By P Gosselin on 23. January 2022
According to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Coal 2021 report, coal-fired electricity generation reached an all-time high in 2021, increasing a whopping 9% in 2021.
Chart source: IEA
The increase was driven by the rapid economic recovery. Globally, a total of 10,350 terawatt-hours of electricity was generated from coal.
Even worse in terms of the climate protection perspective, the IEA report says that global coal demand could well reach a new all-time high in the next two years and would likely stay near these levels for the next few years.
More than 600 new coal-fired power plants are planned in Asia.
The IEA says China and India now account for two-thirds of global coal consumption, despite their efforts to expand renewables and other low-carbon energy sources.
“Without strong and immediate action by governments to tackle coal emissions – in a way that is fair, affordable and safe for those affected – we will have little, if any, chance of limiting global warming to 1.5 °C,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said.
The IEA report comes just over a month after the end of the COP 26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland. The agreement reached at COP 26 aimed to build on the Paris Agreement and prevent the worst impacts of climate change.
The IEA forecast for the future:
At the same time, countries such as Viet Nam, the Philippines and Bangladesh, where very strong growth in coal demand had been expected a few years ago, are now set to show more modest increases as they shift more towards sources of electricity that are less carbon intensive. However, global coal trends will be shaped largely by China and India, who account for two-thirds of global coal consumption, despite their efforts to increase renewables and other low-carbon energy sources. In China, coal demand growth is expected to average less than 1% per year between 2022 and 2024. In India, stronger economic growth and increasing electrification are forecast to drive coal demand growth of 4% per year. India’s growing appetite for coal is set to add 130 million tonnes (Mt) to coal demand between 2021 and 2024. For most industrial purposes where coal is used, such as iron and steel production, there are not many technologies that can replace it in the short term. Based on current trends, global coal demand is set to rise to 8 025 Mt in 2022, the highest level ever seen, and to remain there through 2024.”
China is on the rise!
I wonder who produced that list of polluters? I am intrigued that Sri Lanka are listed as a major contributor, a small Island nation off the coast of India. Yet India, with the world’ largest population and a massive coast line, does not feature in the chart? Very odd.
There has been a recent significant pollution event in Sri Lanka… I guess it is due to that one off…
Sri Lanka faces ‘worst beach pollution’ in history from burning ship – ABC News
Don’t worry India is villified by the IEA here as they say “China and India now account for two-thirds of global coal consumption.”
Why mention India? China consumes 400% more. The rest of Asia consumes the same as India but is not named.
China stays the darling of Amazon, Apple etc. while India is not.
Interesting, China alone is at >90% of Y2K global consumption and China + India are more than Y2K global consumption
With all the problems with renewable,s, & the storage of renewable energy,
it’s of interest that coal is the perfect fuel.
It can be left for years in a heap & does not deterate, or cost anything for storage..
And there is plenty of it,.
Michael VK5ELL
Strange nobody mentioned that in Glasgow!
According to Carbon Brief world coal fired power doubled between 2000 and 2020 to around 2045GW. Many of these new plants still have a long operating life ahead of them.
Coal is still the leading electricity generation fuel worldwide (IEA)
So they added 1023 GW coal capacity. What if they had used wind, instead?
Wind farms produce (by a generous estimate) 3 W/m^2, working at nameplate capacity. Assuming a 33% capacity factor (and not accounting for overall calm days), that goes down to 1 W/m^2. So they’d need a total land area of 1,023,000 km^2. The combined land area of Texas and California is 1,119,629 km^2, just to give you some perspective.
It is estimated that the total paved land area in the United States is equal to the size of the state of Ohio – 116,098 km^2. While the area of 1.023 TW of wind farms isn’t paved, it really can’t be used for anything else. Not safely, anyway.
Anyone see a problem with this?
So renewables aren’t even covering the increase in global demand
Outside China and India they are…
That means nothing, nada, zilch. The atmosphere is well mixed, so what China and India are doing for all practical purposes obviates everything North America and Europe is doing or plans to do. Sorry.
Africa is adding coal as fast as China can build it.
That seems like the case Mark.
https://tinyurl.com/e6h42mmp
“China is continuing to fund coal-fired power plants across Africa despite increasing concern about their environmental impact.”
Griffy-poo, I do not think the Chinese would be building all of these coal-fired power plants for the Africans if the Africans thought wind and solar energy could meet a substantial portion of their energy needs.
Griffy-poo, your trolling behavior at this website gets older and more tired with each passing day. Please just go away.
Griff – thanks for enduring the abuse, and particularly for an opposing point of view and the provision of countering information. We all need to hear the other side(s) of the story, and to give it/them serious thought.
We need to hear disproven lies over and over and over again?
Mr. hogg: Good point! I wonder, do you ever tell mainstream media outlets to print skeptical AGW articles, because we “need to hear both sides”?
So China manufactures solar panels for export by using coal for power. I think I understand why they laugh at the rest of the world so much.
The leaders of the rest of the world are a bunch of damn fools. That’s why the Chicoms laugh.
Yup, Griff et al are the fools and all of us in the west are left holding the bag.
My Oldest granddaughter is married to a soldier and they’re stationed in S. Korea. The air pollution numbers she reports are staggering! She has asthma and is really struggling. Says the top rail of the deck at their quarters is covered with a black film. That is coming from China.
So all China needs is to improve their coal plants’ filtration. Not ban coal like the stupid Westerners!
This ^
They use none of the mitigation techniques or technology. No scrubbing. Burn High sulfur coal with no blending. They in essence, are creating the killer “fogs” that London had, but on a massive scale.
I don’t know. But I doubt they are cooling the water they have used before returning it to the environment and when it comes to bottom ash, I bet their polluting ground water sources without any compunction.
When I was a student at IU in Bloomington, IN I lived in McNutt Quad in the mid 70s I experienced some of the problems first hand.
We were up hill and down wind of the steam generation plant that, being a state run institution, was exempt from the limited pollution regs. Coal ash came raining down on us and ate the paint off our cars.
Coal can be burned very cleanly. But to do it takes a properly run and maintained plant with some type of scrubbing technology and the proper systems for handling and disposing of the ash.
If you want to experience bad air first hand go to HARBIN about now.
N China is pretty cold in winter and that whole city is heated with coal. (300-400 currently)
A pretty useful tool is here https://aqicn.org/city/china/haerbin/ – on our visit it was right up at 800!
Last week they were giving us a pile of hassles on road signs and telling us to reduce speeds because it reached 100 around Grenoble, and currently roughly the same in Paris or Lyon, no worse than Mudianjang!
https://aqicn.org/city/china/mudanjiang/diyiyiyuan/
Go figure!
S Korea is pretty darn cold now too. They are getting out of the Army. He intended on making a career of it but changed his mind after this deployment.
The DoD support for the troops is terrible there. Nothing like my experiences when I was in Germany with my family for three years.
I remember when I was a student in St Louis in the late 60’s and Peabody coal was in operation near the river. You could hardly see the sign because of the pollution spewing forth. One winter morning it had snowed and the snow was almost black from Peabody coal particulates. Entirely cleaned up now.
The Chinese leaders have learned to make money like capitalists but seem to have missed the lessons on the what pollution (real stuff like particulates, not CO2) does to the environment.
They must have studied using Cliff Notes.
True Communists! They only care about their power and never the people .
–“Without strong and immediate action by governments to tackle coal emissions – in a way that is fair, affordable and safe for those affected – we will have little, if any, chance of limiting global warming to 1.5 °C,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said.–
Doesn’t it seem we need an Executive Director that pounds louder and harder on the desk?
Send if the Griff … really can we just ship him to China to protest 🙂
Griff wouldn’t protest in China, he would praise them for all the windmills and solar panels they build.
The Chicoms probably wouldn’t let Griff in, anyway. They don’t think much of Greta, either.
Since the 1.5C limit is 100% made up, who cares?
I wonder if the unchecked coal usage by China, along with other China misconduct, such as slave labor (wait for reports back from the upcoming Winter Olympics for the latest misconduct), is associated with the report in the new book “Red-Handed: How American Elites Got Rich Helping China Win” by Peter Schweizer, that high-ranking Chinese officials gave $31 million Dollars to the Biden Family?
it is all a scam anyway. when coal combusts in the chimney of a coal fired oiler plant heat causes all the gases to rise. but, once they are out of the chimney, C02 is the heaviest and gradually sinks to the ground. once there plants absorb it and convert it to oxygen for all other life on planet Earth to breath. Without it we would be dead.
Utter nonsense…
Some people advocate a “learn a new word every day” approach to the “The cure for boredom is curiosity, there is no cure for curiosity” conjecture.
conclusory : consisting of or relating to a conclusion or assertion for which no supporting evidence is offered
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYJk61_AJ9U
an interview of the author on Fox
“the report in the new book “Red-Handed: How American Elites Got Rich Helping China Win” by Peter Schweizer, that high-ranking Chinese officials gave $31 million Dollars to the Biden Family?”
Yes, and the Russians gave Hunter Biden $3.5 million.
So our chief adversaries in the world own Joe Biden and are, imo, causing him to withhold effective action against both the Chicoms and Putin, for fear that the Biden family criminality would be revealed to the world.
As far as leadership goes, the United States is in the worst position possible, because we don’t have leadership, we have our leaders trying to cover their asses, at our expense.
The Russians should not be so eager to go into Ukraine. They may gain some slight advantages, but they will lose much more in world opinion, and they will have a guerilla war on their hands that will sap them for as long as they are there. Putin’s popularity suffered the last time Russian soldiers started coming home in bodybags from Putin’s last military adventure in the area. The same will happen if he invades Ukraine. So it’s not all upside for Putin.
Coincidentally, Tom, a YouTube recommendation for me this morning was an interview with Peter Schweitzer on Fox News about the Biden-Chinese connection:
‘Startling’ connection between Biden and China: Peter Schweitzer – YouTube
Regards,
Bob
Schweitzer”s book comes out tomorrow. It ought to be interesting.
Actual human beings know that coal is renewable, leftarded idiots don’t know it.
Coal has many advantages but “renewable” is not one of them.
Actually, M Courtney, coal is renewable. The anoxic swamps convert to peat bogs and then convert to various grades of coal under increased pressure and temperature. The Greenies actually support and defend this process, like demanding “wetlands” be untouched and even enhanced.
er… how long is this going to take, Ron?
It already happened, lie spewing liar.
Sooner than battery storage for solar and wind electricity generation.
Haha
The point is, the rate that coal is being produced, which can take millions or even hundreds of millions of years is far slower than the rate we use it. Still, we may have one or two hundred years useable supply left. At some point, coal will likely no longer be used to generate electricity, which is good, because we will still probably need it for steelmaking.
The World Coal Association says that proven reserves worldwide are over 1.6 trillion tonnes, enough to last 132years at current usage.
Coal, gas, oil, hydro and nuclear are the only renewable energy sources humans have. Solar and wind can’t even support their own operation much less power a global economy.
From the article: ““Without strong and immediate action by governments to tackle coal emissions – in a way that is fair, affordable and safe for those affected – we will have little, if any, chance of limiting global warming to 1.5 °C,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said.”
I guess the Director hasn’t noticed that it has cooled off by about 0.5C, even though all these new coal-fired powerplants are adding their CO2 output to what was already there in the atmosphere.
Increased CO2 is supposed to increase the atmosphere’s temperature, according to climate change alarmists, but instead, the temperatures are cooling even though CO2 is increasing. This should lead a logical person to question whether CO2 controls the Earth’s temperatures.
I think the Director is living in a “1.5C” False Reality.
From the article: “Even worse in terms of the climate protection perspective, the IEA report says that global coal demand could well reach a new all-time high in the next two years and would likely stay near these levels for the next few years.”
Maybe RCP 8.5 is a realistic scenario afterall, with regard to the amount of coal to be burned, but not with regard to that increased CO2 raising temperatures because, as we see, CO2 production is increasing while the temperatures are cooling. So RCP 8.5 might have it right about coal consumption, but does not have it right on what that would do to temperatures.
Coal burning is in our future. Get used to it, and stop worrying about the temperatures, which have no demonstrated connection to CO2.
I haven’t checked this recently, but as of 2014 almost 15% of world coal production went into making steel — slightly over 1.6 billion metric tons produced that year. As of 2019 steel production was 1.87 billion metric tons. I’m guessing electric generation has grown faster than steel, so likely steel accounts for a bit less than 15% of annual coal production today.
Still it’s growing and will continue to do so. I can’t recall the exact figure, but it’s either 768 or 786 kg. of coal to make a metric ton of steel. So take annual steel production and multiply by either 0.768 or 0.786 and that will tell you how much coal is used.
#1 steel producer is China at 1065 million metric tons (MMT)
#2 is India: 100.3 MMT
#3 is Japan: 83.2 MMT
#4 is US: 72.7 MMT
#5 is Russia: 71.6 MMT
You can check out the details here.
FTA: “Globally, a total of 10,350 terawatt-hours of electricity was generated from coal.”
Shocking!
People who hate coal, i.e. Climate Alarmists, are emotionally disturbed, unstable, and should seek counseling for their illness. What we are dealing with here is a sort of mass psychosis. Herd behavior protects their psyches somewhat, but eventually they will break down. Case in point, Greta’s temper tantrums.
And yet the growth of atmospheric CO2 has not changed a bit.
Wonder why.
https://scc.klimarealistene.com/2021/10/new-papers-on-control-of-atmospheric-co2/
Hmmm…
When exactly was the “Covid Lockdown” again???
The Covid lockdown merely moved energy use from the factory/office to the home.
Most factory/offices didn’t shutdown either, many stayed at least partially open.
Why would you expect a 10% drop for two months to show up in such noisy data?
Why would anyone want to stowaway in the wheel well of a passenger jet from Africa to Europe? Don’t they know they could freeze to death….after landing from bad energy policy.
Ahhh, yes . . . all those
promisesgoals made by so many nations signing the Paris Accord.Who really believed them in the first place?
It was ever the case that no matter what the first world does, when China, India, Indonesia and the rest get power to their populations, co2 emissions are going to rise massively. If they were genuine in their desire to keep emissions limited, some scheme for providing them with nuclear energy would have been implemented. Instead it is simply an anti-economic movement to attack western industries.