Tokyo has gotten around to admitting that the meltdown of the reactors at Fukushima is more serious than had been thought and that it will take a longer time to recover from the disaster. In the meantime, industrial production is suffering and the demand for imported energy is increasing.

The rhetoric surrounding China’s electric power shortage seems to grow stronger every day. A combination of drought and the inability to mine and ship enough coal to meet demands has led to power rationing across much of central China. Beijing has banned the export of diesel and if history is an example, we should be seeing increasing Chinese imports of coal, oil, diesel, and natural gas in coming months.

India too is suffering from coal shortages and is talking about having to import 112 million tons in the next 12 months to keep electricity production high enough to meet the needs of a growing economy.

The power situation in Pakistan gets worse every day as a combination of drought and the inability to pay for imported fuel is leading to an increasingly worse electric power situation.