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China continues coal spree despite climate goals

August 30, 2023
tags:

By Paul Homewood

Perhaps somebody ought to tell AEP!

 

 

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China is approving new coal power projects at the equivalent of two plants every week, a rate energy watchdogs say is unsustainable if the country hopes to achieve its energy targets.

The government has pledged to peak emissions by 2030 and reach net zero by 2060, and in 2021 the president, Xi Jinping, promised to stop building coal powered plants abroad.

But after regional power crunches in 2022, China started a domestic spree of approving new projects and restarting suspended ones. In 2022 the government approved a record-breaking 106 gigawatts (GW) of new coal-fired power capacity. One gigawatt is the equivalent of a large coal power plant.

This run of approvals is continuing, potentially on track to break last year’s record, according to analysis by the Global Energy Monitor (GEM) and the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, published on Tuesday.

It said in the first half of 2023, authorities granted approvals for 52GW of new coal power, began construction on 37GW of new coal power, announced 41GW-worth of new projects, and revived 8GW of previously shelved projects. It said about half of the plants permitted in 2022 had started construction by summer.

The analysts said: “Unless permitting is stopped immediately, China won’t be able to reduce coal-fired power capacity during the 15th five-year plan (2026–30) without subsequent cancellations of already permitted projects or massive early retirement of existing plants.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/29/china-coal-plants-climate-goals-carbon?mc_cid=d9de5b1d6d&mc_eid=4961da7cb1

It never ceases to amaze me the Guardianistas continue to be shocked by any of this.

23 Comments
  1. August 30, 2023 2:30 pm

    China knows that the Green Energy is just for Western Countries, China, India, Russia and others do not believe the false climate scare. China pretends to accept it so they can sell windmills and solar panels to the Western Countries, they get richer while we destroy our economies.

    • Caro permalink
      August 30, 2023 3:35 pm

      Exactly. Who are the fools here?

    • markl permalink
      August 30, 2023 6:08 pm

      +1

  2. saighdear permalink
    August 30, 2023 2:35 pm

    Simply, China is being pragmatic in industry. who can blame them ?
    Who has forced the Caterpillars and VWs of the world to go there to get things made. IN Maggie’s day, UK had to clean up … so that was the start, OR ?

  3. marlene permalink
    August 30, 2023 2:44 pm

    China’s the hitman for the one world government global elite cabal. Do as they say, not as they do.

  4. Realist permalink
    August 30, 2023 2:52 pm

    Europe and the rest of the West also need to start approving coal power plants, not to mention nuclear and gas rather than wasting resources on unreliable wind and solar.

  5. markl permalink
    August 30, 2023 3:43 pm

    China has said over and over it will enact policies that benefit its’ people. There should be no surprise here. The fact that the ROW let them do what they want without repercussion is the surprise.

  6. Jack Broughton permalink
    August 30, 2023 4:36 pm

    We’ve had almost 50 years of doom threats related to CO2, these threats despite the lack of any concrete proof that CO2 causes any significant global warming. How long will it take to sink in that we have been conned by political-science and snake oil salesmen?

  7. Ben Vorlich permalink
    August 30, 2023 4:52 pm

    One of AEP’s colleagues seems to have noticed something.

    The real costs of wind power prove the sums don’t add up
    The chasm between net zero ambition and reality is growing ever larger
    Someone get a grip. UK energy policy is once again coming apart at the seams, with growing doubts over whether net zero or even energy security goals can be met.

    Only now are the true economic costs and practical difficulties of going carbon-free becoming fully evident, and it’s not a pretty sight. Yet still policymakers don’t seem to get it; either that or they are being deliberately misleading on the ease with which it can be delivered.

    All pretence at “leading the world” in the application of renewables is meanwhile going up in smoke, as one-time champions pare back their ambitions for the UK market in the face of rising costs, oppressive planning laws, and better opportunities elsewhere. Rival jurisdictions, particularly the US and EU, are beginning to offer far superior incentives.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/08/30/renewable-energy-net-zero-britain-wind-power-costs/

  8. August 30, 2023 8:40 pm

    The caption under the photo of the Chinese Power Plant in Shanxi Province is: “Smoke Plumes Bellow from Chimneys at a Coal-Fired Power Plant in Shanxi Province”.

    Notice that the “so called smoke” seems to disappear as the plumes get further from the stack. That means that most of the “so called smoke” is just water vapor.

    Real Smoke stays “Smoke”, and it is seen much further down wind as it does not just disappear.

  9. Gamecock permalink
    August 30, 2023 8:44 pm

    ‘a rate energy watchdogs say is unsustainable if the country hopes to achieve its energy targets.’

    ‘Its’ energy targets? How naïve.

    • August 30, 2023 8:57 pm

      Energy watchdogs do not have actual energy targets, they actually have personal profit and power targets.

  10. August 30, 2023 8:52 pm

    This indicates that the new Chinese Coal Power Plants most likely burn the coal hot and that they filter out particulates and that these new power plants are clean and efficient and good for the air and humans and nature.

  11. August 30, 2023 9:03 pm

    This from my electric provider today:
    Please help conserve electricity by reducing your usage:
    Today, August 30, from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m.

    I would much prefer that they promote reliable energy that can handle the heat and cold. When it is hot we want the AC to work, when it is cold we want the gas furnace to work, that would be very easy with more coal and nuclear, it is getting much harder with less reliable 24/7 energy and more intermittent wind and solar and even natural gas which can have pipeline trouble.

  12. Marzouk permalink
    August 30, 2023 9:18 pm

    Imagine my surprise.

    • Realist permalink
      August 30, 2023 9:56 pm

      They need to approve more than only two per week then. And the same needs to happen in the “West”, particularly Europe and Africa.

      >>rate energy watchdogs say is unsustainable if the country hopes to achieve its energy targets.

  13. catweazle666 permalink
    August 30, 2023 9:24 pm

    “China won’t be able to reduce coal-fired power capacity during the 15th five-year plan”
    That China has no intention of doing anyway and never has had.

  14. August 30, 2023 9:53 pm

    Who/what is AEP? do you mean AFP?

    Preferred pronouns: Ze, Hir, Zir. “Ze is a writer and wrote that book zirself. Those ideas are zirs. I like both zir and zir ideas.”

    >

    • Penda100 permalink
      August 30, 2023 10:31 pm

      Ambrose Evans Pritchard, Daily Telegraph journalist and full blown green loon.

  15. billydick007 permalink
    August 30, 2023 10:50 pm

    Perhaps our U.S. Climate czar, Private-Jet-John Kerry, can get useless Kevin McCarthy to send a “strongly worded tweet” to Xi Jinping. When Xi is finished laughing, he will tell Kerry, “OK, maybe, we’ll see–and monkeys will fly outa my but.”

    • August 30, 2023 11:19 pm

      The net zero scam omits consideration of the huge CO2 emissions from wars, volcanoes both terrestrial and submarine.
      So it’s all part of the deception by Greenies and others on the make for the vast monies chasing decarbonisation.
      The leaders of nations forswearing CO2 curbs are completely right.
      The whole climate scam may bankrupt the Western powers adhering to the UN and to other Russian agents, real and deluded.
      It’s as simple as that-blame Miliband, May, Johnson and Biden, all traitors to good sense.

  16. billydick007 permalink
    August 31, 2023 2:55 pm

    Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I would only add the political apparatchiks you mentioned are CCP controlled assets as well, whose “mission” is to destroy the economies of the West via the Climate Grift, Marxist operations like ESG, destruction of the family, and the inevitable CCP Social Credit Score system.

    • George Bridger permalink
      August 31, 2023 4:32 pm

      Spot on

Comments are closed.