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China is building six times more new coal plants than other countries, report
- ZeroGravitas 4y agoOne interesting aspect of this is that China is building the most efficient and flexible coal plants on the planet, with half the CO2 intensity. They are in effect doing what other nations are doing with natural gas, as an easy form of 'storage' as renewables and nuclear are built out but with coal, because they don't have easy access to gas. Coal is generally considered worse than gas, in GHG terms though apparently when you include methane leaks from drilling it's not quite as clear cut (though coal mines also leake methane). The other pollution can be much worse, but really that comes down to how much effort you put in. It seems like the least efficient, dirtiiest gas plants and the cleanest, most efficient coal plants will overlap in how bad they are, even if gas plants can in theory be cleaner.