China’s 2023 coal output hits record high
By Paul Homewood
Despite the absurd Ambrose Evans-Pritchard’s repeated assertions over the years that China is cutting back on its reliance on coal, its coal output continues to hit record highs:
BEIJING, Jan 17 (Reuters) – China’s coal output reached a record high in 2023, data from the statistics bureau showed on Wednesday, amid an ongoing focus on energy security and a rise in demand after pandemic-related restrictions eased.
The world’s biggest coal producer mined 4.66 billion metric tons of the fuel last year, up 2.9% from a year earlier, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
For December, output reached 414.31 million tons, nearly flat with November’s 414 million tons and up 1.9% from the year-earlier level.
Daily output over the month was 13.36 million tons, slipping from November’s record high daily average of 13.8 million tons.
The country’s overall power generation, which is dominated by coal-fired plants, rose 8% year-on-year in December.
Analysts are predicting another modest coal production increase in 2024. The rate of growth has slowed over the past year, following an energy security push that drove a ramp-up of output beginning in 2021.
Full story
Meanwhile the Wall Street Journal reports:
John Kerry has announced he’ll soon step down as President Biden’s climate envoy to join the 2024 re-election campaign, and maybe he’ll fare better in that job. If he doesn’t, Mr. Biden will be a one-termer.
For three years Mr. Kerry has been preoccupied with getting China to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. But excluding emissions from land use and forestry, China’s emissions rose 13% between 2015 and 2023, according to Climate Action Tracker estimates. U.S. emissions fell by some 9% over the same period.
You can’t say Mr. Kerry hasn’t tried to persuade China, including the use of green flattery. “China has produced more renewable energy, more solar and wind than any other country,” he said last year.
But China’s CO2 emissions have still soared as demand for electricity surged. In 2022 China accounted for 53% of the world’s coal generation, the Ember think tank says, and new permits for coal power plants in 2022 reached “the highest level since 2015.” That’s the year Beijing signed the Paris climate accord Mr. Kerry negotiated, promising to reduce its emissions starting in 2030.
Global Energy Monitor tracks worldwide coal-fired power plants of 30 megawatts or more and reports that as of July 2023 China had 305 coal-fired power stations announced or in the works. Together they’ll be able to generate some 391.7 gigawatts—about 70% of the world’s total coal-fired capacity currently announced, planned, permitted or under construction.
Or take coal mining. Reuters reported Wednesday that China’s coal output reached a record high in 2023 as it mined some 4.66 billion metric tons. Global Energy Monitor says China had plans in 2022 for 217 coal mines with a capacity of at least 900,000 metric tons, which would represent nearly 57% of all new coal mine additions in the works globally.
“It is unrealistic to completely phase out fossil fuel energy,” Chinese climate envoy Xie Zhenhua said in September. That follows President Xi Jinping’s declaration in 2022 that China’s carbon goals “can’t be detached from reality,” according the state-run People’s Daily.
Mr. Kerry’s problem has been a failure to recognize reality, which is typical of America’s climate lobby.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
4.66 billion metric tons in a year is more than 15 times the UK peak annual consumption since the start of the industrial revolution.
Never mind, Drax will save the world with carbon capture which we will pay for. Another cost for what little industry we have left.
How about developing a vaccine to prevent stupidity?
“How about developing a vaccine to prevent stupidity?”
Yes, administered intracranialy with a half brick !!!
an energy security push – for coal?
Tell it to the PM-in-waiting.
To give some perspective. China’s increased coal production last year is equivalent to around 20 x. Drax power station’s coal fuel requirements.
And of course, they’ll need it to run the blast furnaces they have managed to take over from Port Talbot. The BBC’s coverage of the fate of PT today was abysmal: all about reducing CO2 and nothing about how to make top grade steel from scrap. It is obvious that steelmaking is being shipped to China courtesy of TATA and a Conservative (!) Government.
There are two steel corps in the UK,
both are closing their blast furnaces
Tata in Port Talbot, owned by the Indians
British Steel in Scunthorpe owned by Jinye a Chinese corp
Both for the same reasons and both will never reopen. What a waste of perfectly good production plant.
Gezza….and all on the alter of NZC. (Curious that they want to get rid of the one thing that makes steel so good) The believers say it will reduce UK carbon emissions by 1.5%. Well, as our emissions are, if I’ve got this right, around 3% of global, 1.5% of 3% is…….(aaaarrrggghhh!) the definition of criminal stupidity.
“repeated assertions over the years that China is cutting back on its reliance on coal ”
This idea may have come because they hyped getting rid of small inefficient coal power stations while not making a big deal of the opening of new larger sites.
Good point, they have some cities with very poor air quality at times, largely caused by coal burning in homes and small factories.
“In order to emphasize the personality of the characters, each type of Peking Opera mask is distinguished by different colors
green for grumpiness”
“Green: means that the character is violent, impulsive, and lacks restraint or self control.”
May also symbolize chivalrous nature. (Example: Zheng Wun)
“The green mask symbolizes bravery, brutality, despotism, vehemence and irascibility.”
O/T Dale Vince is trending as people criticise him for ruining the Forest Green football Club
He’s fired the new manager after 29 days (6 games)
People say they don’t understand why he recruited the no experience Deeney, in the first place
That was after hiring then firing that female manager in the off season
Be fair it was his money that got them into the football league.
Ok it was our money paid to him via our electricy bills but that’s a minor point!
Cheers, I don’t know why WordPress failed to notify me of your comment
I look forward to their relegation.
Paul,
Ross Clark in Daily Telegraph
Electric cars and heat pumps seem destined to make us freeze
There is no point in telling us we’ve got to get to net zero if you can’t tell us how we cope when we reach sub-zero
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/18/electric-cars-and-heat-pumps-seem-destined-make-us-freeze/
And is forecast to break a new record this year and for the foreseeable future. China is opening on average 2 coal plants every 3 weeks. India is not far behind and will surpass China in the near future. Meanwhile in the west we are making windmills and buying solar panels made in china.
That’s a lot of coal !
China: building its economy on coal.
But it is also now a world leader in nuclear energy having just opened the first 4th generation nuclear plant. Give a year or two to see how it performs. S Korea is about to embark on a round of nuclear construction as they have a good model to use.
OT but topical.
https://www.fox5ny.com/news/2-alarm-fire-in-queens-destroys-e-bikes
It’s global:
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/e-bike-blaze-destroys-bondi-unit-residents-escape-through-window-20240119-p5eym2.html
AEP lost all credibility for me years ago when he stated how attractive he found Lagarde….
Also, he was to economics what Herod was to first-born. As Aldus Huxley said: Facts do not cease to exist just because they are ignored….
Perhaps we just misunderstood him and did not grasp that his columns were spoof ones.
The silence from the many groups of useful idiots on this issue is telling and shows this whole nonsense to be politically driven. If they even believed their own bullshit they would be camped outside the Chinese Embassies in every Western capital. The fact they are not rather the fact they are completely focussed on destroying our own infrastructure makes them fifth columnists for the Chinese.