[cbsmith]

> China's share of of electricity production from coal is at 60% as of 2023[1] compared to 16% for the US[2]. That's down from 80% in 2005.

Yeah, but they're kind of leapfrogging from coal to clean energy. In 10 years, they are expected to be at 60% renewables.

[merely-unlikely]

> from coal to clean energy

The reason I'm skeptical of that framing is it implies coal production is being replaced by clean energy, rather than total energy production being increased.

Coal production continues to climb[1] and construction of new coal plants hit a 10 year high in 2024[2]. China accounted for 95% of the world’s new coal power construction activity in 2023[3].

Lots of countries announce decarbonization goals, but I will remain skeptical until the data show progress.

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/coal-production-by-countr...

[2] https://www.carbonbrief.org/chinas-construction-of-new-coal-...

[3] https://www.carbonbrief.org/china-responsible-for-95-of-new-...

[cbsmith]

> The reason I'm skeptical of that framing is it implies coal production is being replaced by clean energy, rather than total energy production being increased.

I wasn't intending to imply that. It's entirely possible China might get to 90% renewable energy production without shutting down a single coal plant.

> Lots of countries announce decarbonization goals, but I will remain skeptical until the data show progress.

Sure, but that doesn't conflict with having more and more of your energy production being renewable.

[epistasis]

And they don't have access to cheap natural gas so the financial incentive to switch to renewables is even stronger. Even more so given the inability of coal to flexibly produce power throughout the day, so cheaper renewables just completely kill the economic feasibility of coal.

[merely-unlikely]

I think you have that flexibility backwards. Coal can be ramped up relatively quickly and operates in nearly all weather conditions, but wind and solar are at the whim nature. Unless you're only talking hydropower and nuclear power which China is also building, but those like coal have significant upfront capital investments and minimum scale.

Either way, the idea that coal is economically infeasible is contradicted by the fact that China is building huge amounts of it[1]. For China energy production is an "and" question, not an "or" question.

[1] https://www.carbonbrief.org/chinas-construction-of-new-coal-...

[epistasis]

> Coal can be ramped up relatively quickly

That's exactly what coal is bad at. Anything less than a day is bad news for coal. Which means that all this coal capacity is building is going to be for rarer seasonal events, and going to be mostly sitting unused.