Coal is Still King and Growing

China publicly demands the USA fulfill Obama's Paris Agreement pledges, and makes a big deal of their conversion to green energy. However, behind the scenes the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative is starting to look like a gigantic coal plant construction exercise. ¹ China is the world's largest producer and user of coal. It's helping to pay for and build power plants in at least a dozen countries, and though many are solar, wind, natural gas, and hydro projects, the bulk of the Chinese investment is in coal. This doesn't bode well for the 2016 Paris Agreement on climate change in which almost 200 nations, including China pledged to take steps to limit the increase in global average temperature to well below 2 C. ²

China is the world's largest producer and user of coal

China burns more coal that the rest of the world combined. The country has pledged to begin reducing its rising greenhouse gas emissions no later than 2030. Yet satellite photos appear to show continuing construction of coal plants that China said is was canceling in 2017. The largest power producers in China have asked the government to allow for the development of between 300 and 500 new coal power plants by 2030 in a move that could single handedly jeopardize global climate change targets. Under the proposal, the country could add a large coal power plant every 2 weeks for the next 12 years. ³ China's overseas ventures include hundreds of electric power plants that burn coal. More than 300 coal plants are planned or being built in places as widely spread as Turkey, Vietnam, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Egypt and the Philippines.⁴ India is catching up with China, and China spreads prosperity throughout Central Asia via its coal belching and road initiative so any emission cuts Western governments make will be utterly inconsequential. Despite a recent survey which suggested India is more concerned about climate change than most countries. India's coal import will grow the fastest rate in five years. India's Prime Minister's determination to extend the electric grid to poor people, coupled with a drop in domestic production appears to be driving a surge in demand for coal imports. ⁵

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India is building 297 and planning another 149 coal plants

Indian leaders are ramping up the country's coal production by opening a new mine every month, despite signing the Paris climate agreement. India is building 297 and planning another 149 coal plants and will become the world's number 2 miner of coal by 2020, overtaking the US. There are plans to ramp up from mining 634 million tons to 1.5 billion tons by 2020. ⁶ Pakistan had a single coal fired plant before 2016. It now has nine, supplying 15% of the nation's electricity, with another our under construction. Solar power provides about 1% of energy needs and is getting a tiny sliver of investment compared with what's going into coal. ² For the United states, forecastsers are predicting a large drop in coal generation in the. Power demand is predicted to fall to 17 percent of total generation by 2050. All of this makes President Trump's statement on the Paris pullout prophetic: “China will be allowed to build hundreds of additional coal plants. So we can't build the plants but they can, according to the agreement. India will be allowed to double its coal production by 2020. Even Europe is allowed to double its coal production by 2020.” ⁷ So, despite the rise of renewables, the roll call of governments adding coal fired plants include four of the world's most populous nations: China, India, Indonesia, and Pakistan. As developed nations retired coal plants producing 17 gigawatts of power, consumption and production of coal advanced in Asia at the fastest rate in five years. ²

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Conclusion

Wealthy nations may be able to afford to wean themselves off the combustible carbon that's one of the biggest contributors of greenhouse gases. Yet in countries where electricity is scarce, unreliable, or unaffordable, local politics often takes precedent over economics. Coal remains the cheap fallback. Especially in Asia, dozens of coal plants have come online in recent years or are in the planning stages, with a normal lifetime of almost a half-century. In South and Southeast Asia, coal burning is expected to increase about 3.5% a year for the next two decades, and predictions are that coal demand won't peak until 2040. And that may be optimistic. ²

References

1. Eric Worrall, “NPR notices climate action China are building a lot of coal plants,” April 30, 2019
2. Adam Majendie and Faseeh Mangi, “Where coal won't die,” Volume 28, Issue 4, August/September 2019
3. Lauri Myllyvirtaa,, “China's power industry calls for hundreds of new coal power plants by 2030,” March 28, 2019
4. Steve Inskeep and Ashley Westerman, “Why is China placing a global bet on coal?”, April 29, 2019
5. Eric Worrall, “Climate concerned India's coal imports surging,” September 18, 2019
6. Joanne Nova, “India to more than double coal mining by 2020,” October 17, 22016
7. Robert Bradley, Jr. “Trump's Paris decision one year later, looking better and better.” June 1, 2018