Last week, the International Energy Agency published its annual World Energy Outlook, a comprehensive review of the likely paths that supply and demand for fossil fuels and renewable sources of energy would follow up to 2050. Buried in the 398-page report was a warning: “The outlook for coal has been revised upwards particularly for the coming decade, principally as a result of updated electricity demand projections, notably from China and India.”
It wasn’t a small revision: Coal consumption in 2030 is now estimated 6% higher than only a year ago. That may sound small, but it amounts to adding the equivalent of the consumption of Japan, the world’s fourth-largest coal burner. By 2030, the IEA now believes coal consumption will remain higher than it was back in 2010.
This was an important change in what was otherwise an upbeat report. Wind and solar continue to expand faster than many thought, including the IEA. As a result, they are increasingly growing their market share. [...]
...
One notable statistic: Two-thirds of the total increase in energy demand in 2023 was met by fossil fuels, according to the IEA.
Yes, clean power is the future. For now, however, fossil fuels remain the present — especially when electricity demand is accelerating this fast. Between 2023 and 2030, electricity consumption is expected to grow six times faster than total energy demand, compared with two times faster in the 2010-2023 period and 1.4 times faster in 2000-2010. According to the IEA, the equivalent of the electricity use of the world’s 10 largest cities is being added to global demand each year.
...
The acceleration isn’t about artificial intelligence and data centers as is often lamented. If anything, they would account for a fraction of the increase in consumption. Demand for power is coming from everywhere, notably electric vehicles, air-conditioning and even water desalination.
The epicenter of the electricity boom is Asia, so it makes sense that the world’s two largest coal consumers, China and India, not only aren’t abandoning coal, but are still building more coal-fired power stations. The result is an energy transition that is more polluting than many had hoped.
Comment box Scope: analysis Tone: neutral, a little unconvinced/questioning Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none I see the value in highlighting that coal use has not yet dropped off, but there is an...
Comment box
Scope: analysis
Tone: neutral, a little unconvinced/questioning
Opinion: yes
Sarcasm/humor: none
I see the value in highlighting that coal use has not yet dropped off, but there is an important caveat here:
Coal only gets mentioned when some country closes its last coal-fired power station. That was the message recently in the UK, which put an end to 142 years of coal-generated power when the country closed its last coal plant in late September ... Meanwhile, Asia has been busy opening new ones.
Buried in the 398-page report was a warning: “The outlook for coal has been revised upwards particularly for the coming decade, principally as a result of updated electricity demand projections, notably from China and India.”
The epicenter of the electricity boom is Asia, so it makes sense that the world’s two largest coal consumers, China and India, not only aren’t abandoning coal, but are still building more coal-fired power stations.
Coal is dropping off in developed countries (USA, UK, Canada, France, Germany, Australia...)! Importantly, it is dropping off in my country, where I exert at least nominal political control, as well as the countries of just about everyone reading a Western-based, English-speaking news source. There is only so much an American or German can do to change energy policy in a distant and, in the case of China, fairly adversarial foreign country. China and India are sovereign states.
One of the best strategies to reduce the viability of coal in a foreign country is to create and share technology that makes it economically non-optimal. For example, more efficient and cheaper solar panels. But China is already doing that; the US is behind.
Global treaties and targets are nice, but they are fundamentally backed by internal commitments. If a country agrees to decarbonize, it has to actually want to decarbonize, and it has to know what technologies it can adopt and what infrastructure it can build to realistically do that. If they don't believe it, they won't do it. The way to get them to believe it is to demonstrate that it's economically preferable in both the long term and the short term. That requires tangible proof and not ideological platitudes or predictions about sea level rise in 2100.
If the West wants developing countries to decarbonize faster, the best way to do that would be to offer significantly more low-interest loans for renewable infrastructure specifically. But that would require spending money instead of just complaining about the status quo and hoping for the best.
Yes, global averages often obscure local realities, and many individual countries are doing better. Carbon emissions are a global issue, though. (Preparing for climate change is local.) Some...
Yes, global averages often obscure local realities, and many individual countries are doing better. Carbon emissions are a global issue, though. (Preparing for climate change is local.)
Some important context here is that China produces 80% of the solar panels for the world, and prices are so low that some manufacturers are going bankrupt. Customers are what the manufacturers need; without more sales, loans often just put off the inevitable.
Despite that, it apparently isn’t enough to absorb all the manufacturing output, for some reason.
The best thing to do to promote solar would be for other countries to buy as many solar panels as they can from them, so that more solar is installed somewhere. This also has the side effect that manufacturers earn more money. More cash flow from buying stuff beats loans, which have to be paid back. (Or perhaps advance purchases, which are effectively loans repaid in kind. Even advance purchase agreements, while they don’t provide cash, allow manufacturers to raise money from investors.)
Instead, the Biden administration put tariffs on them, and India has tariffs as well.
It’s evidence that converting to solar energy is perhaps not the highest priority with these governments, compared to other trade issues? (Though, it’s worth pointing out that Trump has promised to do worse.)
Solar power was government-subsidized for many decades and that’s what got us where we are, but it’s time to declare victory on that. The cost of solar modules is only a small part of installation costs. Government money would be better spent on other bottlenecks. Also, some bottlenecks are imposed by governments, which could be seen as good news, in a way, because they could be fixed by changing laws rather than spending money.
From the opinion article (archive):
...
...
Comment box
I see the value in highlighting that coal use has not yet dropped off, but there is an important caveat here:
Coal is dropping off in developed countries (USA, UK, Canada, France, Germany, Australia...)! Importantly, it is dropping off in my country, where I exert at least nominal political control, as well as the countries of just about everyone reading a Western-based, English-speaking news source. There is only so much an American or German can do to change energy policy in a distant and, in the case of China, fairly adversarial foreign country. China and India are sovereign states.
One of the best strategies to reduce the viability of coal in a foreign country is to create and share technology that makes it economically non-optimal. For example, more efficient and cheaper solar panels. But China is already doing that; the US is behind.
Global treaties and targets are nice, but they are fundamentally backed by internal commitments. If a country agrees to decarbonize, it has to actually want to decarbonize, and it has to know what technologies it can adopt and what infrastructure it can build to realistically do that. If they don't believe it, they won't do it. The way to get them to believe it is to demonstrate that it's economically preferable in both the long term and the short term. That requires tangible proof and not ideological platitudes or predictions about sea level rise in 2100.
If the West wants developing countries to decarbonize faster, the best way to do that would be to offer significantly more low-interest loans for renewable infrastructure specifically. But that would require spending money instead of just complaining about the status quo and hoping for the best.
Yes, global averages often obscure local realities, and many individual countries are doing better. Carbon emissions are a global issue, though. (Preparing for climate change is local.)
Some important context here is that China produces 80% of the solar panels for the world, and prices are so low that some manufacturers are going bankrupt. Customers are what the manufacturers need; without more sales, loans often just put off the inevitable.
Meanwhile, China is installing quite a lot of solar: China building two-thirds of world’s wind and solar projects - The Guardian
Despite that, it apparently isn’t enough to absorb all the manufacturing output, for some reason.
The best thing to do to promote solar would be for other countries to buy as many solar panels as they can from them, so that more solar is installed somewhere. This also has the side effect that manufacturers earn more money. More cash flow from buying stuff beats loans, which have to be paid back. (Or perhaps advance purchases, which are effectively loans repaid in kind. Even advance purchase agreements, while they don’t provide cash, allow manufacturers to raise money from investors.)
Instead, the Biden administration put tariffs on them, and India has tariffs as well.
It’s evidence that converting to solar energy is perhaps not the highest priority with these governments, compared to other trade issues? (Though, it’s worth pointing out that Trump has promised to do worse.)
Solar power was government-subsidized for many decades and that’s what got us where we are, but it’s time to declare victory on that. The cost of solar modules is only a small part of installation costs. Government money would be better spent on other bottlenecks. Also, some bottlenecks are imposed by governments, which could be seen as good news, in a way, because they could be fixed by changing laws rather than spending money.