" The growing attention to risk was reinforced by what happened in 2004: the unanticipated jump in both Chinese and global demand for oil and the rapidly rising prices. An energy problem had already become evident in China from late 2002. But initially it was a coal and electricity problem, not an oil problem. China depends on coal for 70 percent of its total energy and about 80 percent of its electricity. The economy was growing so fast that tight supplies of coal turned into shortages. At the same time, electric power plants and the transmission network could not keep up with the demand for power. The country simply ran out of electricity. As brownouts and blackouts hit most of the provinces, a sense of crisis gripped the country. "

― Daniel Yergin , The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World