Theme Week, Part Coal

Jeremy's Sametime Status Proudly Presents:  Santa Week!  

Depending on worldwide naughtiness levels, Santa can be up to the world’s 9th largest annual consumer of coal

It sounds like a lot, but with green energy taking more and more of the worldwide marketshare, coal usage has been down a bit the last few years.  

Believe it or not, there are elves who keep track of expenses and supply chain, in addition to the toy makers and aforementioned logistics specialists.  The North Pole really is a remarkable enterprise these days.  One of the things that they keep careful track of is general naughtiness levels around the world in order to properly gauge the amount of coal needed for any given Christmas.  That statistic, along with world population and median coal lump size (did you know that the median lump of coal given to kids on the naughty list is 8.3 pounds?), are critical factors in coal supply reliability.  Santa running out of coal would be nearly as big a problem as running out of toys.

So, the usual suspects are obvious.  The electricity producing industry makes up the majority of the top users of coal in the world, in addition to metal production and art supply companies.  Given the sheer scope of his work, though, Santa routinely comes in somewhere in the top 25 annual users of coal worldwide.  In a particularly naughty 2008, his ranking went all the way up to 9. 

We hope you have enjoyed this behind-the-scenes look at Santa and his toy empire as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you.  The Jolly Old Elf is a mere one week away from his yearly journey, and we hope he arrives at your house safely and with lots of goodies for you.  If you do get coal...well...keep you fire stoked and be less naughty next year.  

And that does it for me, kids.  That's right, in light of my complete inability to properly budget my vacation days, and being busy enough at work that I couldn't always take them when I wanted to anyways, I'm done for 2014!  I look forward to entertaining everyone again in 2015.  

Jeremy Is In The Office will be Out Of The Office starting tomorrow, returning on monday, January 5th with a brand new 2015 full of mirth, merriment, and possibly some major surprises.  Have a safe and happy holiday season full of toys, cookies, lights, and egg nog, and we'll see you all in January!