China’s Building a Massive Number of New Coal Plants

[Aemilius]

"Air pollution is responsible for about 2 million deaths in China per year"

"China says it wants to be a leader in green energy, but it's really leading the world in black energy—specifically coal. In this episode of China Uncensored, we look at China's massive buildup of its coal infrastructure, why it sees coal as essential to its economic and national security, and how its reliance on coal fits into its climate goals."

"An executive from China's top energy engineering firm said he expects the nation to approve 270 gigawatts of new coal power plants through 2025, more than the entire fleet of coal power plants in the US."

"China's Permitted vs Retired Energy in 2022:
4 gigawatts retired
106 gigawatts to be built"



May all beings be free from suffering and its causes!
Tadyatha gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha
Tadyatha Om muni muni mahamuni svaha

[Pero]

Living in the EU I find this hilarious.

[ject]

China says it wants to be a leader in green energy,

Of course they are a leader... in building the batteries and manufacture PV panels for those in the west, obsessed with changing the climate.
At lithium mining, Australia is at the top with 55K tonnes, Chile is second with 26K tonnes and and China is third with 14K tonnes, but China make the batteries.

Living in the EU I find this hilarious.

Have you researched the 'Nuclear is bad' saga in Germany?

It actually starts in 70's, then later, the "green" activists get tricked into "nuclear bad" mania. While more and more gas and oil flows in from Russia, the anti nuclear propaganda gains speed and power. More and more gas, oil and coal roll into Germany... (FT, WSJ etc )
Instead of replacing what they had with new and more advanced tech, they took the stupid road and shut everything down.

So, here we are now.

While China, India etc literally laugh at US and the Europe. Nobody has any idea how bad the deindustrialisation in Germany will get. It's not a win for EU.
Only winners are China, India and everyone's new-old enemy - Russia.
BTW, Germany had to fire up some of it's old coal plants (brown coal!) because the self inflicted energy crisis was getting out of hand.

[Malcolm]

Have you researched the 'Nuclear is bad' saga in Germany?

It actually starts in 70's, then later, the "green" activists get tricked into "nuclear bad" mania.

Nuclear is undesirable: Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima, etc. There is no safe disposal of spent uranium.

Uranium mining is terrible.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl ... %20weapons.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK201047/

[ject]

Have you researched the 'Nuclear is bad' saga in Germany?

It actually starts in 70's, then later, the "green" activists get tricked into "nuclear bad" mania.

Nuclear is undesirable: Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima, etc. There is no safe disposal of spent uranium.

Uranium mining is terrible.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl ... %20weapons.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK201047/

Here are the numbers (you could find in 5 seconds) deaths per 1,000 TWh:

Coal - 100,000
Oil - 36,000
Natural Gas - 4,000
Hydro - 1,400
Solar - 440
Wind - 150
Nuclear - 90

Nuclear includes Chernobyl and Fukushima etc.

[Malcolm]

Have you researched the 'Nuclear is bad' saga in Germany?

It actually starts in 70's, then later, the "green" activists get tricked into "nuclear bad" mania.

Nuclear is undesirable: Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima, etc. There is no safe disposal of spent uranium.

Uranium mining is terrible.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl ... %20weapons.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK201047/

Here are the numbers (you could find in 5 seconds) deaths per 1,000 TWh:

Coal - 100,000
Oil - 36,000
Natural Gas - 4,000
Hydro - 1,400
Solar - 440
Wind - 150
Nuclear - 90

Nuclear includes Chernobyl and Fukushima etc.

And were there more nuclear power plants, you would find higher numbers. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

For examnple, a 2010 study by the NAS was abandoned after it was deemed too expensive.

https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-coll ... study.html

However, there is this:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/ful ... /ijc.31116

While the study does not show causation, it does show correlation.

However, there some evidence of an uptick in thyroid cancer following Fukushima:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2895458 ... 20subjects.

Chernobyl cancer estimates:

https://blog.ucsusa.org/lisbeth-gronlun ... ime%20dose.

You might consider these numbers less than compelling, given the number of deaths from burning hydrocarbons, one in five:

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/c-change/n ... worldwide/

But nuclear power plants are expensive: https://thebulletin.org/2019/06/why-nuc ... -about-it/

https://www.vox.com/2016/2/29/11132930/ ... ance-korea

Wind and solar are much less expensive.

[ject]

....
And were there more nuclear power plants, you would find higher numbers. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

So, lets extrapolate until we get the numbers that confirm our bias? Also, It's not about the number of nuclear power plants but the amount of energy produced.

Also, "expensive" and "cheap" are so distorted on energy markets, those worlds are practically meaningless. Why? Because government have shifted funds from one sector to another, changed laws to hinder investments into "old reliable energy" and so on an on (see WSJ, FT etc). They are literally trying to starve the "bad energy" sector to coma. Problem is, the "good energy" sector wont function without the stable and reliable "bad energy" sector.

And lets not forget that hurting the evil old oil and gas, will hurt practically everything else too. Why? Because almost everything you use, own and enjoy is made from oil and/or gas - plastics, paints, rubbers, fabrics... you name it.
That nice computer you used to type up that message, is mostly oil and gas, so to say. So are the clothes on your back and those nice veggies we all love so much - broccoli pasta with anchovies for example - would be unaffordable with out all the lovely fertilizers "made" from gas and oil.

[Malcolm]

Why? Because almost everything you use, own and enjoy is made from oil and/or gas - plastics, paints, rubbers, fabrics... you name it.

Yes, which is why it is stupid to burn so much of it. It won't last forever.

That nice computer you used to type up that message, is mostly oil and gas, so to say. So are the clothes on your back and those nice veggies we all love so much - broccoli pasta with anchovies for example - would be unaffordable with out all the lovely fertilizers "made" from gas and oil.

Well, that's true because of corporate socialism. The subsidies energy companies get to produce natural gas and oil are appalling:

Globally, fossil fuel subsidies are were $5.9 trillion or 6.8 percent of GDP in 2020 and are expected to increase to 7.4 percent of GDP in 2025 as the share of fuel consumption in emerging markets (where price gaps are generally larger) continues to climb. Just 8 percent of the 2020 subsidy reflects undercharging for supply costs (explicit subsidies) and 92 percent for undercharging for environmental costs and foregone consumption taxes (implicit subsidies).

https://www.imf.org/en/Topics/climate-c ... -subsidies

2017 numbers for the US:


These were dominated by subsidies to fossil fuels, which account for around 70% (USD 447 billion) of the total. Subsidies to renewable power generation technologies account for around 20 % of total energy sector subsidies (USD 128 billion), biofuels for about 6 % (USD 38 billion) and nuclear for at least 3 % (USD 21 billion)...

Subsidies to petroleum products dominated the total, at USD 220 billion, followed by electricity-based support to fossil fuels at USD 128 billion. Subsidies to natural gas and coal in 2017 were estimated to be USD 82 billion and USD 17 billion, respectively.

https://www.irena.org/-/media/Files/IRE ... s_2020.pdf

So basically, US subsidies are about 20 percent of the total global outlay of government subsidies for oil and gas.

Then there agriculture subsidies. In 2021, the federal government provided farms with $28.5 billion in subsidies, or direct farm program payments. That, combined with exploitation of migrant labor, keeps our food cheap.

So its socialism all the way down until you get to the consumer, then it is profit all the way up.