6 ms·
Yet China continues to expand use of coal power and mining their vast reserves in the western part of the country.
by gzu 7y ago
Yet China continues to expand use of coal power and mining their vast reserves in the western part of the country.
- mwfunk 7y agoI don’t know if that comparison was intended to make China look bad, but that comment makes China look bad.
- foota 7y agoIf you don't want bad looks don't do bad things?
- revscat 7y agoIndia is similarly expanding their use of coal.
- ISL 7y agoLeadership by example is one of the strongest ways to lead.
- Brakenshire 7y agoNope, China’s coal consumption peaked in 2013.
- agumonkey 7y agoI can honestly not grasp what China is doing. Between PV, Coal, hydrogen industry.. do you have a synthesis to read ?
- philipkglass 7y agoChina's central government is pursuing multiple goals at once: - Cleaner air - More electricity production - Developing energy technologies with a substantial export market potential - Maintaining employment and social stability The last goal can override the others, depending on current economic conditions and public sentiment. Provincial officials may hew to the last goal even more closely than the central government would like. Provincial government also sometimes faces perverse incentives like getting tax revenue from each ton of coal mined locally but no tax revenue from renewable electricity generated locally. 45 year old Chinese coal miners don't like switching careers and locations much more than 45 year old American coal miners do. China has also faced more and more-recent civil war than America. They will build a bunch of surplus coal plants and keep having coal miners perform make-work to fuel them if that's the price of social stability.
- Taniwha 7y agoI flew from Shanghai to Amsterdam 2 years ago, there was a point there where there were windmills as far as the eye could see 100s and 100s, I tried toicount and gave up .... looking closer they were clustered around open cast coal pits and presumably dirty power stations - this was west of Beijing and I'd guess a big source of their horrible pollution. It's a smart thing to do, essentially they're leveraging the existing transmission line infrastructure for coal for future wind
- ourlordcaffeine 7y agoI wonder if it is the gansu wind farm that you saw. 7.9 GW nameplate capacity. Absolutely massive. And I thought the walney wind farm in the UK (just under 1 GW) was massive.
- woodandsteel 7y agoYou're right about the conflicting goals. But if you look at the trends in recent years, it's clear it is moving to get off of fossil fuels. It's just going to take many years to turn that huge ocean liner around.