5 ms·

They’re also building more new coal plants than the rest of the world combined. Hundreds of new plants.

Retric 2y ago
True but misleading, the capacity factor keeps falling across their entire fleet of coal power plants. They aren’t installing grid sufficient storage to load follow and don’t have huge natural gas supplies thus load following coal power plants. Total coal use was 82.4 exajules in 2013 and 82.5 exajules in 2019. It’s increased since then, but nothing like the number of power plants they have added. https://www.statista.com/statistics/265491/chinese-coal-consumption-in-oil-equivalent/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/265491/chinese-coal-cons...
toomuchtodo 2y ago
https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/china-coal-plants https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/china-coal-plants https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40935688 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40935688 ("HN: China's clean energy pushes coal to record-low 53% share of power in May 2024") https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40919052 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40919052 ("HN: China's Batteries Are Now Cheap Enough to Power Huge Shifts") https://www.pv-magazine.com/2024/05/15/china-switches-on-first-large-scale-sodium-ion-battery/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2024/05/15/china-switches-on-fir... ("China switches on first large-scale sodium-ion battery") https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-07-15/top-polluter-china-s-shrinking-emissions-put-carbon-peak-in-play https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-07-15/top-pollu... | https://archive.today/wioou https://archive.today/wioou ("Top Polluter China’s Shrinking Emissions Put Carbon Peak in Play") Those coal generators will end up as stranded assets (I believe the Chinese term is "tofu dreg"), and China is ramping battery storage deployments to firm renewables.
- fbdab103 2y ago
  From the sustainability link: High coal prices mean that most coal plants in China are operating at a loss. In 2018, almost 50% had a net financial loss.2 Things have only gotten worse: data from the China Electricity Council suggests that more than half of its large coal firms made a loss in the first half of 2022. ... China is offering ‘capacity payments’ to power plants to keep them online. This provides plants with a source of income even when they’re not being used. Some project that by the end of the decade many coal plants will be making more money from not running than actually producing power. This seems credible if we look at the tumbling capacity factors expected from S&P over the next few decades. If this were America, I would say this is a grift that an enterprising VC was trying to lock in as many government fixed price contracts as possible to secure guaranteed income for a plant that nobody wants to run. Build plant without any intention of running it just to collect the capacity payment checks.
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    I would caution against attributing to malice or fraud energy security policy. In this case, the losses are stop gaps until energy storage and transmission are scaled up, they are a form of insurance premium. https://energynews.us/2013/06/17/explainer-how-capacity-markets-work/ https://energynews.us/2013/06/17/explainer-how-capacity-mark... Australia is also taking losses on its coal generation, and building out batteries at a tremendous rate. > Australia’s rapid shift from coal-fired power to cleaner alternatives is underwriting a boom in battery projects able to store solar and wind energy. > The country has at least 250 planned battery developments with a potential capacity of almost 130,000 megawatt-hours, a pipeline that’s second only to China, data compiled by BloombergNEF show. While Australia still relies on coal for more than half of its electricity generation, many major plants are set to close in the next decade. > “Operating a reliable low-carbon power system means that energy storage is imperative,” and investments are becoming “more urgent” as proposals to shutter coal assets accelerate, said Tim Jordan, commissioner of the Australian Energy Market Commission, the government’s adviser on energy policy. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-07/end-of-coal-power-in-australia-means-a-boom-for-battery-makers-like-tesla https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-07/end-of-co... | https://archive.today/2owbd https://archive.today/2owbd So, the coal plants are unpleasant, but they are not long for this world, as the global renewables and storage deployment flywheel comes up to speed.
- ffsm8 2y ago
  > Those coal generators will end up as stranded assets (I believe the Chinese term is "tofu dreg"), Tofu dreg buildings aren't stranded assets, they're (usually) buildings that have such low built quality that they're unusable. I.e having concrete walls you can rip parts out of with a single bare hand, skipping foundation entirely, making the whole thing topple over, creating drains that just end within a few cm etc It's gonna be spicy if you've got a tofu dreg coal power plant
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    I am admittedly taking a bit of liberty with the term, in the sense that these plants were built fast and going to be thrown away just as fast. Appreciate the correction.
audunw 2y ago
1. They’re essentially job programs keeping the economic engine churning. Think about the Chinese ghost cities and how they’ve built more apartments than they have people. 2. They’re built to be able to ramp up/down fairly rapidly so they can be used as backup for renewables. Just because they build them doesn’t mean they will run at 100% capacity. 3. Chinas economy is slowing down. Probably more than official numbers would have you believe. As touched on in the other commenters, nothing points at an impending huge growth in the actual amount of coal being burnt. But sure, the number of coal power plants being built/planned is worrying. We should keep the pressure up.
bryanlarsen 2y ago
Chinese coal capacity factor is dropping even faster than coal plants are being built. They're building coal peakers that only run at night when there is no wind. Which makes sense because China's primary goal is energy independence, not decarbonization. China has lots of thermal coal, they don't need to import it, unlike gas or metallurgical coal. https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/china-coal-plants https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/china-coal-plants
tim333 2y ago
As the article mentions they are needed to cover when the sun/wind are not available. As battery storage costs fall they may be less needed. Battery costs are down appox 90% in 15 years https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/05/02/battery-costs-have-dropped-90-in-under-15-years-giving-renewables-a-boost-new-iea-report-r https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/05/02/battery-costs-have... and will keep dropping. At the moment there's a load of capacity coming along, about 3x current demand which will probably lead to considearably lower prices and more batteries https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-04-12/china-already-makes-as-many-batteries-as-the-entire-world-wants https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-04-12/china-...

True but misleading, the capacity factor keeps falling across their entire fleet of coal power plants. They aren’t installing grid sufficient storage to load follow and don’t have huge natural gas supplies thus load following coal power plants. Total coal use was 82.4 exajules in 2013 and 82.5 exajules in 2019. It’s increased since then, but nothing like the number of power plants they have added. https://www.statista.com/statistics/265491/chinese-coal-consumption-in-oil-equivalent/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/265491/chinese-coal-cons...

toomuchtodo 2y ago

https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/china-coal-plants https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/china-coal-plants https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40935688 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40935688 ("HN: China's clean energy pushes coal to record-low 53% share of power in May 2024") https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40919052 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40919052 ("HN: China's Batteries Are Now Cheap Enough to Power Huge Shifts") https://www.pv-magazine.com/2024/05/15/china-switches-on-first-large-scale-sodium-ion-battery/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2024/05/15/china-switches-on-fir... ("China switches on first large-scale sodium-ion battery") https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-07-15/top-polluter-china-s-shrinking-emissions-put-carbon-peak-in-play https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-07-15/top-pollu... | https://archive.today/wioou https://archive.today/wioou ("Top Polluter China’s Shrinking Emissions Put Carbon Peak in Play") Those coal generators will end up as stranded assets (I believe the Chinese term is "tofu dreg"), and China is ramping battery storage deployments to firm renewables.

fbdab103 2y ago
From the sustainability link: High coal prices mean that most coal plants in China are operating at a loss. In 2018, almost 50% had a net financial loss.2 Things have only gotten worse: data from the China Electricity Council suggests that more than half of its large coal firms made a loss in the first half of 2022. ... China is offering ‘capacity payments’ to power plants to keep them online. This provides plants with a source of income even when they’re not being used. Some project that by the end of the decade many coal plants will be making more money from not running than actually producing power. This seems credible if we look at the tumbling capacity factors expected from S&P over the next few decades. If this were America, I would say this is a grift that an enterprising VC was trying to lock in as many government fixed price contracts as possible to secure guaranteed income for a plant that nobody wants to run. Build plant without any intention of running it just to collect the capacity payment checks.
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  I would caution against attributing to malice or fraud energy security policy. In this case, the losses are stop gaps until energy storage and transmission are scaled up, they are a form of insurance premium. https://energynews.us/2013/06/17/explainer-how-capacity-markets-work/ https://energynews.us/2013/06/17/explainer-how-capacity-mark... Australia is also taking losses on its coal generation, and building out batteries at a tremendous rate. > Australia’s rapid shift from coal-fired power to cleaner alternatives is underwriting a boom in battery projects able to store solar and wind energy. > The country has at least 250 planned battery developments with a potential capacity of almost 130,000 megawatt-hours, a pipeline that’s second only to China, data compiled by BloombergNEF show. While Australia still relies on coal for more than half of its electricity generation, many major plants are set to close in the next decade. > “Operating a reliable low-carbon power system means that energy storage is imperative,” and investments are becoming “more urgent” as proposals to shutter coal assets accelerate, said Tim Jordan, commissioner of the Australian Energy Market Commission, the government’s adviser on energy policy. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-07/end-of-coal-power-in-australia-means-a-boom-for-battery-makers-like-tesla https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-07/end-of-co... | https://archive.today/2owbd https://archive.today/2owbd So, the coal plants are unpleasant, but they are not long for this world, as the global renewables and storage deployment flywheel comes up to speed.
ffsm8 2y ago
> Those coal generators will end up as stranded assets (I believe the Chinese term is "tofu dreg"), Tofu dreg buildings aren't stranded assets, they're (usually) buildings that have such low built quality that they're unusable. I.e having concrete walls you can rip parts out of with a single bare hand, skipping foundation entirely, making the whole thing topple over, creating drains that just end within a few cm etc It's gonna be spicy if you've got a tofu dreg coal power plant
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  I am admittedly taking a bit of liberty with the term, in the sense that these plants were built fast and going to be thrown away just as fast. Appreciate the correction.

audunw 2y ago

1. They’re essentially job programs keeping the economic engine churning. Think about the Chinese ghost cities and how they’ve built more apartments than they have people. 2. They’re built to be able to ramp up/down fairly rapidly so they can be used as backup for renewables. Just because they build them doesn’t mean they will run at 100% capacity. 3. Chinas economy is slowing down. Probably more than official numbers would have you believe. As touched on in the other commenters, nothing points at an impending huge growth in the actual amount of coal being burnt. But sure, the number of coal power plants being built/planned is worrying. We should keep the pressure up.

bryanlarsen 2y ago

Chinese coal capacity factor is dropping even faster than coal plants are being built. They're building coal peakers that only run at night when there is no wind. Which makes sense because China's primary goal is energy independence, not decarbonization. China has lots of thermal coal, they don't need to import it, unlike gas or metallurgical coal. https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/china-coal-plants https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/china-coal-plants

tim333 2y ago

As the article mentions they are needed to cover when the sun/wind are not available. As battery storage costs fall they may be less needed. Battery costs are down appox 90% in 15 years https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/05/02/battery-costs-have-dropped-90-in-under-15-years-giving-renewables-a-boost-new-iea-report-r https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/05/02/battery-costs-have... and will keep dropping. At the moment there's a load of capacity coming along, about 3x current demand which will probably lead to considearably lower prices and more batteries https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-04-12/china-already-makes-as-many-batteries-as-the-entire-world-wants https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-04-12/china-...