WRT China, they can't over produce renewable energy and be the largest global supplier of green energy without coal .. at least not yet.
While that middle class has a per capita energy and consumption figure that is lower than the USA per capita figures it is the case that the US has set an aspiration life style expectation that sees demand grow.
China's coal use has become increasingly more efficient; much is made of additional new modern coal power houses, little mention is made of the larger numbers of older inefficient far dirtier coal plants have been closed down and are still being closed down.
Nuclear and renewables are part of overall energy production in China to a far greater proportion and absolute number than in the US.
The scale of China's energy production is substantial and not easily characterised.
China has a smaller nuclear fleet capacity than the US and meets a much smaller percentage of its electricity needs with nuclear power:
https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/CountryStatistics/CountryDetails....
https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/CountryStatistics/CountryDetails....
As of 2023 US got 18.55% of electricity from nuclear power (775 terawatt hours) while China got 4.86% (433 TWh).
As of 2023 China does get a larger share from renewables:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_China#Pr...
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3
It's 29.1% renewables in China (2,756 TWh) vs. 21.4% (894 TWh) in the United States.
Grouping nuclear and renewables together as low-emissions sources, the US gets 47.65% of its electricity from low-emissions sources and China gets 33.96% from low-emissions sources.
China is building nuclear and renewable sources faster than the US, so will narrow the gap over the rest of the decade, but it's also growing its total electricity consumption faster.
I mostly check my figures before comments, this is what I deserve for going off the cuff :-) ( thanks )
> In the first decade of the 2000s, plants were running around 70% of the time. They’re now running around 50%.
https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/i/141628065/chinas-c...
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-13/australian-coal-plant...
Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41831861
The biggest problem the world faces to decarbonize now is finance rather than technology, as few can afford to pay 10-20 years of electricity usage upfront, apart from rich countries. I hope the battery storage prices keep the cost trajectory as smaller the payback period, the faster and larger the adoption will be.
EDIT: but apparently it went back up in April. Installed coal capacity is 49.3% but since hydro dropped in April it went up again
The problem is that not all parts of the world have access to cheap nat gas
Modelers of all ilks generally avoid reporting the underlying uncertainties in their results. And when they do report them, they are woefully underestimated. Fine in the abstract, but not acceptable when trillions of dollars are at stake. Dollars that can be spent instead on direct low risk, high impact improvements in third world child health (clean air, clean water, infectious diseases, etc.). Maybe choose those that also mitigate climate impacts (as we currently understand them), but directly save the living children/people first.
Keep on improving the models with scientific research, but don’t fool ourselves about the accuracy and completeness of such models for policy analysis. I’m old enough to remember the Club of Rome/Limits to Growth controversies.
When the project’s offshore and gas processing emissions are factored in, the LNG produced from the Barossa field would have a total emissions intensity of 1.4 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of LNG produced.
This makes the Barossa development the most emissions intensive LNG projects in Australia and the world
At this point in time there's a clear understanding of the consequences of the current 11 billion tonne of CO2 equivilant emmissions released annually .. an increase in trapped solar heat energy that directly leads to increased storm intensity, climbing global mean tempretures, and edging closer to positive feedback thresholds which are significantly hard to reverse when crossed.
Without. But on a global scale those externalities aren't priced in. Particularly at the margin.
The future maybe different, but right now coal use has peaked and is starting to fall. See (for example) actual data [1].
> Once that happens ..
you speculate, you engage in wishful thinking, you ignore actual resource consumption projections gathered globally over decades by major resource companies.
https://www.seforall.org/press-releases/new-research-finds-u...
Your rational long term argument has little sway when key decision makers are bribed and offered a chance to retire to a mansion elsewhere on the planet.
As of today the majority of China's coal activity in Africa is directly related to China's mining activity in Africa to provide power for ectraction, processing and townships.
That mining activity is 'small' in the sense that Chinese mining companies represent ~ 8 percent of Africa’s total output in the sector and are concentrated in just five countries: Guinea, Zambia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
Resource extraction from those regions back to China is currently approx. $13 billion US (for resources that would likely cost 5x that cost if sourced from Canada or Australia)
China is not alone and by no means the greatest extractor; Anglo-American alone accounts for more than double that 8% share.