China talks the nuclear talk. But walks the coal walk. That’s the conclusion in a new article in Yale Environment 360, a publication of the Yale School of the Environment. Journalist Michael Standaert, who covers environment and energy in China and has lived there since 2007, writes, “China’s National People’s Congress meetings, which ended earlier this month, were shrouded in both a real and figurative haze about how strong its climate ambitions really are and how quickly the country can wean itself from its main source of energy — coal.”
As the governing body of the Chinese communist party was meeting, air pollution returned to Beijing in spades, after having declined during the virus pandemic. He said, “Steel, cement, and heavy manufacturing, predominantly backed by coal power, boosted China’s carbon dioxide emissions 4 percent in the second half of 2020 compared to the same pre-pandemic period the year before.”
Steel, cement, and heavy manufacturing also burn copious amounts of coal for process purposes, as well was using lots of coal-fired electric power. Coal also remains as a heating and cooking fuel in large parts of rural China.
China in 2019 saw 58% of its total energy consumption come from coal, producing 28% of worldwide CO2 emissions. The country is on a coal-fired power plant building spree, with more than 34 GW of new capacity in operation in 2020. The government, which runs the economy, says it will bring another 73.5 GW of capacity into service in the years ahead.
Standaert said, “China has pledged that its emissions will peak around 2030, but that high-water mark would still mean that the country is generating huge quantities CO2 — 12.9 billion to 14.7 billion tons of carbon dioxide annually for the next decade, or as much as 15 percent per year above 2015 levels, according to a Climate Action Tracker analysis.”
Reuters reported in February, “China put 38.4 gigawatts (GW) of new coal-fired power capacity into operation in 2020, according to new international research, more than three times the amount built elsewhere around the world and potentially undermining its short-term climate goals.”
The news service quoted Lauri Myllyvirta, a key analyst at the Helsinki-based Centre for Research and Clean Air, “The runaway expansion of coal-fired power is driven by electricity companies’ and local governments’ interest in maximizing investment spending, more than a real need for new capacity.”
But China, while avoiding serious public discussions on its use of coal, touts its nuclear power commitment. Bloomberg reported earlier this month from the National Peoples Congress, “China is offering new backing for the development of nuclear power as a key tool in its drive to cut carbon emissions.
“The nation will promote the construction of coastal nuclear power plants and aims to have 70 gigawatts of generation capacity by 2025 from about 50 gigawatts at the end of last year, according to the latest five-year plan presented Friday to China’s annual National People’s Congress. That would equate to about 20 new reactors.”
Bloomberg also reported, later this month, that coal is far from vanishing from the world’s energy economy. The news service wrote, “The world’s three biggest consumers of coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, are getting ready to boost usage so much that it’ll almost be as if the pandemic-induced drop in emissions never happened.”
According to Bloomberg, “U.S. power plants are going to consume 16% more coal this year than in 2020, and then another 3% in 2022, the Energy Information Administration said last week. China and India, which together account for almost two-thirds of demand, have no plans to cut back in the near term.”
–Kennedy Maize
(kenmaize@gmailcom)