C H I N A - Transition from coal
Title photo above: Chinese coal hopper with barge.
Figure 2
Figure 1
Figures 1 and 2 paint a grim picture of China's reliance on coal. Wrestling free of that reliance is proving to be a hugely difficult task. For years, China's rural, remote communities suffered from either a complete lack of electricity or an unreliable supply with lengthy powercuts. I currently live in rural England. Occasionally during storms, our power cuts out. The borehole pump supplying our water stops, our gas boiler stops. No water, no heating, no cooking, no light, and - shock horror - no internet access. My wife and I sit in candlelight around the woodburner and wait. How would we react if the electricity company messaged us saying the power would be out for a month while they upgraded the grid to allow power from wind turbine farms to come on stream? Our longest powercut? 12 hours. We don't know how lucky we are.
The main problem China faces is the wild fluctuations in electricity demand. In 2021, for example, at the end of the pandemic, there was a resurgence in demand for Chinese goods. Factories making them needed an instant increase in electricity supply. Additional coal-fired power stations were built to meet this demand. But China knows that it has to wean itself off coal and the government had therefore set rules slowing coal production. This resulted in coal prices going up. Out in the provinces, the authorities running the coal-fired power plants were unwilling to operate at a loss and reduced their output instead. End result - power outages, the worst for decades.
Further problems arose in 2021, '22 and '23 when severe droughts hit parts of China, lowering river levels such that output from hydroelectric dams fell dramatically. The only way of compensating for this loss was to increase output from fossil fuel power plants. With Russia's invasion of Ukraine came increased gas prices. China has no choice but to fill the gap with coal until such time as renewable energy can supply the demand.
The whole world looks on to see when that will happen. How fast can China replace coal with hydro, wind and solar.
Figure 3
Table 1
Figure 3 and Table 1 above provide real insights into the progress being made by the big 8 coal producers/consumers in transitioning to renewables. China, a country with a gargantuan demand for energy, has broken through the 30% electricity from renewable sources. It will come as no surprise to learn that China is the world's leader in electricity production from renewable energy sources, with over triple the output of the second-ranking country, the United States. While the increases in renewable capacity in Europe, the United States and Brazil hit all-time highs, China’s acceleration was extraordinary. In 2023, China commissioned as much solar PV (photovoltaic) as the entire world did in 2022, while its wind additions also grew by 66% year-on-year.
Figure 4
Bear in mind that the figures given above in Hannah Ritchie's chart are just the increases in power output. So the 305 TWh (thousand billion watt hours!) of electricity that China added to its renewable output was greater than the entire electricity consumption in the UK! Bear in mind also that hydro-electric, biofuel-generated and nuclear are not included.
There is absolutely no doubting China's ambitions in the renewable sphere. Many now believe that their rate of transition from coal to renewables may have been vastly underestimated. China's renewable energy development is happening very rapidly, with the country currently considered the world leader in renewable energy production, and on track to reach its 2030 renewable energy goals several years ahead of schedule; some reports indicate China could have over half of the world's renewable energy capacity by the end of the decade.
Still there is no reliable answer to the question: when will China begin a largescale program of CFPP closure? To a large extent, ignoring external influences, it will depend on whether China's renewable trajectory can be sustained.
Figure 5
If China continues its remarkable progress in building new renewable capacity, will China confound its critics and achieve its goal of becoming net zero by 2060. But 2060? Isn't that too late to prevent +3°C? The UN has set a target of net zero by 2050. Does 2060 give China wiggle-room to continue burning coal if not ad infinitum, then at least until many of its major infrastructure mega-projects have been completed. But with 1,161 coal fired power plants currently on stream and a further possible 300 in the planning or construction stage, many climate scientists are extremely sceptical that the world's largest carbon-emitter can pull the 'net zero rabbit' out of a hat before even 2060.
TITLE PHOTO: By Rob Loft, retouched by Dave606 at en.wikipedia - This file derived from: Coal hopper with barge.jpg