China Ramps Up Coal Power Despite Carbon Neutral Pledges (theguardian.com) 80
Local governments in China approved more new coal power in the first three months of 2023 than in the whole of 2021, according to official documents. From a report: The approvals, analysed by Greenpeace, reveal that between January and March this year, at least 20.45 gigawatts of coal power was approved, up from 8.63GW in the same period in 2022. In the whole of 2021, 18GW of coal was approved. A Chinese Communist party (CCP) five-year plan from 2016 had placed a heavy emphasis on reducing the use of coal and developing clean energy sources. In 2020 Xi Jinping, China's leader, pledged that the country would become carbon neutral by 2060. This prompted an era of reduced coal power approvals as local governments sought to keep their local economies in check with Beijing's priorities. A rise in coal power approvals came in 2020 when the five-year plan came to an end, as local governments anticipated even tighter restrictions on coal expansion in the next round. But in 2021, China suffered huge power outages, leading to a dramatic shift in the CCP's energy priorities. In September the price of electricity soared as factories reopened to service global demand as the rest of the world emerged from the Covid-19 pandemic. But the government had capped prices, so many power plants reduced output rather than operated at a loss.
We should give them more money (Score:4, Insightful)
It's worked so well so far...
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To build a coal powered electric plant isn't all that unusual. If we're going to tsk tsk, lets start with coal in China actually being subsidized - as I understand it they're rewarded for using local resources, meaning coal.
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give? what give?
the US sells China their money and China buys it. its called debt.
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You got it backward: they lend money to the US, which is then used as subsidies and given to chinese industries.
Which is how they are now leading the way in solar, wind, and even nuclear nowadays.
Re: We should give them more money (Score:1)
Re: We should give them more money (Score:1)
The easiest way to tell the Beijing State is lying (Score:5, Insightful)
Answer: they only lie.
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I wonder if Greenpeace is being entirely truthful though. Is this like when German built 5 new coal plants, but actually closed 8 for a total of -3?
They can both be lying, although no country can really lie about emissions because we can detect them from space and with atmospheric sampling.
Re: The easiest way to tell the Beijing State is l (Score:1)
Yes. Please refer to my previous comment. (Score:2)
https://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=22860876&cid=63478030
Ya, but ... (Score:3)
Maybe it's that "clean coal" some people are always going on about. /s
[ Maybe it's "super clean coal" that actually reduces pollution -- we don't know! :-) ]
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What?
Outside of Texas (Score:5, Interesting)
They could fix it easy by connecting to other state grids (like every other civilized state) but then they'd have to fix their crap grid and, as we've already established, nobody wants to pay for it. If you're rich enough to matter in Tx you've got your own generators and solar panels. And if you're not, well, you don't matter. You'll get in line and vote how you're told like a good 'lil boy.
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We don't want nonya lefty liberal nonsense, we already lead the nation in hot air and sunshine power [kxan.com]
you should tell your friend to move to a more stable place in Texas, Austin is full of wackos.
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At least until Greg Abbott leaves town.
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Your remark didn't address the grid problem.
Meanwhile, there's recent attempts by the legislature to shore up NG production in the state and suppress wind and solar. At the expense of ratepayers.
"Raising the cost of renewable energy on the grid, and investing billions into new power generation infrastructure would all-but guarantee higher energy bills for consumers. It would also increase pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from natural gas use."
https://www.kut.org/energy-env... [kut.org]
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There is *no* grid problem, there has been a problem with ERCOT managing the grid but the legislature is on top of it. The recent winter demonstrated that they're getting a handle on it.
There are COOPs too and your friend may live in one of those areas. Those by law, are not subject to ERCOT jurisdiction. Some Cities also act as their own utility provider and pay the wholesale producers and charge the customers in their city. That doesn't work out and isn't part of ERCOT as a whole. We have many producers a
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“I think we have an operational flexibility problem,” Carrie Bivens, the PUC's independent market monitor, told a state Senate Committee late last year. “I do not believe we have [an energy] capacity problem.”
That means grid.
The Texas legislature is dominated by the GOP, and they are largely owned by fossil fuel interests. That's why they are trying to push through bills that prop up the industry. The consulting firm that came up with the "Performance Credit Mechanism" plan says it w
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You know Trump has nothing to do with this, right?
I have noticed that your grasp on reality seems to be slipping lately. I know that this late in the game Trump Derangement Syndrome can seem undaunting and the usual result is people just give in. But TDS is treatable. A aggressive drug treatments, including psychedelic, tied with extended shock therapy sessions can treat even the most aggressive forms of TDS. Even late stage conditions such as yours.
We're here for you. You can beat this
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They could fix it easy by connecting to other state grids (like every other civilized state) but then they'd have to fix their crap grid and, as we've already established, nobody wants to pay for it.
Just another example of how libertarianism fails [onlysky.media].
Re: Outside of Texas (Score:1)
Energy = quality of life (Score:5, Interesting)
To me, the fair solution to this is pretty clear: the west needs to help the rest of the world. Share technology and yes, resources. This way, they can continue to develop WITHOUT burning mountains of coal and oceans of oil. I’m a realist of course. This is absolutely NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.
Humanity is going to burn every liter of oil that it can extract, and every ounce of coal it can dig up, in addition to consuming as much solar, wind, and nuclear as it can manage to put up. Environmental consequences be damned. Short-term thinking is winning and we will deal with the problems at a later date.
In an extremely perverse way, I hope that the AGW deniers COUGH*IDIOTS*COUGH are correct and global warming is a big nothingburger. A century of science has concluded otherwise.
We need to be developing the science and engineering required to do real-life geoengineering. Our species is going to need it next century. I’m done listening to the people who whine about “noooOOOoo geoengineering could mess up the planet. Didn’t you see Snowpiercer?”. We already already messed up the planet. That ship sailed 20 years ago.
Re:Energy = quality of life (Score:5, Insightful)
Modern energy sources were not available when the west went through the industrial revolution.
China manufactures most of our solar panels, batteries, charge controllers, etc. We've already shared the technology, they're using it, just not as fast as they promised.
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And they are massively expanding their use of solar, nuclear, and other renewables, the percentage of those power sources are increasing compared to the whole. The problem is because the percentage of those started off so low, even if they are expanding those by an order of magnitude, which is risky and costly, it still can't meet their needs from their rate of growth alone. They basically had no choice but to use fossil fuels, and coal in particular because they have less available sources of natural gas.
T
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The Chinese aren't dumb, if they could build and use cleaner sources of power for comparable cost, they would have done it.
It's dumb to sell out the future. We're dumb together.
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You do not know that. Maybe some technological breakthrough will make our climate worries irrelevant.
Maybe winged primates will aviate from my rectal cavity.
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I wouldn't call it dumb, but we collectively are making bad decisions because humans are bad at judging this type of problems. It's the tragedy of the commons, it happens in virtually every domain, and we have never been able to solve this.
I don't think anyone can argue that cheap energy isn't beneficial to everyone. And it's impossible to hold back anyone from using cheap available sources of energy to better their lives, to pull themselves out of poverty. No country is able to do that. We are inadvertentl
Re:Energy = quality of life (Score:4, Insightful)
China isn't exactly slacking when it comes to solar. They generate more solar power than any other nation by a mile and a half, and their solar capacity is growing at a record pace. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] https://www.reuters.com/world/... [reuters.com]
And yet, solar still accounts for a measly 3.1% of their electricity generation. People seem to grossly underestimate just how much power the heavy industry needed to sustain a country of over a billion people draws. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Don't forget that a lot of their heavy industry is also to supply many of our products. So they have the heavy industry for like 2B people, not just 1.4. Europe especially is kind of greenwashing themselves that way.
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Exactly the point I made in another comment. Western nations haven't so such cut their greenhouse gas emissions, as they have exported them to China.
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What's their per capita generation of renewables vs western countries?
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You're clearly not very same but you are at least smart enough to post your ignorant idiocy as AC.
There is no such thing as clean energy.
Solar requires digging up the ground and after the panels need replacing at anywhere from 10am to 25 years, where does all that high tech trash go?
Windmills, same. Those giant blades can't be recycled.
Hydro, flooding out countless acres of environment upstream. See China's 3 gorges mega dam for a textbook example of mass destruction.
And so on.
You're a fucking idiot. But
Reminder that tut-tutting China won't solve this (Score:2)
The West relies on China for cheap manufactured goods, and the factories those cheap manufactured goods will be made in are powered by coal. It doesn't matter if the world's most arrogant continent (I'll let you decide which one) promises to hold in some of its CO2 farts, and it doesn't matter that they're wagging their finger at China for not doing the same. They're still tweeting on Chinese-made cell phones, wearing Chinese-made clothes, cooking with Chinese-made kitchenware, and sleeping in Chinese-made
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Coal is exactly what we're worried about.
We don't care about the carbon in humans, really. It's "sequestered", and while it's often released when we die(short of embalming and such), the average energy use by a human drastically exceeds their carbon.
14.4 kg of coal, when 1kg coal = .12 kWh. That's only 120kWh. Or like a day's worth in many areas, before driving or anything else, just electricity.
Meanwhile, burning coal is releasing NEW carbon in carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
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Technically, it's old carbon in most cases. New coal is fairly rare, as it only forms rapidly under fairly exceptional circumstances (e.g., in the aftermath of a volcanic eruption or earthquake in some cases).
Foolish. (Score:2, Interesting)
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You didn't answer the question. Didn't even try. I'll try again.
Let's review:
Coal: dig big pit, separate coal, burn it to drive steam turbine. Works 24/7 under any conditions short of a natural disaster, can be used as base load, low tech, anyone can do this. Environment damage.
Solar, wind, most other renewables: high tech, skill required to build, battery tech sucks, can not be used as base load, does not work 24/7 or under various very common weather conditions, expensive to install, not available to l
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Building coal power plants is very low-tech. Especially if you don't give a shit about safety or the environment - like China. China is building about two coal plants a week. That's a hell of a lot of pollution. And given how the atmosphere works, that's not staying in China.
Meanwhile, the most technologically advanced countries in the world can't bring a nuclear power plant online. At least we (the USA) have been converting coal plants to natural gas, which has a tiny fraction of the emissions as coal
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natural gas, which has a tiny fraction of the emissions as coal.
Gas still produces between one third and half the CO2 emissions from coal. Saying it's a tiny fraction is an over-statement at best. Even if you magically replaced all coal plants by gas plants overnight, we would still emit way too much CO2 than is sustainable. And not by a tiny fraction this time.
the most technologically advanced countries in the world can't bring a nuclear power plant online.
We can argue it's more a question of want than a question of can. China built has not 50 nuclear plants in operation, with about half being recently buillt one. And 150 more planned (20 already in construction) f
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Of course not. Because that would be stupid. Like building coal plants while the world moves on to renewables.
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You're hopeless. You still ignore my very directly stated point and repeat your nonsense about the rest of the world moving in. To what? Renewables can not replace base load nor provide the levels of power a heavily industrial manufacturing based economy needs nor do what they do as cheaply as coal. You don't even realize you not only have no point but the little you are saying is sheer nonsense.
Done wasting my time with you. You're a mindlessly pro green drone.
My personal home solar system is guarante
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Renewables + storage can not only replace base load, they can vastly exceed anything the non-renewable economy is capable of generating. You are contradicting simple, physical facts. Spouting myths about none
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No that was not my point.
Are you ESL? Or just intentionally obtuse?
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Ok, you're not ESL. You're intentionally obtuse.
And still know nothing about pollution or energy, green or otherwise.
You greeny cultists are so amusing. As soon as someone stands up to you and explains in plain English how you don't know wtf you're talking about you get all cheeky and play words games instead of trying to refute anything. Because you know you can't.
So, what foot are they shooting by not rushing into green energy? Still waiting. Don't bother replying, I know you won't and can't and I wo
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Dumbass.
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China is moving to low-carbon energy sources faster than the rest of the world already:
- They accounted for more renewables deployment in 2022 than the rest of the world combined
- They built more nuclear plants in the last 15 years than the rest of the world combined
- The manufacturing, technology and minerals needed for solar/wind is now coming mostly (90%) from their country
Do you think if they could build renewables or nuclear faster, they wouldn't do it? The rest of the world needs to understand there a
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Lmao, I love slashdot where hard scientific on topic facts are modded down because triggered little unicorn fart powered psycho ultra anti-science greeny cultists can't handle the truth.
But... (Score:2)
Aren't they buying a lot more electric cars? So they could in theory build coal power plants but shift to EVs and still end up neutral. They didn't say they were reducing their CO2 output, just shooting for neutral.
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Development of zero carbon infrastructure (Score:2)
Development of zero carbon infrastructure is difficult especially when you have a manufacturing heavy economy like China.
What is required is effective solutions for electrical power and industrial heat.
As the west has de-industrialised we've been coasting on an energy grid and plant build and paid for by the pre-boomers generation. If we reindustrialise we will need significantly more power.
Industry can't operates effectively on intermittent power, numerous processes require slow starts and stops and long o
Shocking news. China lies. (Score:2)
Not really anything more to say.
Quite amazing to read these comments (Score:2)
Quite amazing to read these comments.
China alone, if the theory is correct, is on its own emitting enough CO2 to destroy human civilization on earth. Around one third of global emissions and rising. All the evidence is they intend to keep on increasing their emissions. All the evidence is that what they care about is economic growth, and they will emit as much as it takes to grow as fast as they can. At the moment they mine and burn more coal than the rest of the world put together, and the story record
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Agree about a lot of things you say, but I believe that people need to put their house in order first, before trying to fix other countries.
The West (USA, Europe) offshored a lot of its mining, manufacturing and industry capabilities to countries like China because they didn't want to deal with the impacts of those:
- if you want to produce things in a "clean" manner, it costs more
- if you want to produce things and pay people a decent wage, it costs more
But if the west didn't find a way to produce those thi
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"But if the west didn't find a way to produce those things cleanly, and still keeping them cheap, even though we were more advanced at the time, why should we expect a country lagging behind in terms of technological advancement and environmental awareness, to do better?"
The question is not what we should expect. Its not about attitudes or feelings at all.
There is a country which is, if the theory is correct, is single handedly destroying human civilization. Yet people in this forum keep on making these k
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There is a country which is, if the theory is correct, is single handedly destroying human civilization. Yet people in this forum keep on making these kinds of excuses for it.
This is not about making excuses. This is about explaining that most of what they do is:
- either for other countries, like ours (assuming you are from Europe or North America). Take the mining of rare earths, which is a dirty process in itself: the US or even Europe have rare earths deposits, which they were exploiting. Actually, before 1970, the US was the main provider of rare earths. We decided to stop exploiting those mines because we couldn't do it in a clean and at the same time cheap manner. But we d
Therefore... (Score:2)
What this news means is that we here in the West must stop driving cars altogether and never eat meat. Also, it would be helpful to not eat at all.
strategic value (Score:2)
Coal has strategic value for China. China relies on places like the middle east for oil and gas. This must flow through choke points like the the straits of Hormuz and the Malaca straits to reach China, and the US could easily block these routes if hostilities with China happened. Also, they only have very limited ability to get oil and gas by pipeline from Russia and Kazakhstan. Coal is the only domestic safe source of energy for China for many many years to come. It is a strategic security decision fo
When will people finally understand (Score:1)