China now has half of the worlds coal power fleet

ABC, Public Broadcaster, news, media, alternate logo, AustraliaThe global economy has been sucker punched by a world wide pandemic, but ABC propaganda writers don’t miss the chance to push their ultimate fantasy, that coal has turned a magical point in a terminal decline. Global coal fired capacity fell by an awesome 0.14 percent for the “First Time On Record”. Hyperbole knows no bounds.

How excited can someone get over a decline of one sixth of one percent? This much:

The world is now shutting down coal plants faster than it’s opening them

by James Purtill, ABC

The world’s combined coal power capacity has fallen for the first time on record as the closure of generators outstripped stations being commissioned. That’s good news for global emissions.

Note the numbers:

Coal power capacity fell by 2.9 gigawatt in the first half of 2020 — a small though significant drop of about 0.14 per cent, according to US research group Global Energy Monitor, which monitors fossil fuel developments.

By comparison, the global coal fleet had grown by an average of 25GW every six months over the previous two decades, from 2000-2019.

In a nutshell, or just a nut, coal power grew by 50GW every year for 20 years, but “coincidentally” fell by 3GW during a pandemic and therefore this is the start of the spiral of doom? Oh Yessity:

The reported drop confirms 2020 will be a “pivot point” for global electricity supply and mark the long-term decline of coal-fired generation, said Tim Buckley, from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. [IEEFA]

“It’s unbelievable watching this space, it’s moving so bloody fast,” he told Hack.

“So bloody fast” sayth Tim from the IEEFA which is an institute whose “mission is to accelerate the transition”. Not that the ABC tells us that he is an industry hack paid to promote unreliable energy.

The ABC advertising copywriter could have interviewed a coal industry analyst but it was against his religion.

The only other person interviewed was Christine Shearer from the group that wrote the report. That’s GEM or the Global Energy Monitor which is an NGO activist group “in support of fossil fuel phase out”. How’s that for balance? Two anti-coal activists get taxpayer funded free adverts, no hard questions asked.

She gushes too:

India has also shrunk its coal-fired capacity in 2020, “an unthinkable prospect just a few years ago,” Ms Shearer said.

They do concede that the pandemic might have something to do with the decline:

“The decline is not entirely to do with the technological obsolescence of coal — the pandemic is definitely a major factor,” Mr Buckley said.

Spot the long term trend in Indian emissions:

Is that red line a meaningless pandemic blip or a real long term trend?

India coal use, emissions, graph

Indian coal use is in sudden decline?

The little detail about global industrial might is quietly buried:

Green Dragon, China.At the same time, China has boosted its coal generating capacity — in the first half of 2020 it built 86 per cent of new coal generation.

“These shifts mean China is for the first time now home to half the world’s operating coal fleet,” Ms Shearer said.

Right. All the rest-of-the-world’s coal fired electricity generation combined is now less than China’s. The CCP controls most of the cheapest source of electricity in the world. Maybe that matters?

Symbol China Map.

Author: China map User:DrRandomFactor  and  Dragon: Nyo.

10 out of 10 based on 84 ratings

92 comments to China now has half of the worlds coal power fleet

  • #
    mikewaite

    By what authority is Taiwan included as part of the republic of China, as shown in the map displayed in the posting?

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    • #
      Analitik

      Taiwan IS the Republic of China. Your question should be “By what authority is mainland Chins included as part of the Republic of China?”

      170

    • #
      Serge Wright

      You could easily include Victoria as well, the new southern state of the people’s republic lead by Chairman Andrews.

      190

  • #
    mikewaite

    [Duplicate]

    10

    • #
      reformed warmist of logan

      Good morning Jo,
      Excuse me here, but Taiwan/China … Just a little bit off topic.
      While speaking of being on-topic …
      Jo, could you please possibly look a bit deeper into the other 14% of new coal generation from the first half of 2020.
      I’d bet London to a brick (or perhaps Hollywood to a wind-turbine blade) that at least half to 80% of this remaining 14% is new power in developing countries subsidized by Chinese “Belt & Road” money, which in turn has been created by the vacuum left by the virtue signalling world bank et. al. which no longer loans money to poor people to obtain cheap reliable coal power.
      If so, that would mean that China has an even greater input into the figures of this period.
      This of course all dates back to 2015 when Barrack Obama kicked one of the greatest “Own Goals” in history (Chamberlain-like?!) when he negotiated (?) with China that in order for them to sign the Paris(ite) agreement they would be permitted to keep emissions increasing as much as they liked for the next 15 years.
      Oh, and by the way, by 2030, none of these future-generations-seditious world leaders will be around to answer for their crimes against humanity.
      (Not to mention the fact that many such poor people would be black! … Don’t their black lives matter too? … But I’d better not mention that, might get fact-checked/deleted by the google/twitter/facebook thought police!!)
      To recycle something from one of many of Hollywood’s greenies, Matt Damon … “How do you like them apples?”
      Keep safe & warm regards,
      Reformed Warmist of Logan

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      • #
        Rupert Ashford

        So then the Chinese alternative (BRICs Bank) to the World Bank steps in and provide those loans to the developing countries and by doing so they gain a huge hold over all of the developing world while some idiots in the West pat themselves on the back about how they are “changing the world”, and the Chinese Communist takeover march accelerates. And we thought people in the West are smart.

        100

  • #
    Jojodogfacedboy

    Paying for more politicians, studies, committees and non profit groups to add more laws on a small part of GDP that really is needed for stable electricity.

    50

  • #
    Kalm Keith

    The day of reckoning approaches.

    I’m hoping that the exposure of the absolute and total overreaction to the CV19 “WHOCRISIS” will give the public a new perspective on government duplicity.

    Perhaps with New vision we might be able to see the Global Warming, Death by Incineration from human origin CO2, control model for what it really is.

    Unfortunately all of this revelation will not happen because the education system and Australian public media have no interest in search for the Truth.

    All they do is present a cool woke image for the kiddies, support for the grifters at the troughs of global warming and COVID19 Crushing, and supportive political spray for their backers.

    If you want to understand part of this problem just go for an hour’s drive, turn on the radio and listen to the weird stuff paid for by our national broadcaster.

    But, we live in hope, Jo has made a good start by highlighting an important piece of international hypocrisy here surrounding the CO2 myth.

    Can the public be allowed to see this, maybe, but it certainly won’t be through our beloved ABCCCC.

    KK

    280

  • #

    “The CCP controls most of the cheapest source of electricity in the world. Maybe that matters?”

    It certainly matters to them, why else would they give obviously disingenuous lip service to green? We live in an energy-centric civilization and whoever has the least expensive energy will take over and it’s unambiguously clear that the Chinese Marxists definitely want to take over and since their system is not competitive on a level playing field, they need all the advantage they can get.

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    • #
      David Wojick

      And they use it to make expensive solar panels that they sell to us.

      181

      • #

        Their panels are less expensive because they don’t have the rigorous safety and environmental compliance costs that others have. This is true for all Chinese semiconductor manufacturers, since semiconductor manufacturing involves a lot of toxic, carcinogenic and volatile substances.

        Photovoltaic cells may even be an export of national significance and as a result could even have additional subsidies.

        20

  • #
    Travis T. Jones

    Australia becomes China’s top source of coking coal as stimulus stokes construction boom | South China Morning Post.

    “Australian shipments of thermal coal used in power plants also rose strongly, as rumours of a Chinese ban over diplomatic tensions proved incorrect”

    https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3095211/australia-becomes-chinas-top-source-coking-coal-stimulus

    Pakistan’s coal-fired power generation sees record jump, thanks to China push.

    “Until 2016, Pakistan had just one coal-burning power plant. It now has at least nine and more are in the making. ”

    https://theprint.in/world/pakistans-coal-fired-power-generation-sees-record-jump-thanks-to-china-push/471724/

    >> Excellent way of improving standard of living for millions of poor people.

    250

  • #
    John F. Hultquist

    Coal stockpile photo

    A major advantage of coal is the ability to stockpile it near the power plant. Uranium has a similar characteristic. With some “extra” facility in the system, these two can do repair and maintenance and keep the grid humming. Gas not so much. Wind and solar are intermittent (unreliable), costly, and environmentally damaging.

    [Off topic: Pres. Trump just went after the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)]

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  • #
    Broadie

    What would ‘Pig Iron Bob’ do?

    At the same time China is suffering from the most viralent and lethal virus ever, is being flooded into starvation and is producing massive amounts of low cost electricity from both coal and Hydro, iron ore is being shipped in record amounts from ports like Dampier to China.

    Would ‘Bob’ be printing money so the population does not have to work. Would ‘Bob’ continue to fund expensive and unreliable solar & wind generation?

    110

    • #
      Kalm Keith

      An interesting link: it makes the late 1930s union mooment sound almost pure and virginal.

      That report of course, was HisStory and contrasts sharply with the stories of how returning world war 2 personnel were “treated” when being offloaded on returning home in 1945 – 1946.

      Your comment, apart from the link, ?

      60

      • #
        Broadie

        The days when the Shop Stewards knew the smell of sweat and the Politicians met with their opponents in the Pub.

        The comment is probably to note that China is forging (apology for the pun) ahead at full steam despite the virus and floods and on a course historically similar to Japan in the time of Lyon Government.

        Nice to read whatever version of history before it is disappeared, Wot? The interesting one in this was the reference to Maurice Blackburn MHR.

        And as to your comment, why would soldiers fighting in the Pacific want someone to load munitions and supplies for them in a timely fashion?

        31

        • #
          Kalm Keith

          Very wide.

          00

        • #
          Lucky

          ” why would soldiers fighting in the Pacific want someone to load munitions and supplies for them ”
          Good reason to want. But which country’s unions behaved as if on the other side? Where loading workers had day jobs in work time and got double time for night shift.

          00

  • #
    AndyG55

    Or they could look at their own data. 😉

    https://i.postimg.cc/tRkRddnW/New-Coal.jpg

    (from link by Petre 😉 )

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  • #
    Peter Fitzroy

    Nice to see you pick up a story that I posted in the last weekend unthreaded.

    /hat tip to me

    411

    • #
      • #
        Peter Fitzroy

        I’ve no idea how the power will get to Singapore – I’m guessing that there is a method, but like Russian Gas, who would want their energy supply at risk as it transverses a third country.

        Alternatively it could be used to make hydrogen, and that could be transported.

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        • #
          Andrew McRae

          You obviously hadn’t even read it before replying. It’s free, only 3 paragraphs total, and the middle one says:

          the electricity produced there will then be sent to Singapore, first by cable to the town of Darwin 750km away, and then through a 3,700km-long undersea cable.

          PF says:

          Alternatively it could be used to make hydrogen, and that could be transported.

          That second option sounds worse than cables from the operational perspective (slower lag between demand and delivery, less versatile in the actual energy source). But I like your ship option for the spectacular crime opportunities it would create (speaking purely as a couch-prone spectator, of course).

          Because if we don’t have Hydrogen Pirates by the year 2030 then are we even trying? 😀

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        • #
          el gordo

          ‘ … first by cable to the town of Darwin 750km away, and then through a 3,700km-long undersea cable.’

          I was hoping someone here would criticise the plan, its an awful long way to pump electricity.

          20

    • #
      AndyG55

      Was great that the link you posted showed the MASSIVE GROWTH in Coal fired power station construction in Asia and other countries. 😉

      https://i.postimg.cc/tRkRddnW/New-Coal.jpg

      Plenty of that luvly CO2 for many decades to come 🙂

      120

    • #
      Analitik

      Get over it PF. I’ve had a quote of mine attributed to someone else by Jo

      20

    • #
      Peter Fitzroy

      The building of a coal fired power plant is a long process, it is not something that can be stopped quickly. That is why my original link includes those that are planned, under construction etc.

      However, shutting down a plant is a quick process, although restarting is more lengthy

      That is why this story is important.

      13

      • #
        AndyG55

        Yes, it is important to realise just HOW MUCH NEW COAL is being built..

        NEW COAL-fired power stations REPLACING and building upon old power stations.

        That new coal will be there for 50-60 years, supplying CO2 for the world’s plant life, (which you hate with a vengeance for some reason)

        Don’t you even bother looking at your own links??

        Oh that’s right, you never do !!

        30

      • #
        AndyG55

        “The building of a coal fired power plant is a long process”

        Not for the Chinese its not,

        They don’t have to battle the idiocy of the greenie pseudo-environmental, anti-science, anti-CO2, anti-LIFE agenda.

        40

        • #
          Lucky

          As long a process as it is, how long would it take to build the capacity of those coal stations from renewables/unreliables?
          Try the figure 8, on its side..
          You would wait for longer for financial payback.

          20

  • #
    Another Ian

    More power dirt

    “The Dirty Secrets of “Clean” Electric Vehicles”

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/08/04/the-dirty-secrets-of-clean-electric-vehicles/

    70

  • #
    Asp

    Meanwhile, back in the land of Oz……nothing.
    We should have started building our next coal fired power station 10 years ago. But maybe, with the recent purported health crisis that was so deftly transformed into a world wide economic crisis by very clever manipulation of the media, our demand for electricity will not be that high, as we wallow along in our self inflicted economic doldrums for the next decade or so.
    How long before we all sing the ‘Internationale’ in carefully orchestrated unison?

    110

  • #
    OriginalSteve

    So china has 50% of the worlds coal fleet…cool..if we pull the plug on thier supply we lose money but it could cripple china.

    Something to contemplate.

    And yes we would do it i think.

    30

    • #
      Graeme No.3

      Except their own coal mines out produced ours by a huge margin. And Indonesia (the fouth biggest producer) is bigger than us and closer to China.
      And Africa has barely started exploiting their reserves (why do you think China is investing there?)

      80

    • #
      el gordo

      I don’t.

      ‘Ahead of the FYP’s publication, powerful stakeholders, such as the network operator State Grid and industry body the China Electricity Council, are lobbying for targets that would allow hundreds of new coal-fired power stations to be built. And a recent update to the “traffic light system” for new coal-power construction signaled further relaxation of permitting.

      ‘This is all despite significant overcapacity in the sector, with more than half of coal-power firms already loss-making and with typical plants running at less than 50% of their capacity.’ Carbon Brief

      22

      • #
        Lucky

        Carbon Brief- a climate change site run by ex-graudian person, approved by the NYT, and generally endorsed by msm and the establishment.

        00

  • #
    MCMXLIII

    Decline in China’s coal consumption accelerates (carbonbrief.com Feb 2016).

    Rapid decline of coal use leads to drop in UK emissions (The Guardian Mar 2016).

    Coal Production Plummets to Lowest Level in 35 Years (NYT jun 2016).

    Global coal demand stalls after more than a decade of relentless growth (iea.org Dec 2015).

    Recession speeds coal’s long-term decline (Reuters Aug 2009).

    Is Coal Doomed? (The Atlantic Apr 2012).

    That google search is by no means exhaustive.

    45

  • #
    William

    All I want is one political leader to stand up to the loons and say that we must invest in reliable electricity and that means no more solar or wind being added to our grid. They both have their place but it is off grid (with diesel backup) but neither has a place in a modern first world economy.

    A real conservative would be doing this, and telling the left (including the Photios/Turnbull Liberals) to simply go away. The rent seekers day is done as we have an economy and a manufacturing sector to rebuild.

    80

    • #
      wal1957

      A real conservative would be doing this…

      No…Any sane person who has done a little bit of research would do this

      50

    • #
      Serp

      Perverse incentive RET legislation needs to be repealed before that can happen and then the renewables caravan will move to distant lands.

      20

  • #
    David Maddison

    China would agree with the posted map. It destroys maps that don’t include Tawain or other “disputed territories”.

    China destroys 30,000 maps because they don’t list Taiwan and state in north India as its territory
    ‘Incorrect’ maps seized as Beijing continues assert sovereignty over disputed territories

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-maps-destroyed-taiwan-arunachal-pradesh-india-territory-disputed-south-tibet-a8840836.html

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  • #
    PeterS

    Given the financial stresses being placed on most nations due to the actions taken to try and control the pandemic, I hardly think the demand for power will keep climbing as predicted in the past. Even if it does the cost of renewables will become a more sensitive issue for governments resulting in the search for cheaper alternatives, at least if they were sensible. Coal and nuclear are obvious contenders. China already has chosen that path a long time ago and is sticking to it. It remains to be seen if the West will follow China’s lead or be shown they’ve lost it and speed up the decline into the economic abyss by focusing too much on renewables with all the accompanying disadvantages, such as higher costs, reduced availability, etc..

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    • #
      el gordo

      ‘I hardly think the demand for power will keep climbing as predicted in the past.’

      That depends on the future of the Belt and Road, which if implemented should drag the world out of depression. At the moment Beijing is losing face because of the pandemic and also their green credentials are in tatters, so they are trying to cover up.

      https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3092363/china-power-firms-suspend-publication-coal-data-frustrating

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      • #
        PeterS

        Also the central banks of the world might be able to keep the economies going only to create a huge speculative bubble the likes we’ve never seen. When that bursts it will be the mother of all crashes that will make the Great Depression look like a picnic. Don’t make the dumb assertion they can “print” money endlessly. They can’t. The pied piper has to be paid one day.

        40

        • #
          el gordo

          They are only printing money until conditions stabilise, some currencies will do better than others. Its not like the government is borrowing money from some mysterious overseas lender, so no need for anxiety, we are asset rich and should come out on top.

          03

          • #
            PeterS

            You simply don’t get it. Central banks are lending money to the government and banks way more than ever before, and it looks like going to continue for much longer. Where do you think the government and banks get the extra money to pay the central bank back the money they borrowed with interest? Taxes, fees, etc.., which in turn comes from us. The pied pier has to be paid, unless the government defaults and the fiat currency becomes worthless, as it always happens in the past.

            10

  • #
    David Maddison

    Can we look at it this way?

    Since wind and solar are useless whatever nameplate capacity is installed actually represents a DEFICIT of coal generation.

    Australia has a 20GW nameplate capacity of wind and solar and with about a 30% capacity factor it means we have a DEFICIT of about 7GW of coal generation that needs to be built or about three coal plants.

    They will be built if and when we get a rational government, unless we build nuclear instead which is also good.

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  • #
    David Maddison

    Some slightly good news…

    In Victoriastan which is run by a communist-green government which is lunatic asylum crazy, they plan to fill Victoriastan’s still-viable open cut coal mines with water to turn them into lakes. I am absolutely NOT JOKING.

    Note that this is not rehabilitation of empty mines, these mines have decades or centuries worth of coal left in them.

    The good news is that due to the claim of supposed anthropogenic global warming there might not be enough river water to fill the mines.

    So it’s good news but for the wrong reasons.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-28/latrobe-valley-mine-lakes-plan-under-a-cloud/12400782

    A Victorian Government report has cast doubt on whether it will be possible to turn all three Latrobe Valley open cut coal mines into lakes when they close.

    Key points:

    Government projections show the Latrobe River is likely to continue drying during the century

    Because of this, a new report suggests a proposal to flood three mines using river water may not be advisable

    60

    • #
      Ross

      David

      I saw a discussion with Adam Creighton (one of the best economics commentators around, in my view) on the Alan Jones show last night. As a Kiwi I was not aware of the extent of the Union’s involvement in your Superannuation Industry. He made the point that by maybe 2030 the Union controlled super scheme investments, in Australian business, will mean the Unions will dominate the top 200 listed companies.
      If I was an Australian that would scare the “living daylights” out of me. I’m sure it will also have a spill over effect in NZ, by influencing how company boards think over here.
      So I am not sure you are going to get rid of issues in Victoria and elsewhere, that quickly.

      50

      • #
        David Maddison

        Ross, thanks for posting that. The union control over Australia is extensive, including its investments in unreliable energy, and its embedment with government, business and superannuation funds is frightening. Most of the Sheeple have no clue.

        60

    • #
      MCMXLIII

      Sounds like sabotage if they proceed.
      Labor governments have a habit of making decisions difficult if not impossible for future governments to reverse.
      For instance the Brumby Labor government in Victoria turned the Mitchell River dam reservation into as national park so as to stop any future government building one to augment Melbourne water supply — building that outrageously expensive desalination-union-boondoggle-plant instead.

      40

      • #
        Kalm Keith

        I know of a fellow who worked on the Sydney “desal”.

        From what I heard at the time the “salaries” were gigantic and got the impression its only purpose was to facilitate money transfer from a grateful Elected Government to those who would keep voting for them.

        The fact is it was better and cheaper to build another dam.

        We sort of, live in a democracy, sort of.

        Live in fear: CO2 crisis this year, CV19 now, next year: well we won’t know until after the U.N. Christmas parti in New York.

        Merry Christmas.

        The others, libls, are no better, just different.

        30

  • #
    David Maddison

    I’m sick of hearing that the wind and sun are free. That may be so but the energy from them is extremely expensive to collect, of low density and intermittent.

    Just ask any sail boat owner about the huge cost of collecting wind energy.

    Cow f@rts and even the f@rts of Green Leftists are methane and a source of energy also, but similarly expensive to collect.

    50

    • #

      I collected a fair bit of wind energy on Port Phillip on the Saturday just gone – consistent winds of 20-25 knots gusting to over 30. Double reefed mainsail and no 3 headsail and we were powering along at over 6 knots boatspeed in an 8 ton 57 year old wooden yacht. Magnificent. I have a small solar panel to keep the batteries charged. Works quite well. But boating is banned now for 6 weeks here.

      80

  • #
    Peter

    The capacity of coal power plants might have dropped a little bit, but did the CO2-emissions from coal power plants also decrease? I do not have any numbers (so please add if you have them), but I think that CO2 emissions from these plants still increased. When China puts a plant online, it will likely utilize the plant to its full potential, while the ones that are closed down (mainly in the US and Europa) already have a low utilization rate.

    20

    • #
      Chad

      Peter, i cannot answer your question re CO@ emissioins , but we do know that China’s coal plants only operate at around 50% utilisation overall.
      This is most likely due to their lack of Gas “peaker” plants and their widely distributed consumer base with no effective “grid” system to link all the generators. So each regeon has to have sufficient coal capacity to cope with their peak demand and reduce capacity for low demand periods..

      10

  • #
    Kalm Keith

    I came looking for my chopped comment down here, can’t remember what it was about but it must have been very off topic.

    http://joannenova.com.au/2020/08/china-now-has-half-of-the-worlds-coal-power-fleet/#comment-2352292

    00

  • #
    Rupert Ashford

    So this means China and its allies now have control of industry all over the globe and can/will start throwing their weight around.

    30

  • #
    Serge Wright

    We need to remind ourselves that the UN must not view CO2 or climate change as being dangerous in any way.

    We can be very certain of this fact because the UN climate convention and subsequent treaties have all been established with the sole purpose of allowing rapidly increasing emissions from the developing world in a completely unmitigated fashion, whilst ensuring that only the smaller pool of developed countries were subject to emissions constraints. If you go back 28 years to the first climate convention in 1992, it was well understood that the developed world had completed it’s development cycle in 1980 and since that time their collective emissions had been flat. However, after 1980, the developing world started to emerge and due to it’s enormous population, it started to unleash it’s vast emissions potential. By 1992 when the first climate convention was created, rather than restrain the countries that were driving up global emissions, the UN did the exact opposite and placed restrictions only on developed countries with already stable emissions, and gave a free pass to all developing nations to continue emitting, by allowing them to prioritize economic outcomes ahead of emissions reductions. It should therefore be of no surprise that emissions rose at their fastest rate in history in the decade following enforcement of the Kyoto protocol targets in 2005, which was due to a combination of the rapid offshoring of emissions intensive industry by developed countries to the developing countries, combined with the massive production of solar panels in China that western countries purchased in their vein attempts to meet targets.

    Thus, the end result of 32 years of climate policy is that emissions have risen far more dramatically in developing nations and globally than would have been the case if no climate conventions and treaties had ever existed. When you consider the wording of these climate treaties you quickly realise that there could be absolutely no other outcome than what has transpired, with 2/3 (ie: majority) of all emissions now coming from the developing world. Also, with no plans by the UN to impose penalty based emissions targets onto the developing world there is no mechanism to reduce the continued rapid rise in emissions from developing countries, who will continue to prioritise economic outcomes ahead of emissions cuts as they are permitted to do and have been doing now for 30+ years.

    What is very obvious is that all future global emissions and CO2 levels will have no relationship with emissions from developed western countries and will be solely determined by economic growth rates in the developing world, mainly driven by China, India, SE Asia and Africa. In terms of the energy source choices these developing countries will make, at this stage there is only fossil fuels, hydro or nuclear that can provide the required energy and energy density needed to power nations with enormous populations totaling many billions, so the notion that RE is a panacea is not just absurd, but it also misses the main point, which is that the UN must not consider CO2 a problem, because it’s conventions and treaties have been set up to increase emissions and will continue to do so indefinitely.

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  • #
    STJOHNOFGRAFTON

    More snake oil soap from their ABC.

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  • #
    David Maddison

    Wind and solar subsidy harvesting devices should be considered a parasitic load on the mostly coal powered electrical grid.

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  • #
    David Maddison

    I remember the days when Australia had industry and some of the world’s cheapest electricity from coal, gas and properly engineered sustainable hydro (not big batteries like Snow Hydro 2 which is, bizarrely, a net energy consumer, but what else would you expect from Left wing “engineering”).

    100

    • #
      Dennis

      Yes, but don’t ignore the business opportunity for wind farms to sell electricity that is not required for the grid.

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    • #
      PeterS

      What else can we expect from them? How about millions of electric vehicles being stranded because the grid can’t handle the load?

      20

  • #
    Chad

    by James Purtill, ABC

    The world’s combined coal power capacity has fallen for the first time on record as the closure of generators outstripped stations being commissioned. That’s good news for global emissions.

    Note the numbers:

    Coal power capacity fell by 2.9 gigawatt in the first half of 2020 — a small though significant drop of about 0.14 per cent, according to US research group Global Energy Monitor, which monitors fossil fuel developments.

    By comparison, the global coal fleet had grown by an average of 25GW every six months over the previous two decades, from 2000-2019.

    Why is this even a topic ?
    It was raised and discussed in the WE unthreaded , and quickly shot down then.
    Why dig up a dead donkey for more flogging .?
    It needs to be given the “Harvey Norman” treatment……
    ……..”.18 MONTHS OF NO INTEREST “

    40

  • #
    PeterS

    The CCP controls most of the cheapest source of electricity in the world. Maybe that matters?

    Well, up until now according to the voting public is doesn’t matter at all. Both major parties are too busy finding ways and means to keep cutting our emissions. So you tell me who is being a WAFI? It’s certainly not China.

    10

  • #
    TedM

    “The world is now shutting down coal plants faster than it’s opening them”

    Thanks to nuclear!!!!!

    00

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    William

    O/T – the NSW Government is looking to increase the height of the Warragamba dam by 17 metres – not to store water for the new normal drought conditions the alarmists told us was our new reality, but for flood mitigation. They need it to mitigate the rain Flannery told us that wasn’t going to fill our rivers or dams.

    It astonishes me that alarmists can claim drought is our new normal while increasing capacity for flood whereas the reality is the Sydney basin does not have anything close to adequate storage for its current population, let alone our sardine packed future.

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    Brian BAKER

    China has also decided to stop development of renewables after push them over some period. The funniest part of the hoodwink show is BP (Back to Peasantry) that have declared that the company will be net zero by 2050. They have not consulted BP China who are actively pushing fossil fuel use through its 15,000 employees there.

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    William Astley

    Coal is not the cheapest source of energy. And coal is not pollution free. China is unbelievable polluted.

    We are living at the end of the coal age for developed countries, China included. Because a Nasa engineer rediscovered the optimum fission reactor design about 12 years ago and made that design public to the ‘nuclear’ industry and general public. There was a PBS special about nuclear power that included the rediscover of the super simple fission can design reactor

    A Canadian team formed and they got a past chairman of the Canadian Nuclear Regulatory agency to lead the team. And the fission can design is almost unimaginable better…. At a certain point logic and reason has broken through the US corruption, the can fission reactor design will make/has maded the water cooled, fuel rod reactor concept obsolete. It is unbelievable that we built pressure water, fuel rod reactors were built for commercial power plants.

    https://www.terrestrialenergy.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/TEI-2-Page-Brief-200630-1.pdf

    It is a fact that there is a fission can design reactor that can compete with coal and that is walk away safe.

    The fission can design, operates at atmospheric pressure rather than 130 atmospheres (PWR are the largest pressure vessels in the world), it is the safest possible design for every operation for the entire lifetime of the facility.

    The fission can design, eliminates all of the most complex pressure water reactor safety problems.

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    Belatedly Taiwan has been restored in the symbolic map to it’s independent self.

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