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Why China is building so many coal plants despite its solar and wind "boom?" [View all]
The marketing by the fossil fuel industry to rebrand fossil fuels as "hydrogen" has reappeared here, claiming that "hydrogen" is "green" in China and electrolysis will lead the way because of all the solar and wind junk there.
The title of this article asks what I call the "Idel question."
The title of this news item asks the same question in a slightly different form:
Why China is building so many coal plants despite its solar and wind boom?
BEIJING (AP) — Even as China’s expansion of solar and wind power raced ahead in 2025, the Asian giant opened many more coal power plants than it had in recent years — raising concern about whether the world’s largest emitter will reduce carbon emissions enough to limit climate change.
More than 50 large coal units — individual boiler and turbine sets with generating capacity of 1 gigawatt or more — were commissioned in 2025, up from fewer than 20 a year over the previous decade, a research report released Tuesday said. Depending on energy use, 1 gigawatt can power from several hundred thousand to more than 2 million homes.
Overall, China brought 78 gigawatts of new coal power capacity online, a sharp uptick from previous years, according to the joint report by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, which studies air pollution and its impacts, and Global Energy Monitor, which develops databases tracking energy trends...
More than 50 large coal units — individual boiler and turbine sets with generating capacity of 1 gigawatt or more — were commissioned in 2025, up from fewer than 20 a year over the previous decade, a research report released Tuesday said. Depending on energy use, 1 gigawatt can power from several hundred thousand to more than 2 million homes.
Overall, China brought 78 gigawatts of new coal power capacity online, a sharp uptick from previous years, according to the joint report by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, which studies air pollution and its impacts, and Global Energy Monitor, which develops databases tracking energy trends...
Um the answer to the question is stated later in the article:
Power shortages in parts of China in 2021 and 2022 reinforced longstanding concerns about energy security. Some factories temporarily halted production and one city imposed rolling blackouts...
...The government position is that coal provides a stable backup to sources such as wind and solar, which are affected by weather and the time of day. The shortages in 2022 resulted partly from a drought that hit hydropower, a major energy source in western China.
Coal should “play an important underpinning and balancing role” for years to come, the National Development and Reform Commission, the lead economic planning agency, said in guidance issued last year on making coal plants cleaner and more efficient.
...The government position is that coal provides a stable backup to sources such as wind and solar, which are affected by weather and the time of day. The shortages in 2022 resulted partly from a drought that hit hydropower, a major energy source in western China.
Coal should “play an important underpinning and balancing role” for years to come, the National Development and Reform Commission, the lead economic planning agency, said in guidance issued last year on making coal plants cleaner and more efficient.
I added the bold.
...sources such as wind and solar...are affected by weather and the time of day.
Really? Who knew?
For the record, less than 1% of China's hydrogen is produced by electrolysis:
Subsidizing Grid-Based Electrolytic Hydrogen Will Increase Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Coal Dominated Power Systems Liqun Peng, Yang Guo, Shangwei Liu, Gang He, and Denise L. Mauzerall Environmental Science & Technology 2024 58 (12), 5187-5195
The text is clear enough.
From the introductory text:
The bold, italics and underlining is mine.
EST: Chinese Hydrogen Production Is Making Climate Change Worse.
The text is clear enough.
From the introductory text:
... Currently, nearly all hydrogen in China is either produced directly from fossil fuels (55% from coal gasification and 14% from steam methane reforming (SMR)) or as a byproduct of petroleum refining (28%), with only 1% coming from water electrolysis. (2) Producing 1 kg of coal- or SMR-based hydrogen emits roughly 19 and 10 kg of CO2, respectively. (3) In 2020, hydrogen production from fossil fuels in China emitted approximately 322Tg of CO2, equivalent to 25% of total CO2 emissions from industrial processes, a number expected to rise with increasing hydrogen demand. (4) Industrial processes include production of nonmetallic mineral products, chemical, and metal products, as well as production and consumption of halocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride. (4)
.
The bold, italics and underlining is mine.
EST: Chinese Hydrogen Production Is Making Climate Change Worse.
More on China's record building coal plant building spree in 2025 now underway is here from Carbon Brief:
'Rush’ for new coal in China hits record high in 2025 as climate deadline looms
A graphic from this link:
Um...um...um...
I now return this forum to slick videos from the antinukes in the fossil fuel industry trying to rebrand fossil fuels as "hydrogen."
China also leads the world in the construction of nuclear power plants, having built 61 in this century with 39 more under construction.
Every nuclear plant in China is a coal plant not built, since nuclear power does not depend on the weather, and in fact, worldwide, enjoys a higher capacity utilization than the next most reliable source of electrical power, coal.
One may hope that China will get so good at building nuclear plants - they are now matching the record for this that the US enjoyed in the 20th century - that they can stop building coal plants.
Every bit of wind and solar junk in China will be landfill in about 20 to 30 years. China's nuclear plants may run until the 22nd century approaches.
Have a nice weekend.
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