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For All The Coal In China

By Dan Harris and Steve Dickinson

When I was a young associate at a Chicago mega firm, I worked on a huge breach of contract case involving two massive utilities. As part of that case, I had to drive down to Southern Ilinois to tour a coal mine. I cannot even remember why it was necessary for me to do this, but I do remember my supervising attorney telling me it would take five hours and that I absolutely had to get there on time to avoid drawing the ire of a very punctual client. So I left my apartment at 4:00 am and started driving. At maybe 6:00 a.m. (after having exceeded the speed limit by at least ten miles per hour so far) I saw a mileage sign indicating that if I were to go anything even near the speed limit the rest of the way, I would be seriously late. So I got my car up to triple digits where it stayed the rest of the way as I fretted about being late or getting detected by radar. I was not caught (those who have been to rural Ilinois can understand this) but I arrived about five minutes late to a client who very coldly noted this fact in front of a decent sized gathering. We then went into the coal mine, which meant going down an open air elevator into total darkness; the only light coming from the flashlight on our helmets. The mine height was about five and a half feet (1.68 meters), which meant I had to walk hunched over. We were down there for about an hour and ready to come up when we were alerted that the elevator was not working. We all sat down and waited. Maybe an hour or two later, the elevator was fixed. I drove home, we ended up winning more than $300 million in the case, but I still have an aversion to coal. Despite that aversion, the importance of the issue requires me to point out an excellent post at Managing the Dragon, entitled, "Price of Coal Triples: Spikes 34 percent in Wake of Weather Disaster in China." This post nicely details how China's increased demand for coal is impacting world coal prices and it explains why coal prices are rising and why even those of us who want nothing to do with coal should care about this. I recommend it.

Full post as published by China Law Blog on February 21, 2008 (boomark / email).