Coal: China, India and the United States

Coal consumption in China was 50.5 percent of worldwide usage, India was second with 11.3 percent and the United States third with 6.6 percent. The rest of the countries were 3 percent or less. Let’s look at the three top coal consumers.

China

More coal was burned on earth in 2023 than ever before in human history, and more than half of it was burned in China.

China burns four times as much coal as India, the second largest coal burner in the world. Everyone else is an also-ran in the coal stakes. For every ton the US consumes, China consumes 12 times as much. ⁽¹⁾

China shows no intention of putting the brakes on the coal train. Around the world, 95% of all new coal power plants built in 2023 were built in China.

On the plus side, China is the world’s dominant manufacturer and user of solar panels and wind turbines.

While steam coal shipments in China rose 29% year on year, they are starting to feel the pressure from stronger renewables. So far in 2024, electricity generated from renewables in China accounted for 25% of the country’s electricity production. ⁽²⁾

Compared to 2019, China has more than doubled electricity generation from wind and tripled generation from solar, due to large investments in capacity additions.

Looking ahead, the International Energy Agency estimates that China will account for almost 60% of the world’s new renewable energy capacity by 2028. This should be enough to replace some of the existing electricity generation from coal power plants. ⁽²⁾

However, managing an increasingly higher share of electricity generation from renewables has its own challenges. China’s electricity grid is already experiencing bottlenecks for new solar power, due to difficulty in storing excess production during the hours of strong sunlight. Consequently, new solar installations fell to a 16 month low in March 2024.

The government aims to reduce curtailment through increased long-distance transmission links and better coordination of generation plants across provinces. ⁽³⁾

India

India consumes more coal than Europe and the US combined. and will add more new coal power capacity than it has in almost a decade this year, as the country rushes to deploy generation to cope with surging demand. The 2024 capacity increase will be more than four times the annual average in the last five years. ⁽⁴⁾

Despite booming renewable capacity additions, India continues to rely on coal to meet most of its power demand as authorities also look to avoid blackouts in cases of severe heat waves.

Amid a heat wave and reduced hydropower generation, India boosted its coal consumption to a record high in the first quarter of this year, which also drove up emissions from the power sector to an all-time high.

India has embarked on a massive effort to upgrade coal infrastructure and increase production. The country has coal reserves sufficient to last for the next 100 years. Coal is set to become the largest source of the country’s energy generation by 2040. ⁽⁵⁾

United States

In the US, coal demand has been on a downward trend for about 15 years.

With coal, it’s very important to note that US demand is small relative to the world. The US uses only 6.6% of the world’s coal, so consumption trends outside the US are even more important. ⁽⁶⁾

Even if the United States were to get rid of all fossil fuels, this would only make a difference of two-tenths of one degree Celsius in the year 2100. ⁽⁷⁾

President Biden has said it loud and clear what Americans have known for the past 15 years. Biden, Obama, and their elitist cronies in Washington are determined to shutter our nation’s coal fired power plants no matter the cost to the hundreds of thousands of Americans who work in the industry. “We’re going to be shutting down these plants across America,” Biden said. ⁽⁸⁾

The Biden administration’s war on coal came out of the shadows recently with the release of a new series of regulations that have the clear intent of locking up millions of acres of federal land from coal mining and drilling for oil and natural gas, as well as shutting down the nation’s remaining coal fired power generation fleet. ⁽⁹⁾

The Bureau of Land Management released a new rule that will effectively make it impossible to continue to mine coal or drill for oil and gas anywhere on federally owned lands.

These new group of regulations were an 11^th hour assault, issued literally days before the close of a window of time allowing a new President to reverse the decision by executive order. With this announcement, any reversal will have to come through action by both houses of Congress or by litigation in court.

These actions come despite the clear warning by some of the Biden Administration’s own electric utility regulators that further closures of baseload energy capacity, such as coal, could result in the failure of the nation’s electric grid.

Make no mistake about it, this new series of regulations has one intent—to force the shutdown of the nation’s coal fired fleet, starving it of much of its fuel source and making it economically impossible to continue to operate these units. ⁽⁹⁾

This will drive already staggering electric bills out of reach for millions of American families.

Summary

Overall, despite the best efforts to wean ourselves off fossil fuels, the world remains stuck getting 82% of its energy from them. We are a fossil fueled world. Solar and wind make up just 6% of our energy needs. ⁽¹⁰⁾

The two biggest coal producers in the world, China and India, continue to consume coal at record rates although both countries are continually increasing their renewable energy output. When renewables will replace fossil fuels in these countries is anybody’s guess.

By contrast, the United States is clearly committed to a total elimination of coal fired plants.

References:

1. Jo Nova, “China is the coal furnace of the world, and everyone is fine with that,” joannenova.com.au, July 9, 2024
2. “As China’s renewable energy soars, coal peak in sight,” marinelink.com, May 23, 2024
3. John Kemp, “China’s renewable energy surge strains power grid,” finance.yahoo.com, July 8, 2024
4. Rajesh Kumar Singh, “India set to see biggest jump in coal fired power in a decade,” bloomberg.com, June 19, 2024
5. Tsvetana Paraskova, “India’s new coal power capacity is set to soar in 2024,” oilprice.com, June 19, 202004
6. Robert Rapier, “Why the world just can’t kick coal,”oilprice.com, July 27, 2023
7. Diana Furchgott, “China abandons Paris Agreement making US efforts painful and pointless.” heritage.org, July 26, 2023c
8. Tucker Davis, “It’s too late for apologies Mr. President. We heard you loud and clear,” realclearenergy.com, November 8, 2022
9. Emily Arthun, “Biden goes all-in with war on coal,”, realclearenergy.org, May 21, 2024
10. “Statistical Review of World Energy”, The Energy Institute Media Release, June 26. 2023