China is Building Coal-Fired Power Plants at an Alarming Rate of two new coal plants every week!
Ronald Stein, P.E. is an engineer, columnist on energy literacy at America Out Loud NEWS, and advisor on energy literacy for the Heartland Institute and CFACT, and co-author of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated book “Clean Energy Exploitations.”
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George Harris has served as Executive Director of Montana Coal Council since September 2022. He has a Master of Public Administration degree from BYU. He has served as Executive Budget Officer in Montana’s Governor’s Budget Office. He was the State Risk Manager and served as President of the National State Risk Managers Association.
Co-authored by Ronald Stein, and George Harris
Published December 9, 2024, at America Out Loud NEWS
America continues to subsidize the development of occasionally generated electricity from weather dependent wind turbines and solar panels, to replace coal power plants, with the expectation that America, with about 4% of the world’s population, can drastically impact the world’s emissions occurring from the other 96% people on this planet.
Coal is the world’s most abundant and reliable energy source. The United States has the world’s largest coal reserves. Of the 15 major coal producing States, Montana has the largest coal reserve with 118.4 billion tons.
There are about 200 coal-burning power plants still operating in America, with many concentrated in Pennsylvania, Texas, Indiana, and the Powder River Basin of Wyoming and Montana, i.e. only 8% of the world’s coal plants.
Worldwide there are over 2,400 coal-fired power stations, i.e., the other 92% of the world’s coal plants.
Right now, China already has a total of 1,142 operating coal-fired plants and is building six times as many coal-fired power plants as the rest of the world combined – China is building the equivalent of two new coal plants every week!
Most in the wealthier developed counties are oblivious that about 80 percent of the world’s 8 billion, many of which are in Africa, Asia and Latin America still live on less than $10 a day – and the billions who still have little to no access to electricity. For others, life is severely complicated and compromised by the hypocritical “green” agendas of wealthy country elites who have benefited so tremendously from fossil fuels since the modern industrial era began in the 1800’s.
While wealthier countries are shelling out billions of dollars in subsidies for so-called clean ELECTRICITY from wind and solar, those poorer developing countries cannot subsidize themselves out of a paper bag.
Developing countries desperately need dependable, affordable electricity and the products and fuels manufactured from fossil fuels to create jobs, lift families out of poverty, modernize homes, schools, and hospitals, provide clean water, and replace wood and animal dung for cooking and heating.
Even today, for the more than 6 billion on this planet living on less than $10 a day, millions of parents and children die from respiratory and intestinal diseases that are unheard of in wealthy countries, because they don’t have electricity nor any of the 6,000 products made from oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil that did not exist before the 1800’s.
Coal is primarily used for generation of electricity, especially in China, India, and Africa.
As the number one importer of both crude oil and coal, China is the largest consumer of energy and producer of emissions in the world.
- China, with 1,142 coal-fired power plants in operation as of July 2023, mainland China currently has a far greater number of coal-fired plants than any other country.
- India comes in a distant second with 282 coal-fired plants.
- The U.S.is third with 210 plants. Due to onerous regulations by the Biden Administration and the overreach of his BLM and EPA, approximately 170 of the remaining coal-fired plants in the U.S. are scheduled to be de-commissioned by 2030, and there are no plans to build any new coal-fired plants in the U.S. Meanwhile China is adding to its inventory of coal-fired power plants at a record rate.
During the first six months of 2023, China issued permits for the construction of approximately 50 new coal-fired power plants, an average of two per week. China currently has more than 300 coal-fired plants that are either under construction, permitted, or awaiting permitting. If all 300 plants are constructed, China’s inventory of coal-fired power plants will increase by more than 25%. Currently, China has six times more coal-fired power plants under construction than the rest of the World combined.
Officials within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) offer a variety of reasons for the rapid reliance upon coal-fired power plants such as recent heat waves that have increased the demand for air conditioning. New coal-fired plants will simply serve as backup support for the undependable renewable sources of electricity generation from weather dependent wind and solar and during periods of intense electricity demand.
Given that China is also currently leading the world in the construction of renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar energy, China’s increased reliance upon coal contradicts the justifications offered by the CCP. Critics point out that most of the new coal-fired power plants are being constructed in locations that fail to support the justifications offered by the CCP, such as no reported instability of the grid or unreliability of renewable energy sources. Other critics indicate that the new coal-fired plants are being constructed in locations that are already powered almost entirely by coal as opposed to supposed unreliable renewable electricity generation sources.
Whatever stance is taken, while the wealthier developed nations are rapidly decreasing reliance upon coal-fired power plants by subsidizing wind and solar, China and other developing countries are moving even faster in the opposite direction, drastically increasing reliance upon coal that is abundant and affordable for their economies.
Hope is on the horizon. The landmark US Supreme Court Chevron case has taken much of the teeth out of overzealous federal bureaucrats. US Senator Steve Daines of Montana has proposed legislation to keep coal mines operational. The landslide victory of the incoming Trump administration including the coal friendly majority in the US Senate and House which are committed to energy independence, will likely reign in bureaucratic red tape, shortsighted energy hysteria from those who Senator Daines refers to as “Green Hallucinationists,” and put the American people first with clean, reliable and affordable electricity from the hard-working coal miners of the good old USofA! There is a new sheriff in town, especially DC town and the American Coal industry is proud to help wear that badge!
Please share this information with teachers, students, and friends to encourage Energy Literacy conversations at the family dinner table.
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They could close all 200 Coal Plants provided they were required to replace the total GW production with Quadruple Nuclear capacity. Quadruple because with the advent of Data Centers coming on line AND the forced electrification of transportation as well as the forced electrification of Gas/Propane cooking and water/building heating, far more Reliable capacity will be needed than would be slated for retirement/decommissioning.
Closing coal plants that have plenty of life left in them makes no economic sense.
Economic sense doesn’t matter when you are Saving The World.
There is a coal plant near where I live.
A new data center has just moved into the area to take advantage of the electricity the coal plant produces. Any proposals to close this coal plant would be resisted.
So, the US has 200 Coal Generation Plants, the world has 2400, the world less US has 2200 and China has 1100. China has fully Half of the GLOBAL Non-US Coal Plants
A great report well written showing the facts for what they are and without any of the additional padding.
Many thanks. These are so helpful when conveying the reality of energy use to the people still imagining some existential threat is upon us from energy use in the Western World.
It is a pity our past governments in the UK remained ignorant of world affairs regarding energy and our impact upon that.
We (UK) closed the last of our coal burning power stations in October this year.
A nation whose wealth and influence, whose science and inventive character was was built on coal, is no more.
Just a note..
In the 4th last line, shouldn’t it be “rein in“.. not “reign in”
I guess it depends on who is in charge. ! 😉
China covers large tracts of its countryside with PV panels, often forcibly displacing rural villagers from their homes and farms in the process, and in many cases doesn’t even bother to hook them up to the grid. It’s done for propaganda photos and little else.
Anything to continue the drive to send “western” economies over the cliff!
Yep. At the end of 2023 almost 21% of China’s installed capacity was solar – 271GW of solar was added during the year compared to 58GW of coal – yet solar’s share of electricity generation during the year was just 3% while coal provided 70%
“Given that China is also currently leading the world in the construction of renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar energy, China’s increased reliance upon coal contradicts the justifications offered by the CCP.”
As I see it, China is willing to spend so much on wind and solar not for any concern about the climate, or even for fuel savings, but for its propaganda value. The deluded class in the West takes the bait and uses China’s renewable spending as a talking point against fossil fuels, while dismissing the obvious implications of their aggressive investments in coal-fired power.
And now we can expect comments from the infamous renewables/China troll.
It’s OK they’re renewables by name and renewables by nature-
Storm Darragh leaves UK’s biggest solar farm in pieces
More green jobs coming up.
Note, the down vote is for the depressing info about green jobs, not the post or story itself.
Ayup, Solar’s resilience is only determined by the timing of the next storm…and the last storm
What do you call adding more labor to produce the same product?
Probably apocryphal, but Deming (the father of Japan’s early industrial growth) was supposed to have asked why there wasn’t any heavy equipment used instead of picks and shovels on an earth-moving project in China years ago. The answer was that the government needed to provide jobs for the people. His response was supposed to have been: “Then why not give them spoons to do the digging?”
So much for the 20+ year life expectancy.
“Darragh”
A-B-C-D.
Does the use of this name, beginning with a “D”, mean that the UK has had four storms in 2024?
This may become moot as we are approaching Cliff Highs discontinuity phase. These UFOs flying around, whether they are human made from probable reverse engineered non-human craft or are nonhuman craft, it shows me that there is zero point energy technology out there. And since the US government has impounded around 6000 patents many dealing with electro gravitics etc. to me it’s probable that this technology has been suppressed as the world system engineers, as I call them, do not want their energy paradigms upset, and a large part of humanity uplifted as they do not want to lose control.
And conspiracies rage on.
One of the funny things about patents, is that are public records.
If such a patent actually existed, you could give us the patent number and anyone could go look them up. So what’s stopping you?
Zero point energy exists only to scam money from the gullible.
“Zero point energy”
Seems pretty self-explanatory to me ! 😉
It is not all contradictory: glass, steel, concrete, silicon cannot be manufactured without coal.
One can separate the materials processes from the energy required.
For example, silicon need carbon infused with sand to create the silica compound that ultimately become wafers and does not care what generates the heat.
It is a nuance, of course. The transformation of the processes will not be cheap and that will be yet another anticipated negative consequence on the economy.
And, growing Si crystals to be sliced into wafers requires many hours at elevated temperatures; if the heat is interrupted by say zero wind, the crystal can’t be used without remelting (assuming the impurities can be redone). More likely it would be discarded.
“Green Hallucinationists,” That pretty well sums up the past few years under
the radical Biden bunch. There is a mile long coal train passing thru to the west coast every week
from the Powder River Basin headed to China. One has to wonder if there is a connection
with the recent Pot shops that showed up all over town and the number of young greens.
Perspective on coal plants in 2024
😎
Sounds like Australia isn’t out to “save the world” for Australians!
(Or any other Western nation.)
Super-critical and Ultra-super critical steam coal-fired power plants are based on US technology
https://www.powerengineeringint.com/coal-fired/critical-thinking/#:~:text=Supercritical%20development,Electric%2C%20was%20commissioned%20in%201957.
But because of anti-fossil fuel bias, no further coal plants are being developed or older plants improved in the US. I understand most of the flurry of Chinese plants are super critical, and these plants can approach 42% efficiency. Maybe Trump?….
But Trump may not know that Drill, Baby, Drill relies on selling all that great US petroleum overseas, because it is too good for our old refineries. They were designed for high gasoline yields from low-grade, high carbon crudes, with cheap distillates repurchased from abroad. And, like coal technology, no repair or replacement capital has been available to keep up our aging refineries.
To Trump: Get the ChE’s busy!
Very late to this party for personal reasons. But thought would add a few facts oft previously repeated to give a fuller US coal generation perspective.
The average age of US coal retirement is 42 years. By that metric, per FERC, 25% of existing US coal will be due for retirement by 2025–next year. The question is what to replace it with?
There is exactly one USC coal plant in the US, Turk, in Arkansas. It went on line in 2012 at a capital cost of $1.8 billion for a nameplate capacity of 650MW. (so 2.8 million per MW over 4 years). It runs on lowest cost Powder River Basin sub-bituminous coal and is 41% thermally efficient. Construction started in 2008, just at the beginning of the natgas fracking revolution, at a time when US natgas was projected to be in shortage at $12/mmbtu.
Since Turk, the natgas scene has completely changed. Thanks to shale fracking, natgas almost never rises above $4/mmbtu, and is usually below $3. CCGT costs about $1.5 million/ MW, takes at most 2.5 years to construct, and is 61% thermally efficient. Run the numbers, and at any Natgas price less than about $8.50 CCGT bigly wins out economically over USC coal. Plus, CCGT produces about 40% the CO2 emissions of USC coal—if anybody cares about that.
China and India Build USC coal because they have (or can import from Australia) coal, but not natgas, They wisely don’t care about CO2 emissions.
Very nice.
Whenever someone or some organization makes a claim like this, we should always ask for a copy the spreadsheet they are using as well as the information they used to populate the spreadsheet. Anything else is … fiction.