Saturday, July 26, 2008

Hot in Herrrr

Thursday afternoon, as the mercury climbed up to 39, Shanghai consumed a record 22.43 million kilowatts of electricity.  The city's in the middle of a heat wave right now, and apparently we've been straining the power grid by averaging 20 million kilowatts this whole week.  That's just about a million kilowatts per person per day.  It boggles the mind to think how much coal that is.

I've also heard rumours that there are some kind of labour laws that stipulate that factory workers have to be let off work if the temperature hits 40 degrees, but that the government will always underreport the temperature until the next day.  Then it's "oh look, it was 43 yesterday!"  Just a rumour, but I could see it happening.

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