Archives par mot-clé : China

better to know...?, minerals and ores, pollution-contamination

The Dark Side of Clean Energy and Digital Technologies by Guillaume Pitron, review — our dirty future

by P. Homewood, Jan 6, 2021 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat

When Donald Trump offered to buy Greenland from Denmark in 2019 it was dismissed as illegal and absurd. However, the president’s expression of interest was far from absurd, says Guillaume Pitron. Under its soil Greenland boasts one of the largest concentrations of the rare metals that the world will need to power electric cars, computers, mobile phones, robots, solar power plants, artificial intelligence and many high-tech “green” innovations that have not been dreamt up yet. If Trump were after those minerals, buying Greenland would have been a smart move.

The global production and sales of rare metals are dominated by China. It mines so much of them on home soil and controls so much of their extraction in Africa and elsewhere that it oversees up to 95 per cent of the global production of certain minerals. This puts Beijing in charge of “the oil of the 21st century”, writes Pitron, which is a problem for western nations because it means China can restrict supply and drive prices up or down at will, as Opec does with oil. We have “entrusted a precious monopoly of mineral sovereignty to potential rivals”, he notes.

Discarded devices waiting to have their precious metals extracted

CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/GETTY IMAGES

Rare earth minerals production is very energy intensive. Extracting a single kilogram of some requires mining as much as 1,200 tonnes of rock. “Clean energy is a dirty affair,” Pitron writes. He drives home his point by touring villages near polluted lakes in China that are known locally as “cancer villages”.

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energy and fields

China And Iran Start Drilling In This Super Giant Gas Field

by P. Homewood, Dec 27, 2020 in NotalotofPeopleKnowThat

Drilling operations of the first well of the game-changing but highly-controversial Phase 11 of Iran’s supergiant South Pars non-associated natural gas field officially began last week. Significant gas recovery from the enormous resource will commence in the second half of the next Iranian calendar year that begins on 21 March 2021. The long-stalled Phase 11 development supposedly saw the withdrawal of all Chinese involvement in October 2019. In reality, though, China is still intimately involved in its development and is looking to further scale up its activities following the inauguration of Joe Biden as U.S. President on 20 January.

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Natural-Gas/China-And-Iran-Start-Drilling-In-This-Super-Giant-Gas-Field.html

The new field is expected to eventually produce 57 million cubic metres per day (mcm/d), about a tenth of Iran’s current output.

The article goes on to describe how China got around US sanctions on Iran, after taking over Total’s 50.1% stake in the project in 2018:

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energy and fields

Can China, the world’s biggest coal consumer, become carbon neutral by 2060?

by D. Normile, Sep 29, 2020 in Science AAAS

China’s surprise pledge last week to cut its net carbon emissions to zero within 40 years has reignited hopes of limiting global climate change to tolerable levels. The country is the world’s largest producer of carbon dioxide (CO2), accounting for 28% of global emissions, and its move may inspire other countries to follow suit. But observers warn that China faces daunting challenges in reaching its goals. Kicking its coal habit will be particularly hard.

“We aim to have CO2 emissions peak before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060,” Chinese President Xi Jinping told the United Nations General Assembly via a video link on 22 September. That’s “a very significant and encouraging announcement,” says Josep Canadell, an earth system scientist at Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation. He says the new targets “won’t likely let us to stop at 1.5° Celsius [of global warming],” the preferred target set in the 2015 Paris agreement. “But below 2° might still be consistent with [Xi’s] announcement.” China’s commitment also “ratchets up pressure on other major emitters” to set more ambitious targets “while further isolating the Trump administration in its climate myopia,” Vance Wagner of Energy Foundation China wrote in a piece published online by the nonprofit China Dialogue.

China had previously said its CO2 emissions would peak “around” 2030, a target most analysts considered within reach. But achieving carbon neutrality before 2060 will require drastically reducing the use of fossil fuels in transportation and electricity generation and offsetting any remaining emissions through carbon capture and storage or planting forests.

better to know...?, climate-debate

Centennial-Scale Temperature Change During the Common Era Revealed by Quantitative Temperature Reconstructions on the Tibetan Plateau

by Li X. et al., September 3, 2020 in Front.Earth.Sci.

Quantitative palaeotemperature reconstruction is crucial for understanding the evolution of Earth’s climate and reducing uncertainty in future climate predictions. Clarifying the temperature change over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) during the Common Era is critical because it plays a vital role in the prediction of cryosphere changes in such regions under a future warming climate. In this paper, we report a comprehensive synthesis of currently available quantitative temperature records to refine the temperature history of the TP during the Common Era. To date, Common Era quantitative temperature reconstructions are sparse and mainly concentrated in the northeastern TP. Considering seasonal bias of the available quantitative temperature reconstructions, three different composite temperature records for TP were derived, namely the “Standardization” composite, the “Mean annual air temperature anomaly” composite, and the “Mean summer temperature anomaly” composite individually. All the integrated temperature series reveal the Medieval Climate Anomaly and the Little Ice Age, but the start and end timings of these multi-centennial-scale periods and their temperature amplitudes differ. There is strong seasonality in temperature variations on this high plateau, and the 20th century warming was characterized by rapid winter temperature increases, while summer temperatures displayed weak variations. Spatial analysis suggests a relatively consistent signal marking a warm TP during 600–1400 CE and a cold plateau during 1400–1900 CE. Large-scale trends in temperature history for the TP resemble those for China and the Northern Hemisphere. Many factors, such as seasonality of temperature proxies, might lead to uncertainty in the reconstructed series. The results highlight that it is of crucial importance to develop more seasonal temperature reconstructions to improve the reliability of quantitative paleoclimatic reconstructions based on geological records across the TP.

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energy and fields

China’s Pandemic Recovery Drives Massive Boom In Coal Plants

by H. Pearl, July 22, 2020 in ClimateChangeDispatch

China is in the midst of a new coal boom, as approvals for coal-energy projects have accelerated this year in response to the coronavirus outbreak.

Far from treating the coronavirus pandemic as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to speed up decarbonization and lock in climate goals, there are signs China is falling back on its old playbook of pumping cheap credit into fossil-fuel-heavy energy projects to help the economy recover from a historic first-quarter contraction.

Following a dramatic plunge in energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions at the start of the year, China’s energy sector is roaring back to life.

Daily consumption of coal, oil, and gas in June was on par with the previous year, according to the government, and analysts say carbon emissions have bounced back to pre-coronavirus levels.

It may still be too early to say where energy use and emissions are heading in 2020, but the environmental detox that followed months of sweeping lockdowns appears to be over.

China has 249.6 gigawatts of coal-fired power capacity either under construction or in planning, according to Global Energy Monitor and the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air – which is larger than the current coal fleets of the United States or India.

 

Continuer la lecture de China’s Pandemic Recovery Drives Massive Boom In Coal Plants →

energy and fields

UPDATE 1-China to bolster energy reserve capacity, support unconventional gas exploration

by Xu M. & Daly T., May 22, 2020 in Reuters

BEIJING, May 22 (Reuters) – China said on Friday it will bolster the capacity of the country’s energy reserves and offer lower gas and electricity charges to key industries, as it looks to ensure energy supply and offset the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

In energy announcements on the first day of the parliament, known as the National People’s Congress (NPC), authorities also pledged to boost the country’s oil and gas network and continue to support exploration for unconventional gas reserves.

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said in a statement it would push forward construction of crude oil reserves.

The coronavirus pandemic has led to a slump in demand for crude oil, with insufficient storage capacity worldwide.

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The NDRC said it would also press ahead with competitive trading of mining rights for oil- and gas-bearing zones, aiming to attract more market players into oil and gas exploration and production.

The country will also accelerate construction of oil and gas network and encourage the opening up of pipeline facilities to all eligible users, said the state planner.

China set up its long-awaited national oil and gas pipeline company in December aiming at providing fair market access to infrastructure and boost investment in oil and gas production.

energy and fields

China Fires Up Coal Power Plant Construction To Jump Start Economy

by P. Homewood, May 10, 2020 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat

China approved nearly 10 gigawatts of new coal-fired power generation projects in the first quarter, roughly equal to the amount approved for all of last year, amid a broader scramble to jump-start an economy hobbled by the COVID-19 epidemic.

Investment in infrastructure like power generation has played an important part in China’s rapid economic rise, especially in times of economic distress like the global financial crisis of 2008 and 2009. Many expect such spending to play an important role as Beijing tries to restart the economy in the aftermath of the coronavirus outbreak that has brought activity to a crawl, causing the economy to post its first quarterly contraction since modern record-keeping began.

Coal has always been a controversial part of the nation’s power mix. On the one hand, China has plentiful supply of the resource, which it has harnessed to rapidly build up power infrastructure to feed the country’s growing economy. But such energy is notoriously dirty, and overly aggressive building led to oversupply earlier this decade that sent many producers into the red.

Those factors led the government to scale back and even halt many new coal-powered projects in recent years. But that trend went into reverse in the first quarter, when six major new coal-fired projects were approved that could add 9.96 GW of capacity, according to calculations by Caixin.

That was roughly equal to the amount of similar new power projects approved for all of last year. Of the new projects, four were in the coal-rich area of Shaanxi province, one was in South China’s Guangdong Province and one was in Inner Mongolia.

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climate-debate

Chinese Scientists: It Was Warmer In China During Medieval Warm Period Than Today

by Hao et al. , January  2, 2020  in GWPF

For China as a whole, the longest warm period during the last 2000 years occurred in the 10th–13th centuries’

Abstract: The Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA, AD950-1250) is the most recent warm period lasting for several hundred years and is regarded as a reference scenario when studying the impact of and adaptation to global and regional warming. In this study, we investigated the characteristics of temperature variations on decadal-centennial scales during the MCA for four regions (Northeast, Northwest, Central-east, and Tibetan Plateau) in China, based on high-resolution temperature reconstructions and related warm-cold records from historical documents. The ensemble empirical mode decomposition method is used to analyze the time series. The results showed that for China as a whole, the longest warm period during the last 2000 years occurred in the 10th–13th centuries, although there were multi-decadal cold intervals in the middle to late 12th century. However, in the beginning and ending decades, warm peaks and phases on the decadal scale of the MCA for different regions were not consistent with each other. On the inter-decadal scale, regional temperature variations were similar from 950 to 1130; moreover, their amplitudes became smaller, and the phases did not agree well from 1130 to 1250. On the multi-decadal to centennial scale, all four regions began to warm in the early 10th century and experienced two cold intervals during the MCA. However, the Northwest and Central-east China were in step with each other while the warm periods in the Northeast China and Tibetan Plateau ended about 40–50 years earlier. On the multi-centennial scale, the mean temperature difference between the MCA and Little Ice Age was significant in Northeast and Central-east China but not in the Northwest China and Tibetan Plateau. Compared to the mean temperature of the 20th century, a comparable warmth in the MCA was found in the Central-east China, but there was a little cooling in Northeast China; meanwhile, there were significantly lower temperatures in Northwest China and Tibetan Plateau.

energy and fields

China Extracts Record Amount Of Natural Gas From ‘Fire Ice’ In South China Sea

by GWPF, March 31, 2020

We might be sitting on enough gas to power the world for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

 

China conducted its first operation to extract natural gas from gas hydrates in the South China Sea in 2017. Photo: Reuters
In a world awash in oil and gas, you’d think it couldn’t get any worse. Well, it can: China just announced that it had extracted a record amount of what has been poetically called fire ice. It is, however, a form of natural gas trapped in frozen water. 

Continuer la lecture de China Extracts Record Amount Of Natural Gas From ‘Fire Ice’ In South China Sea →

energy and fields

China Thermal Power Up 2.4% Last Year

by P. Homewood, January 28, 2020 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat

Provisional figures from the China Energy Portal indicate that thermal generation continues to rise in China, albeit at a slower rate then the last few years

https://chinaenergyportal.org/en/2019-electricity-other-energy-statistics-preliminary/

As I noted in November, there are three factors behind the slower rise in thermal (which is almost certainly predominantly coal-fired):

  • Overall demand for electricity has increased at a much slower rate in 2019 – 4.7% against 8.4% in 2019. This reflects the dramatic slowdown in Chinese economic growth.
  • New nuclear capacity has been added in the last two years.
  • Better hydro generation, presumably due to wetter weather.

Significantly, thermal generating capacity has continued to grow in 2019, by 4.1%. Just as significant is the dramatic slowdown in new solar power capacity being added. In 2018, 45GW was added, but this dropped to 26GW last year, following the restriction of subsidies.

New wind capacity increased marginally in 2019, from 21GW in 2018 to 25GW.

Also  China’s Coal Power To Remain Dominant Till At Least 2035

better to know...?, climate-debate, energy and fields

China Burns Over Half Of The World’s Coal And Will Account For 50% Of Global CO2 Emissions By 2030

by K. Richard, December 19, 2019 in NoTricksZone

Today, 30% of the globe’s CO2 emissions come from China. In 10 years, China’s emissions alone will match the rest of world’s emissions combined. China continues to build hundreds of coal plants today. So why are the rest of us spending $600 billion every year on CO2 emissions mitigation?

China overtook the United States as the world’s largest CO2 emitter in 2008 (Liu et al., 2019).

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Human Activity in China and India Dominates the Greening of Earth, NASA Study Shows

by NASA, February 11, 2019

The world is literally a greener place than it was 20 years ago, and data from NASA satellites has revealed a counterintuitive source for much of this new foliage: China and India. A new study shows that the two emerging countries with the world’s biggest populations are leading the increase in greening on land. The effect stems mainly from ambitious tree planting programs in China and intensive agriculture in both countries.

The greening phenomenon was first detected using satellite data in the mid-1990s by Ranga Myneni of Boston University and colleagues, but they did not know whether human activity was one of its chief, direct causes. This new insight was made possible by a nearly 20-year-long data record from a NASA instrument orbiting the Earth on two satellites. It’s called the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS, and its high-resolution data provides very accurate information, helping researchers work out details of what’s happening with Earth’s vegetation, down to the level of 500 meters, or about 1,600 feet, on the ground.

A world map showing the trend in annual average leaf area, in percent per decade (2000-2017)
The world is a greener place than it was 20 years ago, as shown on this map, where areas with the greatest increase in foliage are indicated in dark green. Data from a NASA instrument orbiting Earth aboard two satellites show that human activity in China and India dominate this greening of the planet.
Credits: NASA Earth Observatory

Taken all together, the greening of the planet over the last two decades represents an increase in leaf area on plants and trees equivalent to the area covered by all the Amazon rainforests. There are now more than two million square miles of extra green leaf area per year, compared to the early 2000s – a 5% increase.

“China and India account for one-third of the greening, but contain only 9% of the planet’s land area covered in vegetation – a surprising finding, considering the general notion of land degradation in populous countries from overexploitation,” said Chi Chen of the Department of Earth and Environment at Boston University, in Massachusetts, and lead author of the study.

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climate-debate, energy and fields

China plans new coal plants, trims support for clean energy

by The Japan Times, December 2, 2019

WASHINGTON – As world leaders gather in Spain to discuss how to slow the warming of the planet, a spotlight falls on China — the top emitter of greenhouse gases.

China burns about half the coal used globally each year. Between 2000 and 2018, its annual carbon emissions nearly tripled, and it now accounts for about 30 percent of the world’s total. Yet it’s also the leading market for solar panels, wind turbines and electric vehicles, and it manufactures about two-thirds of solar cells installed worldwide.

“We are witnessing many contradictions in China’s energy development,” said Kevin Tu, a Beijing-based fellow with the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University. “It’s the largest coal market and the largest clean energy market in the world.”

That apparent paradox is possible because of the sheer scale of China’s energy demands.

But as China’s economy slows to the lowest level in a quarter century — around 6 percent growth, according to government statistics — policymakers are doubling down on support for coal and other heavy industries, the traditional backbones of China’s energy system and economy. At the same time, the country is reducing subsidies for renewable energy.

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climate and geology

Is coal power winning the US-China trade war?

by P.  Homewood, December 1, 2019 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat

China has signalled that coal power will be a top priority within national energy policy as the government prepares its next Five Year Plan (2021-25).

On 11 October, Premier Li Keqiang chaired a meeting of the National Energy Commission in Beijing that emphasised China’s energy security and coal utilisation and downplayed the importance of a rapid transition away from fossil fuels.

Each meeting of the commission, which was established in 2010 and has met only four times, has had a significant impact on policymaking. Chaired by Premier Li and attended by more than 20 chiefs of China’s ministries and bureaus, the commission is the top body for coordinating energy policy.

Why is energy security back at the top of the agenda?

Li told the conference: “The government should diversify energy supply to improve energy security… enhance domestic oil and gas exploration and development efforts, and promote oil and gas reserves and production, in order to improve oil and gas self-sufficiency”.

The renewed focus on energy security comes amid an increase in domestic consumption of oil and gas, which is largely being met through imports. China’s dependence on energy imports rose from 9% in 2014 to more than 20% in 2018.

China’s domestic crude oil production has declined and efforts to tap unconventional sources of natural gas, such as shale gas and coalbed methane, have faltered.

Other causes for concern lie outside China. The ongoing trade dispute with the US is a threat to the energy trade between the two superpowers, and supplies from the Middle East are at risk from mounting instability in the region.

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energy and fields

China Set for Massive Coal Expansion in Threat to Climate Goals

by  Bloomberg News, November 20, 2019

China has enough coal-fired power plants in the pipeline to match the entire capacity of the European Union, driving the expansion in global coal power and confounding the movement against the polluting fossil fuel, according to a report.

The nation has almost 148 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity under active construction or likely to be resumed after being suspended, Global Energy Monitor, a non-profit group that tracks coal stations, said in the report Thursday based on plant-by-plant data. That’s almost equivalent to 150 gigawatts of existing coal fleet capacity in the EU and more than the combined 105 gigawatts under construction in the rest of the world, it said.

In contrast to many other countries, including the U.K.’s pledge to shut all coal plants by 2025, Beijing remains committed to coal as its biggest source of power, representing a major challenge to global emissions reduction targets. Its additions in the 18 months to June dwarf declines elsewhere in the world, according to the report.

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climate-debate

Paris Climate Accord — A Blank Check For CO2 Emissions By China And India

by Dr. Benny Peiser, Nov. 5, 2019 in ClimateChangeDispatch

The Paris Climate Agreement, far from securing a reduction in global CO2 emissions, is fundamentally a blank cheque that allows China and India to increase their emissions as they see fit in pursuit of economic growth.

This is the conclusion of a new paper by Law Professor David Campbell (Lancaster University Law School) and published today by the Global Warming Policy Foundation.

For the last 25 years, international climate change law has failed to agree on a program of global emissions reductions.

Indeed this law grants permission to major emitters such as China and India to emit as much as they see fit. Global emissions reductions, therefore, have always been impossible and since 1992 global emissions have enormously increased.

Indeed, the Paris Agreement contains a categorical statement that countries such as China and India will not be obliged to undertake any reductions.

The UK Government proposes to continue with decarbonization even though Britain’s unilateral decarbonization is utterly pointless and thus wholly irrational.

Read the full paper here (PDF)

climate-debate

Paris Climate Accord — A Blank Check For CO2 Emissions By China And India

by Dr. B. Peiser, No. 5, 2018 in ClimateChangeDispatch

The Paris Climate Agreement, far from securing a reduction in global CO2 emissions, is fundamentally a blank cheque that allows China and India to increase their emissions as they see fit in pursuit of economic growth.

This is the conclusion of a new paper by Law Professor David Campbell (Lancaster University Law School) and published today by the Global Warming Policy Foundation.

For the last 25 years, international climate change law has failed to agree on a program of global emissions reductions.

Indeed this law grants permission to major emitters such as China and India to emit as much as they see fit. Global emissions reductions, therefore, have always been impossible and since 1992 global emissions have enormously increased.

Indeed, the Paris Agreement contains a categorical statement that countries such as China and India will not be obliged to undertake any reductions.

The UK Government proposes to continue with decarbonization even though Britain’s unilateral decarbonization is utterly pointless and thus wholly irrational.

Read the full paper here (PDF)

energy and fields

China feeds coal addiction with 17 new mines this year

by Amy Hawkins, October 22, 2019 in The Times

China is expanding its coal power infrastructure despite pledges to curb carbon emissions.

Analysis reveals that the amount allocated to large infrastructure projects by Beijing has doubled this year, with airports and high-speed rail lines among 21 schemes allocated a total of £83.9 billion.

Included in the new allocations is funding for 17 new coal mines across China, despite Beijing’s pledges to reduce reliance on the power source.

Seven mines were approved last year and, between 2017 and 2018, China added 194 million tonnes of coal mining capacity with the total number of mines reaching more than 3,000.

China, the world’s biggest coal consumer, has vowed to cap carbon emissions by 2030, although it has stopped short of the “net zero” emissions target by 2050…

China’s coal basins and coalbed methane resources. Source: Caterpillar Inc.

 

China consumes more coal than all other nations together

better to know...?, climate-debate

Solar-Climate Theory Sheds New Light On History Of Chinese Civilization

by S. Chen, Sep; 24, 2019 in ClimateChangeDispatch

Scientists say they have found evidence beneath a lake in northeastern China that ties climate change and 500-year sun cycles to ups and downs in the 8,000 years of Chinese civilization.

According to the study by a team at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics in Beijing published in the science journal Nature Communications this month, whenever the climate warmed, Chinese civilization prospered and when it cooled, it declined.

While historians have used various social and economic factors to explain changes over the millennia, Dr. Xu Deke, lead author of the paper, and his colleagues said that while people played their part, their study indicated that cycles in solar activity influenced human activity.

“We just point out there is a natural constraint on human efforts,” Xu said.

Previous research linking Chinese history to climate relied on written records, but ancient texts contained only subjective descriptions of the weather and social development. The records also go back only so far – writing in China was not invented until 3,600 years ago.

For this latest study, the team and its leader, Chinese Academy of Sciences professor Lu Houyuan, took plant and lake bed sediment samples to track climate change over the centuries and compared them with written records.

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energy and fields

Coal to remain ‘King’ in Southeast Asia

by David Middleton, October 4, 2019 in WUWT

‘Coal is still king’ in Southeast Asia even as countries work toward cleaner energy
PUBLISHED MON, SEP 30 2019
Huileng Tan

KEY POINTS

• Not only will coal continue to be the dominant fuel source in power generation in Southeast Asia, its use will grow and peak in 2027 before slowing, according to a Wood Mackenzie study.

• The Indonesian government has targeted generating 23% of electricity from renewable sources by 2025 — almost double the 12% now, but it will be “difficult to achieve because capacity expansion plans are still dominated by coal,” Moody’s analysts say.

• Global coal demand grew for a second straight year to reach 0.7% in 2018, International Energy Agency data shows.

Coal is still a dominant fuel in the rapidly growing economies of Southeast Asia, even amid a general global move toward cleaner energy sources, data from several recent reports show.

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Figure 1. Global coal consumption by region (million tonnes of oil equivalent per year). BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2019.

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climate-debate, energy and fields

China plans 226 GW of new coal power projects: Environmental groups

by Reuters, Sep. 19, 2019

SHANGHAI (REUTERS) – China’s total planned coal-fired power projects now stand at 226.2 gigawatts (GW), the highest in the world and more than twice the amount of new capacity on the books in India, according to data published by environmental groups on Thursday (Sept 19).

The projects approved by China amount to nearly 40 per cent of the world’s total planned coal-fired power plants, according to the Global Coal Exit List database run by German environmental organisation Urgewald and 30 other partner organisations.

The new China projects would be more than Germany’s existing installed power capacity of around 200 GW by the end of 2018.

The environmental groups said in a press release on Thursday that worldwide 400 of the 746 companies in their database were still planning to expand their coal operations.

The companies include miners and power generators, and account for 89 per cent of the world’s thermal coal production and nearly 87 per cent of the world’s installed coal-fired power capacity. Of the total, 161 are Chinese.

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unclassified

FORGET PARIS: CHINA’S NEW COAL BOOM

by Reuters, August 6, 2019 in GWPF

SHANGHAI/BEIJING (Reuters) – Approvals for new coal mine construction in China have surged in 2019, government documents showed, with Beijing expecting consumption of the commodity to rise in the coming years even as it steps up its fight against smog and greenhouse gas emissions.

 

 

Long-term cuts in coal consumption are a key part of China’s energy, environment and climate goals, but the fivefold increase in new mine approvals in the first-half of 2019 suggests China’s targets still provide ample room for shorter-term growth.

China’s energy regulator gave the go-ahead to build 141 million tonnes of new annual coal production capacity from January to June, compared to 25 million tonnes over the whole of last year, Reuters analysis of approval documents showed.

The projects included new mines in the regions of Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Shanxi and Shaanxi that are part of a national strategy to consolidate output at dedicated coal production “bases”, as well as expansions of existing collieries, the National Energy Administration (NEA) documents showed. […] Chinese coal output rose 2.6% in the first-half of 2019 to 1.76 billion tonnes.

MORE TO COME?

Industry groups still expect coal-fired power capacity to increase over the next few years, with investments in nuclear and renewables still insufficient to cover rising energy demand.

The research unit of the China State Grid Corporation last month forecast that total coal-fired capacity would peak at 1,230-1,350 gigawatts (GW), which would mean an increase of about 200-300 GW.

A study published earlier this year also suggested China’s targets would allow the construction of another 290 GW of coal-fired capacity in the coming years.

Full story

 

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climate-debate

China is warming fastest where the cities are, not where the models predicted – classic UHI

by JoNova, July 24, 2019

The biggest changes in temperature (“divergence” in dark red brown Fig 6) occurred where the most people lived (blue dots). In the 60 years to 2010 China was reported to have warmed by 0.79 ± 0.10 °C. However Scafetta et al calculate at most, China could have experienced a real warming of only 0.46 ± 0.13 °C.

Somehow the combined might and supercomputers at NOAA, NASA, Hadley and the Bureau of Met experts all missed this.

It’s another third of a degree gone from the Glorious CO2 Narrative. Just like that.

 

Is there a  more perfect nation to study the Urban Heat Island effect than China?

The worlds most populous nation has made a blistering transformation in two decades. As recently as 1995 the population was 75% rural. Now it’s approaching 60% urban. Shenzhen, which is near Hong Kong, grew from 3000 people in 1950 to more than 10 million in 2010. Around Beijing, thousands of towns have been built in a networked carpet, each a mere 2km apart (zoom in on Google satellite view). The stations in these areas are effectively not rural anymore.

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See also here

energy and fields

China Still Expanding Coal Power Capacity

by P. Homewood, July 23, 2019 in NotaLotofPeoppleKnowThat

SANHE, China (Reuters) – China Energy Group, the country’s biggest power generator, will add more than 6 gigawatts (GW) of new ultra-low emission coal-fired capacity this year as it bids to meet growing electricity demand, a senior official with the firm said on Thursday.

The company also expected to build another 5 GW of low-emission capacity next year, Xiao Jianying, the head of the state-run firm’s coal-fired power department, told Reuters.

“China still has quite a big demand for electricity. The government now supports regions with poor wind and solar resources to use coal-fired power … it’s a more practical measure, as gas is still too expensive,” said Xiao.

China Energy operated coal-fired plants with a total capacity of 175 GW at the end of 2018, 77.4% of its total capacity and about 10% of the entire country’s capacity.

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climate-debate, energy and fields

China Energy to expand ultra-low emission coal-fired power: executive

by Reuters, July 23, 2019 in WUWT

SANHE, China (Reuters) – China Energy Group, the country’s biggest power generator, will add more than 6 gigawatts (GW) of new ultra-low emission coal-fired capacity this year as it bids to meet growing electricity demand, a senior official with the firm said on Thursday.

The company also expected to build another 5 GW of low-emission capacity next year, Xiao Jianying, the head of the state-run firm’s coal-fired power department, told Reuters.

“China still has quite a big demand for electricity. The government now supports regions with poor wind and solar resources to use coal-fired power … it’s a more practical measure, as gas is still too expensive,” said Xiao.

China Energy operated coal-fired plants with a total capacity of 175 GW at the end of 2018, 77.4% of its total capacity and about 10% of the entire country’s capacity.

Xiao said the company would gradually shut down small and polluting coal-fired power units and replace them with efficient ones, noting that total capacity would continue to increase but at a slower rate of growth.

The firm is also planning to launch another carbon capture and storage (CCS) project in northwest China next year as part of its efforts to reduce the environmental impact of using coal, company officials said. It already runs a CCS plant at its coal-to-oil facility in Erdos in Inner Mongolia.

China, the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter, has vowed to control new coal production and new coal-fired power capacity as part of its commitments to curb pollution and tackle global warming. However, it has shown signs of relaxing restrictions in recent months amid an economic slowdown.

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La géologie, une science plus que passionnante … et diverse