Global thermal coal exports and power use to hit new highs in 2024 | Hacker News Reader

Global thermal coal exports and power use to hit new highs in 2024

reuters.com

10 pointspasswordoops7 comments

We pretty much hit new fossil highs every year: https://assets.ourworldindata.org/grapher/exports/global-fos...

Their trick is to talk about percentage and to tell you not to worry because solar and wind are growing X percent per year. When you look at absolutes coal, gas and petrol are also growing #GreenRevolution

The other trick is to talk about per capita consumption, which is completely irrelevant when talking about the impact of global GHG emissions

I'm not sure why you get downvoted, it's also true.

China generates four times more co2 than the US but per capita they're polluting half as much as the US

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita

https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-by...

There is a youtube video I ran into showing electricity generation by coal for various countries over the last 40 years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwLwdQnlA9U

The US was ahead at 1.5 TWh. Rose to 2.1 before dropping down to 0.7. The US is now 3rd behind India and way behind China.

Far as I can tell China's economic rise has been fueled by buring most of their total coal deposits. Which is why they are so big on solar and wind because they have no other choice.

You seem to be implying that percentage is unimportant. I'm curious why? It seems reasonable to me that as our power needs increase, all sources will increase - as long as we continue to grow renewable use relative to the others, isn't that good? Obviously there's a discussion to be had about how quickly renewables are growing, but this just doesn't seem like a very generous framing of the situation.

No.This has nothing to do with averages or proportions.Its a done deal. Per capita energy use (world) will continue to climb,atmospheric CO2(etc) will continue to climb. Runnaway, global warming, fueled climate change, will happen, on this, our only world. The degree to which this effects any indivual, on the other hand, will have many variables.

It's important because we emit too much co2, for a while now, so adding green enegery on top doesn't change the fact that we are utterly fucked.

Even if we were 99% renewable we'd still be fucked if we produced as much co2 as today

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