Coal Consumption & CO2 on a Downward Trend in China

[SageBrush]

China’s Coal Consumption Declines Despite Increasing Energy Consumption

Unlike the US where a large fraction of the reduction in coal was due to NG, China's is due to efficiency and clean energy.
Good for them, and once we rid ourselves of the monkey in the white house, the US can joint the ranks of the developed world again.

 

[adiggs]

Really interesting article @SageBrush and I appreciate you posting it. I like the direction we're seeing out of China on this front.

The jab wasn't necessary and degrades the quality of conversation and discourse on the site.

 

[miimura]

I don't recall where I saw it, but I remember seeing that China is still building coal plants to match their renewable installations. However, it's not what you think - they were building the coal plants as backup, not as base load. The fact that their coal consumption is going down is not surprising given this strategy. They need to increase their fossil capacity to follow their increases in total consumption, but they need not run them all the time when the demand can be fulfilled by renewables.

 

[BluestarE3]

The sooner China and India can bigly transition to renewables, the sooner we can drop the pretense among some that the US shouldn't be expected to do so as long as those other guys are still burning coal. It shouldn't be this way (we should be leading, not following), but that's the way it is. Sad.

 

[McRat]

The cool thing about Chinese news releases, is that the government is accountable to the voters, so fibbing is pretty much never done by the communist regime or they will not get re-elected.

 

[miimura]

The big change in China is that the populace has come out strongly against pollution. The government has realized that they can fight criteria pollution and win points with the rest of the world for CO2 at the same time. The problem is that the government will have to crack down on individuals using coal for heat as well. That will be a whole lot less popular unless they simultaneously provide a clean burning and affordable alternative.

 

[SageBrush]

The sooner China and India can bigly transition to renewables, the sooner we can drop the pretense among some that the US shouldn't be expected to do so as long as those other guys are still burning coal. It shouldn't be this way (we should be leading, not following), but that's the way it is. Sad.

That pretense is so 20th century. Now it is that AGW is a Chinese hoax.

 

[nwdiver]

The cool thing about Chinese news releases, is that the government is accountable to the voters, so fibbing is pretty much never done by the communist regime or they will not get re-elected.

At least the Chinese government accepts the science of climate change unlike some Fascist regimes.

 

[Sparky]

The cool thing about Chinese news releases, is that the government is accountable to the voters, so fibbing is pretty much never done by the communist regime or they will not get re-elected.

The cool thing about NASA's Earth Science & Tech is the U.S. can remotely monitor carbon sources and sinks. So, perhaps fibbing won't help.
And of course the current admin is very enthusiastic about funding NASA and other U.S. agencies to keep tabs on the planet Earth... oh wait.

 

[cpa]

This news is just in time to catalyze the current administration's plans to reopen all the coal mines and bring back all those good-paying mining jobs. The global demand will be off the charts!

 

[nativewolf]

At least the Chinese government accepts the science of climate change unlike some Fascist regimes.

Well China benefited hugely from supporting that stance, they got giant money from carbon offsets by shutting dirty plants and building new efficient plants. Basically EU paid China to become more competitive in steel. Nothing...nothing in China is simple...or upfront...or done with any integrity- it is about China. Great that they are building renewables but the most likely cause of the stance is nationalistic: China's oil production is decreasing at an alarming rate and they are quickly becoming reliant on Russia and OPEC. China does not want to be reliant on them and thus....they support renewables and that means that they want the rest of the world to buy the solar cells they need; they are building a huge increase in battery plants so they can have electric cars....so they won't have to import oil. With China it is all about China. That's basically the only thing you can count on so if you ascribe a position to ..."a belief in climate science" you are likely to be disappointed when the stance is no longer required some day in the future.

 

[SageBrush]

Well China benefited hugely from supporting that stance, they got giant money from carbon offsets by shutting dirty plants and building new efficient plants.

How so ? From Whom ? I know a different side -- that China took on the cost of subsidizing a nascent PV industry and took some heavy financial blows along the way as consolidations and market gyrations lead to bankruptcies. They gambled and won. Unlike the US that had a congress full of republicans whining at every entrepreneurial failure, leading to inadequate support to grow a world leading PV manufacturing base.

Anyway, your cynical view is not useful. All countries and all people look for multiple advantages from a decision. Finding them does not negate the others. Moreover, China should not have a monopoly on smart decision making.

Lastly, while it could be possible for China to return to Coal if a host of improbable other scenarios favored them doing so, at least they are not in denial about AGW.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

How so ? From Whom ? I know a different side -- that China took on the cost of subsidizing a nascent PV industry and took some heavy financial blows along the way as consolidations and market gyrations lead to bankruptcies. They gambled and won. Unlike the US that had a congress full of republicans whining at every entrepreneurial failure, leading to inadequate support to grow a world leading PV manufacturing base.

I wouldn't say they "took on the cost of subsidizing" the solar boom. They built the product, but Germany purchased it for the first 2-3 years of scaling up. It was only after module prices shrunk to parity with new grid capacity that they installed solar like crazy on the domestic front.

 

[McRat]

China is trying to keep their workers alive, they are not trying to save the globe.

Right now, in Beijing, the PM 2.5 for the last 24h was 310 (dangerous) to 210 (very unhealthy).

They are trying to stop the killing and allow aircraft to fly, not save the Polar Bear.

 

[SageBrush]

I wouldn't say they "took on the cost of subsidizing" the solar boom.

The state subsidized explosion in production capacity was underwritten by state mandated demand, and it lead to busts and bankruptcies that the Chinese govt absorbed. They also pretty much wiped out the German production base along the way. The point is that the Chinese had the foresight to absorb the lumps along the way in order to become the kingpins of production.

Compare that to the great Repub policy of bitching and moaning about Solyndra instead of nurturing a domestic industrial production industry. And now, instead of admitting to their mistakes and trying to rectify them, they tout conspiracy theories and coal.

 

[nwdiver]

China is trying to keep their workers alive, they are not trying to save the globe.

Right now, in Beijing, the PM 2.5 for the last 24h was 310 (dangerous) to 210 (very unhealthy).

They are trying to stop the killing and allow aircraft to fly, not save the Polar Bear.

I... I really couldn't care less what the motivations are... so long as actions are taken. What the Tump Administration is doing to hobble our efforts to reduce our CO2 emissions is beyond pathetic.

 

[McRat]

I... I really couldn't care less what the motivations are... so long as actions are taken. What the Tump Administration is doing to hobble our efforts to reduce our CO2 emissions is beyond pathetic.

The last administration did little to nothing as well as far as actually reducing current emissions. They left the decision to the next administration.

This is what is cool about being 'liberal'. Words are critical, not actions. You don't have to do things, you just have to say things. Hillary said she wanted campaign spending reform and to get rid of the influence by Wall Street while she spent record amounts campaigning and wooed Wall Street for donations.

And Obama said he wanted to clean the air, shut down Gitmo, and pull out of the middle east. No effective actions were taken, but since the words are out there, mission accomplished. He said so many 'progressive' things that his words (not actions) gave him a Nobel. Perfect planning.

Now Trump? He said he hated the campaign funding, so he spent less, did not woo the Banks and Fortune 500s, and capped lobbying. But the words were not loud enough. MSNBC released 'news' that Trump did and said nothing. So the words and actions were erased publically.

The evaluation period that Obama set up for further reductions in emissions was pushed onto Trump. So far, no action. But the press already says he has INCREASED emissions because he did not SAY he was reducing them like he is supposed to.

Cliff Notes: SAY you want to do something. Don't DO it. That is the way Washington DC is supposed operate. When it does not? Folk get pissed. Don't take action, say action and keep both sides happy.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

At no point did Obama espouse anything other than an all-of-the-above energy policy. He said right off the bat in 2007 that the far left would be disappointed with his term in office.

The market is sorting this problem out and we have no way of knowing what role Obama played in helping to allow the market to handle this transition. Much like the first Arab Spring, it's not what he did, but that he didn't suppress the efforts.

He could have easily held back solar(for a bit) and the Arab Spring with no one the wiser.

 

[SageBrush]

The market is sorting this problem out and we have no way of knowing what role Obama played in helping to allow the market to handle this transition.

About the same effect as trump -- just the opposite.

You remind me of the Repub playbook:
They interfere with a real free market and when the nascent tech fails they proclaim a market victory; if the nascent tech succeeds they proclaim no market interference since the market prevailed.

 

[Ulmo]

China’s Coal Consumption Declines Despite Increasing Energy Consumption

Unlike the US where a large fraction of the reduction in coal was due to NG, China's is due to efficiency and clean energy.
Good for them, and once we rid ourselves of the monkey in the white house, the US can joint the ranks of the developed world again.

The previous monkey was worse, but happened to be a little bit more visionary on clean energy. We have to always deal with whoever is in office. Let's explain the outdated and dirty ways of coal to the current people in political offices.

For example, not only inform the federal government of what is wrong, but also state governments. Both can set goals and standards and some enforcement about clean energy issues.

Here's my example: this ocean horizon used to be clean when I was born in 1971, but now pollution blows in from the West and makes it brown. The only thing West of us is China, across the Pacific Ocean, so this pollution is likely coming from China. But looking at the above world map, I see that band of particulate is more South than China, and may be coming from much further West than I knew, likely India, Arab countries and Africa. We need to stop coal production and use worldwide.

Solar PhotoVoltaic Panels are real. Here's Tuesday March 28th's solar output in California from CAISO:

That's CAISO utility-only solar photovoltaic (SPV) panels, peak wattage of 9.2GWh at 11:15 AM, total 82.4GWh for the 24 hour period. Residential and small business adds another 30% - 50%.

That is out of a total of CAISO-managed 559GWh for the day, so 14.7% of CAISO's managed energy for Tuesday was SPV, and if you add about 40% for small customer owned systems not utility owned, it's roughly 19.5% of the total 592GWh for the day for grid-connected users.

Once SPV are installed, they produce extremely little pollution, unlike coal, natural gas, and oil burning. And once SPV are installed, Electric Vehicles like Chevy Bolt, Tesla, Nissan Leaf, etc. can be purchased and plugged in at work and charged directly from utility grid solar power. Guess what? We need more workers to build and install:

• Chargers at work
• Solar PhotoVoltaic panel farms
• grid connections for the above two items
• batteries for the above two items
• EV cars (GM, Tesla, etc.)

This creates opportunities in the job market. It cleans up our skies. It is real. It's not some fake thing. And, we're doing it. We can finish cleaning up energy in California to compensate for any errors of other areas. And, we can inform the rest of the world that it is possible, and do the work to make it happen. And, there are lots of jobs in this field, because we're not done.