kilowatt per person (shame on you if you used two). more ›