While President Obama has vowed to keep ratcheting up the regulation of coal-fired power plants in the US, forcing hundreds to close, nations from Europe to the Far East are hungry for coal, and their demand is only going to get stronger in the years ahead as more nations turn to coal as a primary source of power. (1)
Coal by 2030 will be the most widely used fuel worldwide as developing countries electrify burgeoning cities and rural areas where billions of people have had little or no access to power. Patrice Hill reports, “The door may be shutting on many aging coal-fried power plants in the US, but coal has shown a modest revival in Europe and roaring growth in Africa, Asia, and the rest of the developing world as it remains the cheapest and most reliable source of power. Coal already provides 41 percent of the world's power and that is set of grow significantly.” (1)
Daniel Kish adds, “Worldwide, almost 1,200 coal-fired plants are in the planning stages, and over three quarters are to be built in China and India. To put this in perspective, China and India are planning to build over 60% more coal-fired capacity than the coal-fired generating capacity that currently exists in the United States.” (2)
China's increase alone means that England's 2020 reduction target will be replaced by the Chinese in just 17 days. The USA's target of 1 Gt will take 261 days for the Chinese to replace. In fact, if the USA were to go to zero emissions today, the Chinese would replace those emissions in just 23.6 years.
And then you read about places like Ireland which annually emits 0.2 percent of global emissions. Yet, Ireland has introduced the world's most steeply graduated system of emission-based auto tax. This is Ireland's attempt to reduce world global emissions, the amount China emits in just 2.5 days. (3)
Strangely, some recent reports refer to China as a green leader because of increasing wind power capacity. According to a paper co-authored by the environmental movement activist Tim Flannery, China's efforts demonstrate accelerating global leadership in tackling climate change. It says that China has increased its wind power capacity 50 times over since 2005, while solar generating capacity shot up 75 percent last year. Meanwhile, in another recent report, the Pew Charitable Trusts announced that “China is the world's leader” in green technology, having invested US $65 billion in clean energy last year. (4)
However, as Tom Holland notes, “What these reports don't say is that China is reducing its emissions, only that it is reducing its emissions growth. In other words, China's greenhouse gas emissions are still rising, just not quite as fast as before. To put that into perspective, the mainland's increase was as much as Germany's total greenhouse gas emissions for the year, with Romania's total thrown in for good measure.” (4)
As for all Beijing's investment in installing wind and solar power capacity, while it sounds exciting on paper, it is a lot less impressive in reality. That is partly because installed capacity does not have much to do with actual power output. For example, according to figures from the China Energy Council, last year there was only enough of a breeze to turn the country's tens of thousands wind turbines for 22 percent of the time. The country still generated more than 80 percent of its electricity in coal-fired power stations. (4)
So, although it may be encouraging that Beijing is investing in wind and solar power, the chance that those investments will contribute to any slowing of the mainland's greenhouse emissions at any point in the foreseeable future is precisely zero.
Further, about 30% of China's wind power plants are not even connected to the grid since wind is a terrible fit for China, as power supply is quite intermittent (too much wind- no power—too little wind- again no power). The bottom line: in terms of actual power production, wind turbines generated 13 million megawatt-hours of electricity in 2008, only about 0.4% of China's total energy supply. (5)
References
Patrice Hill, “As US scales back 'King Coal' reigns as global powerhouse,” The Washington Times, March 4, 2013
Daniel Kish, “Countries worldwide propose to build new coal plants,” coalpower.com, January 28, 2013
Steve Goreham. The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism, (New Lenox, IL, New Lenox Books, 2013), 23
Tom Holland, “China a green energy leader? Don't make me laugh,” scmp.com/business, May 1, 2013
Vivian Wai-yin Kwok, “Weaknesses in Chinese wind power,” Forbes.com, July 20, 2009
John William Dini, know to all as ‘Jack’, passed away at the age of 89 on June 17, 2026. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio on Nov. 14, 1936.
He published two books, a technical book on materials science and coatings and another on environmental issues. In retirement, he wrote extensively on various environmental issues for online publications.
He was a skilled leaded glass hobbyist, creating more than 20 lamps and many panels. He was a jogger for many years, competing in over 300 long distance races. He was a slow runner, not wanting to take the glory away from others. His secret was to start slow and taper. He and Anne traveled extensively, visiting over 70 countries.
He is survived by his wife, Anne, of 67 years, and sons Mike, Steve, and Paul. If you were to meet him somewhere, he would sum up his life as ‘peaches and cream’.
