China still hooked on coal

 From The Economist

LAST YEAR was a bad one for coal in much of the world. As countries went into lockdown, demand for energy plummeted. With many workers obliged to stay at home, and financing for coal projects proving ever more difficult, the development and construction of coal-fired power plants stalled. There was one bright spot, however [for coal, not the climate]. According to a report published this week by Global Energy Monitor, an American NGO, China commissioned 38.4 gigawatts (GW) of coal-power plants in 2020. This boost in global coal-fired capacity means that, although the rest of the world idled 37.8GW of coal plants, total capacity actually increased last year for the first time since 2015. [But because capacity utilisation fell, the amount of coal consumed by China actually fell.]

China’s affinity for coal, the biggest source of greenhouse gases, may be surprising given the country’s recent pledge to cut emissions to net-zero by 2060. There are, however, other mitigating factors. Local government officials, whose performance is often measured against targets for economic growth, have long used infrastructure projects—especially coal plants—to inflate their GDP figures. In 2020, when China was one of the few countries in the world to register any growth, three-quarters of the coal-fired capacity approved for construction was sponsored by local governments and firms. Regulators did not get in their way. China’s National Energy Administration gave several provinces the nod to approve new coal power plants.

But just because China has commissioned more coal-fired capacity does not mean that it will use it. Because so many coal plants are built to serve economic targets rather than energy needs, the country has a glut of around 400GW of excess coal-fired capacity. The average thermal power plant in China generates only about 50% of its total capacity. This means that, although China accounted for three-quarters of the world’s new coal plants in 2020, it produced just half of the world’s coal-fired power.

One of the critical steps we must take to net zero is to stop burning coal to make electricity.  We must build no new coal power stations anywhere in the world, while shutting down existing power stations as quickly as we can.