From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
h/t Philip Bratby
China is building a vast array of new coal-fired power stations, potentially more than the operating capacity of the US, even though it knows the plants will probably never be fully used.
The puzzle of why the world’s leading installer of clean energy is investing so much in the worst polluting — and increasingly expensive — fossil fuel shows the depth of Beijing’s concern over the global squeeze in energy supplies. But it also reflects planning for a gradual relegation of coal’s role, from prime power source to a widely available but often idle backup to China’s rapidly expanding renewables fleet.
Who writes this drivel?
There is only one reason why China is still building new coal plants – that is because they know that they need dispatchable power, and not intermittent renewables. Even if you believe Xi’s promise to hit net zero by 2060, they will still need lots of coal power in the meantime. Much of its older coal capacity will be long gone by then.
In addition, rising demand for electricity cannot be wholly met by wind and solar power.
As for this “rapidly expanding renewables fleet”, does not Bloomberg actually check the data? Wind and solar power still only account for a tiny 11% of electricity generation.
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Nobody uses solar power to make solar panels as far as I know – manufacturing solar panels requires vast quantities of coal. That is why the slave factories of Xinjiang are one of the main sources of global solar panel supply.
China knows that Solar and Wind are energy sources to power Has Been economies in washed up countries that have outsourced their production and thereby their economic growth potential (to China). China knows that the only way to power a modern economy that employs the populace and lifts the unfortunate out of poverty and into the middle class is through reliable energy capable of producing 24/7/365
The main reason China uses coal is because it’s a domestic resource. China is ranked in the top 5 for coal reserves. Combined with a massive switch to EVs, coal fired plants cuts the dependency (and huge vulnerability) of hauling oil 2000 miles away in the Middle East to power transport as well as electricity production. As with Imperial Japan, Chinese tankers could easily be embargoed from passage through Suez. They know all too well how easily the US Navy could turn off the lights without really firing a shot.
China also has largest (Top 10) uranium reserves… which is why they’re building 150 nuclear plants over the next 15 years… a fact no one seems to want to report. Coal+ nuclear +Hydro gives China pretty reliable, internally supported energy independence.
That’s the sum and substance of it all.
If China has so much coal, why do we keep reading about Australia’s biggest export is coal sent to China…that does not have enough to power their electrical grid??
Largely Specialty coking coal, not thermal coal. Also, China was cutting back a few years ago on coal but reversed their policies and increased production.
Posa
“Chinese tankers could easily be embargoed from passage through Suez. “
Indeed; they would have to turn round and sail directly to China.
Now, the Strait of Malacca, possibly . . .
Auto
That’s right. Anyway you look at it, Chinese oil imports by se are extremely vulnerable. Just as the Japanese were ftally vulnerable 80 years ago.
You got it. It’s national security. You can’t make armour with windmills and solar panels. Actually a topflight education is also a national security prerequisite. Dumbing down your population for three generations, killing off oil, gas coal and nuclear and throwing away 40-50 Trillions with a negative return on investment are grave causes for concern.
Russia obviously weighed the threat of readiness and apetite for war in the West and liked their odds in crossing into Ukraine. Biden then foolishly started threatening China over Taiwan (clearly his advisors, using the same reasoning, thought China may like its odds, too). This moved PRC’s priorities toward greater readiness, emboldened by Russias move and the construction of oil and gas pipelines and railways from Russia. Nobody seems worried.
There is electric melt glass, but it would suck the wings off a dedicated wind farm, and like an aluminum smelter you wouldn’t want the process interrupted in mid process. The glass batch is part of the actual electric circuit.
“China is building a vast array of new coal-fired power stations, potentially more than the operating capacity of the US, even though it knows the plants will probably never be fully used.” (emphasis mine)
I hate to break it to the very smart writers at Bloomberg, but it seems clear that China has NO INTENTION of under-utilizing its new fleet of low-pollution coal-fired power plants. Sheesh.
Even as sarcasm I wouldn’t use “very smart” to describe Bloomberg writers.
They can’t help being undereducated and over indoctrinated
They just want to keep their jobs
You can’t fix stupid, some are so deep in the green they gave up their ability to think rationally.
The establishment crystal ball is getting pretty cloudy w/r to China. Blackrock until recently was urging investors to pour money into China, even Soros called it a mistake.
The only thing Bloomberg is good for is lighting your charcoal grill.
Works well for igniting your Coal Heaters too…One lump or Two
I cannot fathom how these fools think that wind, solar, backup batteries and EV’s will reduce the need for coal. Do they not even think about the raw materials that might go into the manufacture of ‘green’ infrastructure? Do they really not understand just how massive this industry is? Or that renewables energy won’t run the factories to meet this behemoth task?
They want to eliminate fossil fuels yet they’ve created a whole global shipping industry that revolves around renewables, from cradle to grave. C02 reduction? What an absolute farce. Even if it was a problem.
didnt you know they are not EVs but coal powdered via a very inefficient grid / battery
give me an ICE any day
My point exactly. The whole ‘green’ industry relies on coal one way or another.
Nailed it Megs.
I’m sure Nick read your comment, but he regards it as heresy / blasphemy.
Do they not even think about the raw materials
No, they don’t. Out of sight, out of mind. And don’t try to tell them any differently.
When I was in China last, i saw thousands of EV’s being produced. All the two-wheelers in the cities are already electric. They need the power stations to produce the electricity.
So basically a whole lot of 2-3-4 wheeled Coal powered vehicles
Coal is a lower cost fuel than NG or gasoline. And with EVs fed from modern high temp steam turbines maybe a little higher efficiency overall.
An 80kg electric two-wheeler is a lot less energy intensive overall than a 2500kg BEV four-wheeler as well.
Yes. Its the efficiency chain that matters and of course reducing city pollution from all the petrol cars and closing outdated coal plants from the 60s on the urban fringe that add to pollution .
Michael R. Bloomberg is a climate crackpot. He employs zombie-like, automaton writers who— as a condition of employment— must write climate propaganda.
The ESG believers/Alternate Energy Blob have lost not just the battle but the war.
They know they have lost but will continue to exhibit an extreme version of Baghdad Bob behaviour as they go down for the final time.
I think it is more like they have lost the thread.
China is “the world’s leading installer of clean energy” [citation needed].
China is the world’s leader in producing crappy Solar panels that begin breaking down approx 15 minutes after installation is completed
I used to use information from Bloomberg to guide my investments. Those days are long gone.
Yes. I used to buy the Financial Times in the UK. Not because I was especially interested in the finance news, but because their bias was clear and open: they were interested in things that made (or lost) money. It was primarily factual without an overlying political agenda beyond the obvious and disclosed. Their sports reporting was pretty decent too.
I would guess that maybe the FT do still have some credibility left but I just don’t trust anything I get from the legacy media these days.
“As for this “rapidly expanding renewables fleet”, does not Bloomberg actually check the data? Wind and solar power still only account for a tiny 11% of electricity generation.”
It is rapidly expanding. Here is the IEA plot of generation (from here). It has grown from near nothing in 2010. From their text:
“In 2020, most of the world’s wind generation, at about 471 TWh, was in China, which was 16% higher than in 2019.”
“Solar power is the fastest-growing electric generation source in China. Net generation in 2020 was 270 TWh, 21% higher than in 2019.”
Just a minute Nick.
I’ll be back as soon as I can find my magnifying glass to see where that solar strip is in your graph.
IEA:
“Solar power is the fastest-growing electric generation source in China. Net generation in 2020 was 270 TWh, 21% higher than in 2019.”
Australia generated 240 TWh from all sources.
Well there ya go.
Oz should go totally solar right away!
Just blow up all those fossil fueled plants right now like that premier did with that coal one in South Australia a few years ago.
I’m sure the new climate change minister Chris Bowen can get a law passed to mandate that when the sun sets each day, the wind will be legally required to blow all night at strengths no less than 5 knots and no more than 25 knots.
Done & dusted.
What’s all the fuss about with this energy business?
Not needed. Bowen has already legislated all the naughty carbon away – remember — An election virtue signaling promise kept!
Bowen has also taken a number of framed copies of the legislation – officially signed off by the governor general to COP27, where he will present them as a sign of goodwill to his UN bosses…
🤮
Aren’t those UN overlords titled “Obergruppenführer”
“Oz should go totally solar right away!”
It’s happening!
Er, Nick it happens INTERMITTENTLY.
Even the boosters at the ABC admit this –
And also this –
Nick, can I suggest you ask someone you trust as being knowledgeable to sit with you when you read articles such as this ABC one, so they can help you understand the concept of INTERMITTENCY.
Nick, it’s a bug, not a feature.
(I get that you really know this, but you enjoy doing a Griff on us here just to wind us up and get replies to your shit-stirring.
I always fall for it too 🙂 )
It’s happening … RIIIIGHT … 100% solar with guaranteed power from 10 am til 2 pm, no guarantee for the other 20 hours a day unless you add a bazillion batteries into the mix but then you’re not really 100% solar as another player enters the mix so you’ll need to drive out (Outsource/Offshore) all your Energy intense manufacturing and a fair portion of your workforce along with it.
Wind doesn’t even merit its own slot when looking at total energy consumption in China
That’s because the CCP is so oppressive
Again you keep saying IEA but your link is to an eia.gov page…
I think the dark blue bar explains the need for new coal fired power stations
that is more coal – more coal fired power stations – more coal – more exports from reliable suppliers like australia – forget the US as uncle joe and obummer put them out of business
U.S. coal production is up sharply after hitting a 50-year low last year
https://www.npr.org/2021/10/22/1048108267/u-s-coal-production-is-up-sharply-after-hitting-a-50-year-low-last-year
Solar and wind may be increasing but are still dwarfed by coal and Hydro- the reliable baseload they have to have, like the rest of us if we were honest about this business.
So, China is just tooling around the edges with renewables, no doubt trying to make them more efficient than the 20-30% they currently are compared to 85-90% for coal. For the non-scientific types, you get more bang for your buck with fossil fuels!
The takeaway message from China is that they don’t give a fig about climate change and the net zero nonsense, it’s business as usual to screw the rest of the world ASAP.
“So, China is just tooling around the edges”
Increasing at about 20% per year is a strong rate of growth. Doubles in about 4 years.
Twice nothing is still nothing.
You know full well that solar and wind are simply parasitic upon sources that can be depended on. Sure, with political force and ‘free’ money it can be expanded further up to maybe ~20% of consumption. The point at which grid failure becomes too serious to ignore. Like Germany and a few other green experimentalists.
Amen Michael. It is a statistical trick to say that at small number has increased by X%. It still ends up being a small number
“Twice nothing is still nothing.”
Paul said, currently 11%. That isn’t nothing. Double in 4 years, 22%. By 2030, 44%.
Nick you’re talking installed capacity for China. You know that wind and solar are low density intermittent energy. You also know that their output in comparison to traditional forms of energy is sadly lacking. That’s why you need so much of it.
You also need a lot more slaves to process raw materials, manufacture the product and install it. You also know that the numbers of people required for installation in Australia are simply not there. There are 12GW of wind, solar and BESS backup along with new transmission lines all planned for the Central West Region alone. And even more for the rest of Australia and all supposedly by 2030 and all this covering thousands of square kilometres of prime agricultural land.
Just one project a few kilometres from us at 920MW will utilise 700 workers during peak build just for the solar aspect. We are up to 7GW of wind and solar in our region so far! Where is this workforce going to come from? Our town is one of the most populated at 2,500 and half of them are old people and children. The rest already have jobs. Where are these influx of workers going to stay?
You state with glee that renewables are coming. We are crushed out here in the regions. We see a tsunami of environmental devastation and destruction of the place that is our home.
Yes. Thank you!
“Nick you’re talking installed capacity for China.”
No, look at the units. These are TWh generated.
Do the ‘per capita’ trick Nick, see how that works out.
BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2022
China: Coal 55%, oil 19%, natural gas 9%, hydro 8%, non hydro renewables 7%
That is fossil fuels 83%, wind and solar 7%.
But that’s not what data in the link provided is showing. Perhaps a single year over year but the chart YOU linked shows more of linear growth than an exponential growth.
Seriously Nick?
If you start from zero, even a minuscule change is a large percentage increase. Over 10 years, eyeballing the graph, wind plus solar in China are growing at an absolute rate of about only 74 TWh per year. Over 20 years, Chinese coal generation has grown at an absolute rate of about 175 TWh per year. The only renewable that is growing extraordinarily fast is hydro, but look at the quality of the dams and the massive floods that have occurred as a result.
Nick,
Interesting, and here I thought you were a math guy.
Back of the internet napkin math, using your chart (technically, this is eia.gov not IEA.org chart). Please edit to make clearer where your source data originates.
Here’s what I see: ~7500 TWh total (eyeballing it)
Coal: ~4600 TWh (eyeballing it)
46/75 × 100 = ~61.3%
Hydro: (again eyeballing it)
~ (67-52)/75 × 100 = ~20%
Everything else: ~18.7%
What I found interesting in that eia.gov link ( not iea.org ) was this chart.
Furthermore, there doesn’t seem to be anything rapid about it. That chart’s slopes of all electricity generation sources seems very linear ( y = mx + b ) to my eyes. Maybe a particular source has an m>1 from one year to the following year but over time very linear.
You continue to discredit yourself with no assistance from this community. Population: You, bro.
There are none so blind as those who WILL NOT see. Main stream media know the truth but ideology prevents them from admitting it.
Who writes this drivel?
Technical and economic illiterates/morons/shucksters or some combination of all three who simply don’t or won’t accept the facts-
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/other/e2-80-98giant-roadblock-e2-80-99-to-renewable-energy-aspirations-is-e2-80-98minerals-e2-80-99/ar-AA13E0Ml
I think that broadly covers the categories and their mix.
Green energy is a process of energy collection and not a process of energy formation.
An excellent clear point. One the greens would not understand.
Explaining can indeed seem difficult.
I like to think of an analogy. I give you [the “green” person] as much money as you want. The caveat is that it is in one cent pieces, distributed at one cent per square meter over an infinite landscape. How much money do you think you would put into your bank account before requiring back surgery from bending down to pick up the almost worthless coinage? Certainly not enough to pay the medical bills.
And it’s not green, renewable, or sustainable
China builds solar and wind power to be a leading producer of those technologies which they can export to the west. So that the west can destroy its own reliable energy sources and facilitate for China to gain global supremacy!
For its own needs of energy, coal and nuclear reign supreme.
The next war …
I’m sorry commander, we can’t launch the missile defense because the power is off and the backup system ran out of diesel. There’s no more fuel for the B-52s.
Pray for a windstorm and lots of sun.
China is the world’s leading supplier of renewable infrastructure I believe. Chinese companies represent 5 out of the top 10 global wind turbine manufacturers, certainly they lead the world in solar panel manufacture. I note that renewables need to be replaced after a certain period of time.
What happens if western countries that become heavily reliant on renewables for their energy generation, and have no other source of energy need to replace renewable hardware in the future and China simply refuses to supply them?
It appears to me that by pursuing the green dream we are simultaneously reducing energy availability, increasing costs and increasing our dependance on the importation of energy sources. That’s an even more idiotic position to adopt than simply believing that grid scale renewables will actually work.
Energy security is vital to everything.
Ahh, you can forget nut-zero anyway. With China’s ongoing draconian response to COVID-19, billions of dollars of exports in renewable hardware won’t get out of the country any time soon. Countries like Australia, pursuing their green build out of renewables simply will not have the materials to do it….
OK, what happens when the replaceables need to be replaced and China says; NO. Hmmm, didn’t Putin just do that to Europe?
All five of Europe’s wind turbine manufacturers are currently operating at massive losses. They are pleading with the EC to find ways to make them profitable,aka susidise. China is already winning contracts for wind farms in Europe on the basis of cost and the European industry is panicking.
China installs a bunch of wind and solar just so the rest of the world will buy their windmills and solar panels … think of it as the handle of a razor … they really just want to sell you the blades … after all who wants to buy their windmills/panels from a country that isn’t using them themselves … its a bad look …
does not Bloomberg actually check the data?
To be fair, modern reporters aren’t expected to do any research.
Can’t let facts get in the way of a good story
Largest chemical manufacturer in the world , basf , and bmw car manufacturing both just moved from Germany to china because of absurdly high energy prices in green Germany and low energy prices in coal powered china . Pretty basic
This says it all, in Britain at the moment, a cold dark autumnal evening, less than 5% of our electricity is generated my wind and is just over 6% of capacity, What a joke!
Bloomberg Doesn’t
Are these western leftists really this naive? They don’t realize China is using them?
“Green Ambitions” China has no such ambitions. They just say such things to placate Western customers who buy their inferior products made with slave labor rather than manufacture better at home.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/06/chinas-greenhouse-gas-emissions-exceed-us-developed-world-report.html