MetalMiner
by Stuart Burns
China has been admired for its massive electricity infrastructure projects, especially by the metals producing industries that do handsome business selling the the steel, aluminum and copper that is needed for the construction of thousands of miles of transmission lines.
China’s largest grid operator, State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC), said last week that energy authorities might soon approve a plan to build 12 electricity transmission lines linking the coal production and hydropower centers in inland areas such as Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, Shaanxi and Yunnan to the densely populated east, including cities such as Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei. The total investment is said to be more than 210 billion yuan ($34 billion), and the 12 major projects include four ultra-high-voltage alternating current (UHV AC) power transmission lines, five UHV direct current (DC) lines and…