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China’s fossil fuel emissions fell 3% in 2014 Updated for 2026

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China’s coal consumption fell by 2.9% in 2014, according to newly released official Chinese energy data.

The data confirms earlier projections of a fall in coal use and 1% reduction in Carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel burning according to calculations based on the data (excel spreadsheet).

An initial analysis by Glen Peters suggests that equates to a 0.7% drop in overall emissions.

This is the first fall in China’s emissions from oil, gas and coal burning since the Asian economic crisis more than 15 years ago. It’s also the biggest recorded fall in 30 years, and the first time on record that emission fell while total energy consumption grew.

Coal consumption growth in China has been slowing down since 2012 suggesting that China’s coal use is no longer rising in line with economic output – so-called ‘de-coupling’.

Based on China Statistical Yearbook 2014, coal consumption growth slowed from an average of 6.1% per year between 2007-2011, to 2.6% on average between 2012-2013, while GDP growth averaged 10.5% and 7.7% per year, respectively.

Has China’s coal burn peaked?

China’s coal consumption growth was responsible for more than half of global CO2 emission growth in the past 10 years.

The fall in China’s coal consumption comes as China has set new global records for wind and solar installations and seen an increase in both economy-wide and power plant efficiency.

Ambitious policies to control coal use, spurred by the air pollution crisis, along with policies to diversify the economy away from energy-intensive industries, are strongly constraining coal consumption.

The country also appears to be moving away from plans to reduce pollution in urban areas by gasifying coal in more remote locations due to concerns over economic viability.

Though China’s coal use is unlikely to continue falling year on year an analysis by Greenpeace suggests that full implementation of China’s existing energy targets, including targets for renewable energy and controlling total energy consumption, could see coal use peak by 2020.

China recently required four provinces in the key economic regions to set absolute coal consumption reduction targets, in addition to four others that already have ambitious targets, the provinces consume over 600 million metric tons of coal per year, almost as much as India.

Coal generation capacity increasing – a contradiction?

While China’s coal consumption fell in 2014, coal-fired power generating capacity continues to grow rapidly. This apparent contradiction has led some observers to conclude that China’s coal consumption growth is bound to resume.

But the evidence suggests otherwise. Instead the continued buildup of coal-fired power plants represents an investment bubble that will burst as overcapacity becomes too large to ignore.

If there is one factoid that every media consumer knows about energy in China, it must be that the country is ‘building one coal power plant per week’.

While coal-fired power generation capacity growth has slowed from the peak years – 2006 saw the equivalent of 1.5 large units added every week – the rate of coal-fired power plant additions and construction initiations in China is still breathtaking

In 2014 39 GW were added, or three 1,000MW units every four weeks, up from 36 GW in 2013.

Coal plants built – but not used 

At the same time, power generation from coal fell by approximately 1.6% in 2014, due to record increases in power generation from hydropower, wind, solar, nuclear and gas, along with slower power consumption growth – contributing to the 2.9% overall fall in coal burning.

In fact, coal-fired capacity growth has outstripped coal-fired generation growth since 2011, leading to dramatically reduced capacity utilization (see graph, above right) and financial pain to power plant operators. The headline making the rounds in China is that capacity utilization, at 54%, was at its lowest level since the reforms of 1978, when statistics began to be made available.

The Obama – Xi deal on peaking China’s CO2 emissions before 2030 has grabbed the headlines in English-speaking media, leaving many observers with the impression that China is planning to slack for another 15 years before starting to pull its weight in cutting CO2.

However, real action is in the implementation of China’s energy targets for 2020 and the air pollution action plans for 2017. For the power sector, the most significant target is the objective for non-fossil energy to make up 15% of all energy consumed in China.

Hitting the 15% target will require raising share of renewable energy and nuclear power in power generation from 22% in 2013 to 33-35% in 2020. Gas-fired power generation is also forecast by the IEA to grow to around 5% of total power generation, implying that the share of coal will shrink to about 60% in 2020, from 72% in 2013.

This will require almost doubling non-fossil power generation from 2014 to 2020, meaning that, on average, non-fossil power generation will have increased as much as it did in 2014, every year until 2020.

As in so many other respects, the radical changes in 2014 were not a one-off anomaly, but the ‘new normal’.

No room for new coal power plants – so why build them?

As a result of booming non-fossil power generation, even assuming GDP growth of 7% per year until 2020, growth in coal-fired power generation will be limited to around 1.5% per year on average, slowing down towards 2020 as non-fossil generation additions are ramped up.

Together with a targeted 0.7% per year reduction in coal use per unit of power generated, this means that coal use growth in the power sector will average less than 1% and will stabilize before 2020. If capacity utilization is to return to financially sustainable levels, there is room for little more capacity to be added until 2020.

To grasp why coal-fired power plants can still get built in the face of a worsening overcapacity problem, it is necessary to understand the basics of China’s economic model.

The country’s growth miracle has been based on an economic system designed to enable extremely high levels of investment spending, particularly by state-owned companies and local governments.

These actors have a very liberal access to near-zero interest loans from state-owned banks, and state-owned companies are generally not required to pay dividends to the state, enabling (or forcing) them to re-invest their profits.

Investments do not need to be wise or profitable

Banks exercise minimal due diligence on loans, which have implicit government backing. As a result, investment spending now amounts to over $4 trillion per year, making up a staggering 50% of China’s GDP, higher than any other major economy in history, and compared to around 20% in developed economies.

This model served China well for decades, enabling the growth miracle and lifting hundreds of millions from poverty. However, finding profitable and sensible investment projects worth trillions of dollars every year is bound to become harder and harder as the investment boom goes on.

Recently published research estimated that 67 trillion yuan ($11 trillion) has been spent on projects that generated no or almost no economic output – ghost cities being the most famous example.

In this context, it is not too hard to see how investment in coal-fired power plants can speed way ahead of demand growth.

A new coal-fired power plant will still generate power and revenue even if there is overcapacity, as the lower capacity utilization gets spread across the entire coal power fleet and across all power plant operators.

What does continued coal-fired power buildup mean for the climate?

The conventional assumption in power business is that once a coal-fired power plant or other capital-intensive generating asset gets built, it will run pretty much at full steam for 40 years or more. Even if there is overcapacity at the moment, demand growth will raise utilization and the existing capacity will crowd out future investment.

However, this is not how things work in China. The government is not going to scrap the internationally pledged 15% non-fossil energy target for 2020 because of excess coal-fired capacity. Rather the overcapacity will lead to losses for power generators and will be eliminated by closing down older plants, as has happened with coal mining, steel and cement already.

Therefore, continued investment in coal-fired power plants does not mean locking in more coal-burning. It does, however, mean massive economic waste, and a missed opportunity to channel the investment spending into renewable energy, enabling even faster growth.

Furthermore, the underutilized coal-fired capacity can exacerbate the conflict between coal and variable renewable energy in the grid, as grid operators are known to curtail renewable power in favor of coal.

Hence, investment in coal-fired power plants needs to be rapidly scaled back by restricting approvals and finance. The first step has already been taken with China banning new coal power plants in its three key economic regions, home to one third of currently operating coal-fired capacity.

 

 

Lauri Myllyvirta writes for Greenpeace EnergyDesk on energy and climate issues in China and elsewhere.

This article combines two articles by Lauri Myllyvirta originally published on Greenpeace EnergyDesk:

 

Sources: The energy data is from China Statistical Yearbook 2014 except 2014 growth rates from National Bureau of Statistics of China: STATISTICAL COMMUNIQUÉ OF THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA ON THE 2014 NATIONAL ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT. February 26, 2015. CO2 emissions calculated using IPCC default emission factors. Oveall emissions data via @glenpeters. Graph of coal power plant utilization compiled from China Electricity Council statistical releases.

 

 




390825

China’s fossil fuel emissions fell 3% in 2014 Updated for 2026

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China’s coal consumption fell by 2.9% in 2014, according to newly released official Chinese energy data.

The data confirms earlier projections of a fall in coal use and 1% reduction in Carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel burning according to calculations based on the data (excel spreadsheet).

An initial analysis by Glen Peters suggests that equates to a 0.7% drop in overall emissions.

This is the first fall in China’s emissions from oil, gas and coal burning since the Asian economic crisis more than 15 years ago. It’s also the biggest recorded fall in 30 years, and the first time on record that emission fell while total energy consumption grew.

Coal consumption growth in China has been slowing down since 2012 suggesting that China’s coal use is no longer rising in line with economic output – so-called ‘de-coupling’.

Based on China Statistical Yearbook 2014, coal consumption growth slowed from an average of 6.1% per year between 2007-2011, to 2.6% on average between 2012-2013, while GDP growth averaged 10.5% and 7.7% per year, respectively.

Has China’s coal burn peaked?

China’s coal consumption growth was responsible for more than half of global CO2 emission growth in the past 10 years.

The fall in China’s coal consumption comes as China has set new global records for wind and solar installations and seen an increase in both economy-wide and power plant efficiency.

Ambitious policies to control coal use, spurred by the air pollution crisis, along with policies to diversify the economy away from energy-intensive industries, are strongly constraining coal consumption.

The country also appears to be moving away from plans to reduce pollution in urban areas by gasifying coal in more remote locations due to concerns over economic viability.

Though China’s coal use is unlikely to continue falling year on year an analysis by Greenpeace suggests that full implementation of China’s existing energy targets, including targets for renewable energy and controlling total energy consumption, could see coal use peak by 2020.

China recently required four provinces in the key economic regions to set absolute coal consumption reduction targets, in addition to four others that already have ambitious targets, the provinces consume over 600 million metric tons of coal per year, almost as much as India.

Coal generation capacity increasing – a contradiction?

While China’s coal consumption fell in 2014, coal-fired power generating capacity continues to grow rapidly. This apparent contradiction has led some observers to conclude that China’s coal consumption growth is bound to resume.

But the evidence suggests otherwise. Instead the continued buildup of coal-fired power plants represents an investment bubble that will burst as overcapacity becomes too large to ignore.

If there is one factoid that every media consumer knows about energy in China, it must be that the country is ‘building one coal power plant per week’.

While coal-fired power generation capacity growth has slowed from the peak years – 2006 saw the equivalent of 1.5 large units added every week – the rate of coal-fired power plant additions and construction initiations in China is still breathtaking

In 2014 39 GW were added, or three 1,000MW units every four weeks, up from 36 GW in 2013.

Coal plants built – but not used 

At the same time, power generation from coal fell by approximately 1.6% in 2014, due to record increases in power generation from hydropower, wind, solar, nuclear and gas, along with slower power consumption growth – contributing to the 2.9% overall fall in coal burning.

In fact, coal-fired capacity growth has outstripped coal-fired generation growth since 2011, leading to dramatically reduced capacity utilization (see graph, above right) and financial pain to power plant operators. The headline making the rounds in China is that capacity utilization, at 54%, was at its lowest level since the reforms of 1978, when statistics began to be made available.

The Obama – Xi deal on peaking China’s CO2 emissions before 2030 has grabbed the headlines in English-speaking media, leaving many observers with the impression that China is planning to slack for another 15 years before starting to pull its weight in cutting CO2.

However, real action is in the implementation of China’s energy targets for 2020 and the air pollution action plans for 2017. For the power sector, the most significant target is the objective for non-fossil energy to make up 15% of all energy consumed in China.

Hitting the 15% target will require raising share of renewable energy and nuclear power in power generation from 22% in 2013 to 33-35% in 2020. Gas-fired power generation is also forecast by the IEA to grow to around 5% of total power generation, implying that the share of coal will shrink to about 60% in 2020, from 72% in 2013.

This will require almost doubling non-fossil power generation from 2014 to 2020, meaning that, on average, non-fossil power generation will have increased as much as it did in 2014, every year until 2020.

As in so many other respects, the radical changes in 2014 were not a one-off anomaly, but the ‘new normal’.

No room for new coal power plants – so why build them?

As a result of booming non-fossil power generation, even assuming GDP growth of 7% per year until 2020, growth in coal-fired power generation will be limited to around 1.5% per year on average, slowing down towards 2020 as non-fossil generation additions are ramped up.

Together with a targeted 0.7% per year reduction in coal use per unit of power generated, this means that coal use growth in the power sector will average less than 1% and will stabilize before 2020. If capacity utilization is to return to financially sustainable levels, there is room for little more capacity to be added until 2020.

To grasp why coal-fired power plants can still get built in the face of a worsening overcapacity problem, it is necessary to understand the basics of China’s economic model.

The country’s growth miracle has been based on an economic system designed to enable extremely high levels of investment spending, particularly by state-owned companies and local governments.

These actors have a very liberal access to near-zero interest loans from state-owned banks, and state-owned companies are generally not required to pay dividends to the state, enabling (or forcing) them to re-invest their profits.

Investments do not need to be wise or profitable

Banks exercise minimal due diligence on loans, which have implicit government backing. As a result, investment spending now amounts to over $4 trillion per year, making up a staggering 50% of China’s GDP, higher than any other major economy in history, and compared to around 20% in developed economies.

This model served China well for decades, enabling the growth miracle and lifting hundreds of millions from poverty. However, finding profitable and sensible investment projects worth trillions of dollars every year is bound to become harder and harder as the investment boom goes on.

Recently published research estimated that 67 trillion yuan ($11 trillion) has been spent on projects that generated no or almost no economic output – ghost cities being the most famous example.

In this context, it is not too hard to see how investment in coal-fired power plants can speed way ahead of demand growth.

A new coal-fired power plant will still generate power and revenue even if there is overcapacity, as the lower capacity utilization gets spread across the entire coal power fleet and across all power plant operators.

What does continued coal-fired power buildup mean for the climate?

The conventional assumption in power business is that once a coal-fired power plant or other capital-intensive generating asset gets built, it will run pretty much at full steam for 40 years or more. Even if there is overcapacity at the moment, demand growth will raise utilization and the existing capacity will crowd out future investment.

However, this is not how things work in China. The government is not going to scrap the internationally pledged 15% non-fossil energy target for 2020 because of excess coal-fired capacity. Rather the overcapacity will lead to losses for power generators and will be eliminated by closing down older plants, as has happened with coal mining, steel and cement already.

Therefore, continued investment in coal-fired power plants does not mean locking in more coal-burning. It does, however, mean massive economic waste, and a missed opportunity to channel the investment spending into renewable energy, enabling even faster growth.

Furthermore, the underutilized coal-fired capacity can exacerbate the conflict between coal and variable renewable energy in the grid, as grid operators are known to curtail renewable power in favor of coal.

Hence, investment in coal-fired power plants needs to be rapidly scaled back by restricting approvals and finance. The first step has already been taken with China banning new coal power plants in its three key economic regions, home to one third of currently operating coal-fired capacity.

 

 

Lauri Myllyvirta writes for Greenpeace EnergyDesk on energy and climate issues in China and elsewhere.

This article combines two articles by Lauri Myllyvirta originally published on Greenpeace EnergyDesk:

 

Sources: The energy data is from China Statistical Yearbook 2014 except 2014 growth rates from National Bureau of Statistics of China: STATISTICAL COMMUNIQUÉ OF THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA ON THE 2014 NATIONAL ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT. February 26, 2015. CO2 emissions calculated using IPCC default emission factors. Oveall emissions data via @glenpeters. Graph of coal power plant utilization compiled from China Electricity Council statistical releases.

 

 




390825

China’s fossil fuel emissions fell 3% in 2014 Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




China’s coal consumption fell by 2.9% in 2014, according to newly released official Chinese energy data.

The data confirms earlier projections of a fall in coal use and 1% reduction in Carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel burning according to calculations based on the data (excel spreadsheet).

An initial analysis by Glen Peters suggests that equates to a 0.7% drop in overall emissions.

This is the first fall in China’s emissions from oil, gas and coal burning since the Asian economic crisis more than 15 years ago. It’s also the biggest recorded fall in 30 years, and the first time on record that emission fell while total energy consumption grew.

Coal consumption growth in China has been slowing down since 2012 suggesting that China’s coal use is no longer rising in line with economic output – so-called ‘de-coupling’.

Based on China Statistical Yearbook 2014, coal consumption growth slowed from an average of 6.1% per year between 2007-2011, to 2.6% on average between 2012-2013, while GDP growth averaged 10.5% and 7.7% per year, respectively.

Has China’s coal burn peaked?

China’s coal consumption growth was responsible for more than half of global CO2 emission growth in the past 10 years.

The fall in China’s coal consumption comes as China has set new global records for wind and solar installations and seen an increase in both economy-wide and power plant efficiency.

Ambitious policies to control coal use, spurred by the air pollution crisis, along with policies to diversify the economy away from energy-intensive industries, are strongly constraining coal consumption.

The country also appears to be moving away from plans to reduce pollution in urban areas by gasifying coal in more remote locations due to concerns over economic viability.

Though China’s coal use is unlikely to continue falling year on year an analysis by Greenpeace suggests that full implementation of China’s existing energy targets, including targets for renewable energy and controlling total energy consumption, could see coal use peak by 2020.

China recently required four provinces in the key economic regions to set absolute coal consumption reduction targets, in addition to four others that already have ambitious targets, the provinces consume over 600 million metric tons of coal per year, almost as much as India.

Coal generation capacity increasing – a contradiction?

While China’s coal consumption fell in 2014, coal-fired power generating capacity continues to grow rapidly. This apparent contradiction has led some observers to conclude that China’s coal consumption growth is bound to resume.

But the evidence suggests otherwise. Instead the continued buildup of coal-fired power plants represents an investment bubble that will burst as overcapacity becomes too large to ignore.

If there is one factoid that every media consumer knows about energy in China, it must be that the country is ‘building one coal power plant per week’.

While coal-fired power generation capacity growth has slowed from the peak years – 2006 saw the equivalent of 1.5 large units added every week – the rate of coal-fired power plant additions and construction initiations in China is still breathtaking

In 2014 39 GW were added, or three 1,000MW units every four weeks, up from 36 GW in 2013.

Coal plants built – but not used 

At the same time, power generation from coal fell by approximately 1.6% in 2014, due to record increases in power generation from hydropower, wind, solar, nuclear and gas, along with slower power consumption growth – contributing to the 2.9% overall fall in coal burning.

In fact, coal-fired capacity growth has outstripped coal-fired generation growth since 2011, leading to dramatically reduced capacity utilization (see graph, above right) and financial pain to power plant operators. The headline making the rounds in China is that capacity utilization, at 54%, was at its lowest level since the reforms of 1978, when statistics began to be made available.

The Obama – Xi deal on peaking China’s CO2 emissions before 2030 has grabbed the headlines in English-speaking media, leaving many observers with the impression that China is planning to slack for another 15 years before starting to pull its weight in cutting CO2.

However, real action is in the implementation of China’s energy targets for 2020 and the air pollution action plans for 2017. For the power sector, the most significant target is the objective for non-fossil energy to make up 15% of all energy consumed in China.

Hitting the 15% target will require raising share of renewable energy and nuclear power in power generation from 22% in 2013 to 33-35% in 2020. Gas-fired power generation is also forecast by the IEA to grow to around 5% of total power generation, implying that the share of coal will shrink to about 60% in 2020, from 72% in 2013.

This will require almost doubling non-fossil power generation from 2014 to 2020, meaning that, on average, non-fossil power generation will have increased as much as it did in 2014, every year until 2020.

As in so many other respects, the radical changes in 2014 were not a one-off anomaly, but the ‘new normal’.

No room for new coal power plants – so why build them?

As a result of booming non-fossil power generation, even assuming GDP growth of 7% per year until 2020, growth in coal-fired power generation will be limited to around 1.5% per year on average, slowing down towards 2020 as non-fossil generation additions are ramped up.

Together with a targeted 0.7% per year reduction in coal use per unit of power generated, this means that coal use growth in the power sector will average less than 1% and will stabilize before 2020. If capacity utilization is to return to financially sustainable levels, there is room for little more capacity to be added until 2020.

To grasp why coal-fired power plants can still get built in the face of a worsening overcapacity problem, it is necessary to understand the basics of China’s economic model.

The country’s growth miracle has been based on an economic system designed to enable extremely high levels of investment spending, particularly by state-owned companies and local governments.

These actors have a very liberal access to near-zero interest loans from state-owned banks, and state-owned companies are generally not required to pay dividends to the state, enabling (or forcing) them to re-invest their profits.

Investments do not need to be wise or profitable

Banks exercise minimal due diligence on loans, which have implicit government backing. As a result, investment spending now amounts to over $4 trillion per year, making up a staggering 50% of China’s GDP, higher than any other major economy in history, and compared to around 20% in developed economies.

This model served China well for decades, enabling the growth miracle and lifting hundreds of millions from poverty. However, finding profitable and sensible investment projects worth trillions of dollars every year is bound to become harder and harder as the investment boom goes on.

Recently published research estimated that 67 trillion yuan ($11 trillion) has been spent on projects that generated no or almost no economic output – ghost cities being the most famous example.

In this context, it is not too hard to see how investment in coal-fired power plants can speed way ahead of demand growth.

A new coal-fired power plant will still generate power and revenue even if there is overcapacity, as the lower capacity utilization gets spread across the entire coal power fleet and across all power plant operators.

What does continued coal-fired power buildup mean for the climate?

The conventional assumption in power business is that once a coal-fired power plant or other capital-intensive generating asset gets built, it will run pretty much at full steam for 40 years or more. Even if there is overcapacity at the moment, demand growth will raise utilization and the existing capacity will crowd out future investment.

However, this is not how things work in China. The government is not going to scrap the internationally pledged 15% non-fossil energy target for 2020 because of excess coal-fired capacity. Rather the overcapacity will lead to losses for power generators and will be eliminated by closing down older plants, as has happened with coal mining, steel and cement already.

Therefore, continued investment in coal-fired power plants does not mean locking in more coal-burning. It does, however, mean massive economic waste, and a missed opportunity to channel the investment spending into renewable energy, enabling even faster growth.

Furthermore, the underutilized coal-fired capacity can exacerbate the conflict between coal and variable renewable energy in the grid, as grid operators are known to curtail renewable power in favor of coal.

Hence, investment in coal-fired power plants needs to be rapidly scaled back by restricting approvals and finance. The first step has already been taken with China banning new coal power plants in its three key economic regions, home to one third of currently operating coal-fired capacity.

 

 

Lauri Myllyvirta writes for Greenpeace EnergyDesk on energy and climate issues in China and elsewhere.

This article combines two articles by Lauri Myllyvirta originally published on Greenpeace EnergyDesk:

 

Sources: The energy data is from China Statistical Yearbook 2014 except 2014 growth rates from National Bureau of Statistics of China: STATISTICAL COMMUNIQUÉ OF THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA ON THE 2014 NATIONAL ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT. February 26, 2015. CO2 emissions calculated using IPCC default emission factors. Oveall emissions data via @glenpeters. Graph of coal power plant utilization compiled from China Electricity Council statistical releases.

 

 




390825

China’s fossil fuel emissions fell 3% in 2014 Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




China’s coal consumption fell by 2.9% in 2014, according to newly released official Chinese energy data.

The data confirms earlier projections of a fall in coal use and 1% reduction in Carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel burning according to calculations based on the data (excel spreadsheet).

An initial analysis by Glen Peters suggests that equates to a 0.7% drop in overall emissions.

This is the first fall in China’s emissions from oil, gas and coal burning since the Asian economic crisis more than 15 years ago. It’s also the biggest recorded fall in 30 years, and the first time on record that emission fell while total energy consumption grew.

Coal consumption growth in China has been slowing down since 2012 suggesting that China’s coal use is no longer rising in line with economic output – so-called ‘de-coupling’.

Based on China Statistical Yearbook 2014, coal consumption growth slowed from an average of 6.1% per year between 2007-2011, to 2.6% on average between 2012-2013, while GDP growth averaged 10.5% and 7.7% per year, respectively.

Has China’s coal burn peaked?

China’s coal consumption growth was responsible for more than half of global CO2 emission growth in the past 10 years.

The fall in China’s coal consumption comes as China has set new global records for wind and solar installations and seen an increase in both economy-wide and power plant efficiency.

Ambitious policies to control coal use, spurred by the air pollution crisis, along with policies to diversify the economy away from energy-intensive industries, are strongly constraining coal consumption.

The country also appears to be moving away from plans to reduce pollution in urban areas by gasifying coal in more remote locations due to concerns over economic viability.

Though China’s coal use is unlikely to continue falling year on year an analysis by Greenpeace suggests that full implementation of China’s existing energy targets, including targets for renewable energy and controlling total energy consumption, could see coal use peak by 2020.

China recently required four provinces in the key economic regions to set absolute coal consumption reduction targets, in addition to four others that already have ambitious targets, the provinces consume over 600 million metric tons of coal per year, almost as much as India.

Coal generation capacity increasing – a contradiction?

While China’s coal consumption fell in 2014, coal-fired power generating capacity continues to grow rapidly. This apparent contradiction has led some observers to conclude that China’s coal consumption growth is bound to resume.

But the evidence suggests otherwise. Instead the continued buildup of coal-fired power plants represents an investment bubble that will burst as overcapacity becomes too large to ignore.

If there is one factoid that every media consumer knows about energy in China, it must be that the country is ‘building one coal power plant per week’.

While coal-fired power generation capacity growth has slowed from the peak years – 2006 saw the equivalent of 1.5 large units added every week – the rate of coal-fired power plant additions and construction initiations in China is still breathtaking

In 2014 39 GW were added, or three 1,000MW units every four weeks, up from 36 GW in 2013.

Coal plants built – but not used 

At the same time, power generation from coal fell by approximately 1.6% in 2014, due to record increases in power generation from hydropower, wind, solar, nuclear and gas, along with slower power consumption growth – contributing to the 2.9% overall fall in coal burning.

In fact, coal-fired capacity growth has outstripped coal-fired generation growth since 2011, leading to dramatically reduced capacity utilization (see graph, above right) and financial pain to power plant operators. The headline making the rounds in China is that capacity utilization, at 54%, was at its lowest level since the reforms of 1978, when statistics began to be made available.

The Obama – Xi deal on peaking China’s CO2 emissions before 2030 has grabbed the headlines in English-speaking media, leaving many observers with the impression that China is planning to slack for another 15 years before starting to pull its weight in cutting CO2.

However, real action is in the implementation of China’s energy targets for 2020 and the air pollution action plans for 2017. For the power sector, the most significant target is the objective for non-fossil energy to make up 15% of all energy consumed in China.

Hitting the 15% target will require raising share of renewable energy and nuclear power in power generation from 22% in 2013 to 33-35% in 2020. Gas-fired power generation is also forecast by the IEA to grow to around 5% of total power generation, implying that the share of coal will shrink to about 60% in 2020, from 72% in 2013.

This will require almost doubling non-fossil power generation from 2014 to 2020, meaning that, on average, non-fossil power generation will have increased as much as it did in 2014, every year until 2020.

As in so many other respects, the radical changes in 2014 were not a one-off anomaly, but the ‘new normal’.

No room for new coal power plants – so why build them?

As a result of booming non-fossil power generation, even assuming GDP growth of 7% per year until 2020, growth in coal-fired power generation will be limited to around 1.5% per year on average, slowing down towards 2020 as non-fossil generation additions are ramped up.

Together with a targeted 0.7% per year reduction in coal use per unit of power generated, this means that coal use growth in the power sector will average less than 1% and will stabilize before 2020. If capacity utilization is to return to financially sustainable levels, there is room for little more capacity to be added until 2020.

To grasp why coal-fired power plants can still get built in the face of a worsening overcapacity problem, it is necessary to understand the basics of China’s economic model.

The country’s growth miracle has been based on an economic system designed to enable extremely high levels of investment spending, particularly by state-owned companies and local governments.

These actors have a very liberal access to near-zero interest loans from state-owned banks, and state-owned companies are generally not required to pay dividends to the state, enabling (or forcing) them to re-invest their profits.

Investments do not need to be wise or profitable

Banks exercise minimal due diligence on loans, which have implicit government backing. As a result, investment spending now amounts to over $4 trillion per year, making up a staggering 50% of China’s GDP, higher than any other major economy in history, and compared to around 20% in developed economies.

This model served China well for decades, enabling the growth miracle and lifting hundreds of millions from poverty. However, finding profitable and sensible investment projects worth trillions of dollars every year is bound to become harder and harder as the investment boom goes on.

Recently published research estimated that 67 trillion yuan ($11 trillion) has been spent on projects that generated no or almost no economic output – ghost cities being the most famous example.

In this context, it is not too hard to see how investment in coal-fired power plants can speed way ahead of demand growth.

A new coal-fired power plant will still generate power and revenue even if there is overcapacity, as the lower capacity utilization gets spread across the entire coal power fleet and across all power plant operators.

What does continued coal-fired power buildup mean for the climate?

The conventional assumption in power business is that once a coal-fired power plant or other capital-intensive generating asset gets built, it will run pretty much at full steam for 40 years or more. Even if there is overcapacity at the moment, demand growth will raise utilization and the existing capacity will crowd out future investment.

However, this is not how things work in China. The government is not going to scrap the internationally pledged 15% non-fossil energy target for 2020 because of excess coal-fired capacity. Rather the overcapacity will lead to losses for power generators and will be eliminated by closing down older plants, as has happened with coal mining, steel and cement already.

Therefore, continued investment in coal-fired power plants does not mean locking in more coal-burning. It does, however, mean massive economic waste, and a missed opportunity to channel the investment spending into renewable energy, enabling even faster growth.

Furthermore, the underutilized coal-fired capacity can exacerbate the conflict between coal and variable renewable energy in the grid, as grid operators are known to curtail renewable power in favor of coal.

Hence, investment in coal-fired power plants needs to be rapidly scaled back by restricting approvals and finance. The first step has already been taken with China banning new coal power plants in its three key economic regions, home to one third of currently operating coal-fired capacity.

 

 

Lauri Myllyvirta writes for Greenpeace EnergyDesk on energy and climate issues in China and elsewhere.

This article combines two articles by Lauri Myllyvirta originally published on Greenpeace EnergyDesk:

 

Sources: The energy data is from China Statistical Yearbook 2014 except 2014 growth rates from National Bureau of Statistics of China: STATISTICAL COMMUNIQUÉ OF THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA ON THE 2014 NATIONAL ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT. February 26, 2015. CO2 emissions calculated using IPCC default emission factors. Oveall emissions data via @glenpeters. Graph of coal power plant utilization compiled from China Electricity Council statistical releases.

 

 




390825

Survivable IPCC projections are based on science fiction – the reality is much worse Updated for 2026

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The IPPC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) published in their latest report, AR5, a set of ‘Representative Concentration Pathways’ (RCP’s).

These RCP’s (see graph, right) consist of four scenarios that project global temperature rises based on different quantities of greenhouse gas concentrations.

The scenarios are assumed to all be linked directly to emissions scenarios. The more carbon we emit then the hotter it gets. Currently humanity is on the worst case scenario of RCP 8.5 which takes us to 2°C warming by mid century and 4°C warming by the end of the century.

As Professor Schellnhuber, from Potsdam Institute for Climate Research (PIK) said, “the difference between two and four degrees is human civilisation.”

In 2009 the International Union of Forest Research Organisations delivered a report to the UN that stated that the natural carbon sink of trees could be lost at a 2.5°C temperature increase.

The ranges for RCP 4.5 and RCP 6 both take us over 2.5°C and any idea that we can survive when the tree sink flips from being a carbon sink to a carbon source is delusional.

Where does this leave us?

Of the four shown RCP’s only one keeps us within the range that climate scientists regard as survivable. This is RCP 2.6 that has a projected temperature range of 0.9°C and 2.3°C.

Considering we are currently at 0.85°C above the preindustrial level of greenhouse gas concentrations, we are already entering the range and as Professor Martin Rees says: “I honestly would bet, sad though it is, that the annual CO2 emissions are going to rise year by year for at least the next 20 years and that will build up accumulative levels close to 500 parts per million.”

The recent US / China agreement supports Rees’s contentions. But even if Rees is wrong and we do manage to curtail our carbon emissions, a closer look at RCP 2.6 shows something much more disturbing.

In his image (see graph, right), IPCC SMP Expert Reviewer David Tattershall has inserted vertical red lines to mark the decades between years 2000 and 2100. Within this 21st Century range he has also highlighted a steep decline in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases (shown by the steep declining thick red line).

It is interesting that concerted action for emissions reductions is timed to occur just beyond the date for the implementation of a supposed legally binding international agreement.

Stopping emissions does not reduce atmospheric carbon. The emissions to date are colossal and the warming effect is delayed by around 40 years. Therefore, even if we halt emissions, we know there is much more warming to come. That will also set off other positive feedbacks along the way that will amplify the warming further, stretching over centuries.

So how does the IPCC achieve these vast reductions in greenhouse gases?

If we look at the vertical red lines, at around 2025 the steep decline in atmospheric greenhouse gases begins. Accumulated emissions not only are reduced to zero in 2070 but actually go negative.

This chart shows that carbon is removed from the atmosphere in quantities of hundreds of billions of tonnes, for as far ahead as 2300 to sustain a temperature beneath 2°C.

What makes this idea of projected large-scale Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) even more perverse is the talk by policymakers of a “carbon budget”. This refers to the amount of fossil fuel that can be burned before we are at risk of reaching a 2°C rise in global mean temperature.

It is quite clear that we have no carbon budget whatsoever. The account, far from being in surplus, is horrendously overdrawn. To claim we have a few decades of safely burning coal, oil and gas is an utter nonsense.

Sequestering billions of tonnes of carbon for centuries

If all of the above has not raised any alarm bells then perhaps it is time to consider the proposed methods for sucking the billions of tonnes of carbon out of the atmosphere.

In February 2015 the National Research Council in the United States launched their two reports on “climate interventions”. Dr Nutt concluded with this statement on CDR:

“Carbon Dioxide Removal strategies offer the potential to decrease carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere but they are limited right now by their slow response, by their inability to scale up and their high cost.”

Dr Nutt’s conclusion points to very important factor that we can elaborate on with a rare case of certainty. There is no proposed CDR technology that can be scaled up to suck billions of tonnes out of the Earth’s atmosphere. It simply does not exist in the real world.

This is reiterated by Dr Hugh Hunt in the Department of Engineering, at the University of Cambridge, who points out:

“10 billion tonnes a year of carbon sequestration? We don’t do anything on this planet on that scale. We don’t manufacture food on that scale, we don’t mine iron ore on that scale. We don’t even produce coal, oil or gas on that scale. Iron ore is below a billion tonnes a year! How are we going to create a technology, from scratch, a highly complicated technology, to the tune of 10 billion tonnes a year in the next 10 years?”

Science fiction

It is not just that there are currently no ideas being researched to such a degree where they are likely to be able to bring down atmospheric carbon to a safe level of around 300 parts per million. It is also that the level of funding available to the scientists doing the research is woefully inadequate.

These RCP’s are used by policymakers to decide what actions are required to sustain a safe climate for our own and future generations. The information they are using, presented by the IPCC, is nothing more than science fiction.

It makes for sober thinking when glossy images of President Obama and the Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao, are presented to the world shaking hands on global emissions reductions by 2030 that we know will commit us to catastrophe.

 

 

Nick Breeze is a film maker and writer on climate change and other environmental topics. He has been interviewing a range of experts relating to the field of climate change and science for over five years. These include interviews with Dr James Hansen, Professor Martin Rees, Professor James Lovelock, Dr Rowan Williams, Dr Natalia Shakhova, Dr Michael Mann, Dr Hugh Hunt, among others.

Additional articles can also be read on his blog Envisionation.

 

 




390807

COP20: an agreement of sorts. Now, a rocky climate road to Paris Updated for 2026

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A deal struck in Lima between 196 nations yesterday leaves open the possibility of saving the planet from dangerous overheating. But its critics say the prospects of success are now slim.

The talks – which ran two days longer than scheduled – set a series of deadlines which mean that every nation is charged with producing its plans to cap and reduce emissions and adapt to climate change.

These commitments will then be assessed to see if they are enough to prevent the world heating up more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels, the threshold political leaders say must not be crossed in order to avoid dangerous climate change.

The Lima agreement invites all countries to set out their plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 31 March. The next step will be to draft a legally binding international agreement on how to get below the 2°C threshold. This text is to be made available to all countries for comment by May 2015.

All eyes on Paris

By 1st November the secretariat of the UN Climate Change Convention is supposed to have assessed whether the commitment of these 196 nations is enough to stop the world overheating – and, if it is not, to point out by how far they will miss the target.

All this is to set the stage for a dramatic final negotiation in Paris in a year’s time, when a blueprint for a legally enforceable deal is supposed to be on the table. This is a tall order, however, because each time the parties meet the rich and poor countries wage the same arguments over again.

The developing countries say the rich developed countries that caused the problem in the first place must make deep cuts in their emissions and pay huge sums for the poorer countries to adapt to climate change.

The rich countries say that the fast industrialisation of many developing countries means that these countries must cut emissions too, otherwise the world will overheat anyway.

The poorest countries of all, and the small island states, who everyone agrees have no responsibility for the problem, want much more dramatic curbs on emissions, and more money for adaptation to sea level rise and climate extremes than is likely to be forthcoming.

The new climate reality: China, India, Brazil are now big-scale emitters

The talks take place amid their own jargon, with phrases like the “principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in light of different national circumstances” seen as essential to point up the difference between rich and poor nations and what they are expected to do.

The talks have dragged on for 15 years since the signing of the Kyoto Protocol, in which the rich nations agreed to the first cuts in emissions while allowing the poorer nations to continue developing.

Now that China has overtaken the US as the world’s biggest polluter, and countries like Brazil and India are fast catching up, the scientific case is that every country has to curb its emissions, or else everyone faces disaster.

But whether the talks have gone far enough to allow a deal to be reached in Paris next year is a matter of many opinions.

“As a text it’s not perfect, but it includes the positions of the parties”, said Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, the Peruvian environment minister, who presided over the talks and must have been relieved he got a text on which every country was prepared to agree.

Eco-NGO’s caustic reaction

Environmental groups were scathing about the outcome. Sam Smith, chief of climate policy for WWF, said: “The text went from weak to weaker to weakest and it’s very weak indeed.

“Governments crucially failed to agree on specific plans to cut emissions before 2020 … The science is clear that delaying action until 2020 will make it near-impossible to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, yet political expediency won over scientific urgency.”

“It’s definitely watered down from what we expected”, said Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists. “There are deep and long-standing divisions on major issues including climate finance, which countries are more obligated to take action to reduce emissions, and whether to give greater priority to adaptation.

“These divisions nearly derailed the process in Lima; if they aren’t addressed, they threaten to block an agreement in Paris.”

Another problem, he added, was that many of the proposals made by the industrialised countries were obscure and incomplete: “The resistance by some countries to allowing scrutiny of their proposals is troubling.”

All eyes to Paris 2015

Friends of the Earth’s International’s Asad Rehman was equally scathing. “The only thing these talks have achieved is to reduce the chances of a fair and effective agreement to tackle climate change in Paris next year”, he said.

“Once again poorer nations have been bullied by the industrialised world into accepting an outcome which leaves many of their citizens facing the grim prospect of catastrophic climate change. We have the ingenuity and resources to build the low carbon future we so urgently need – but we still lack the political will.

“With the world speeding towards catastrophic climate change, wealthy industrialised nations who have contributed most to our polluted atmosphere must take the lead in tackling this threat. The next 12 months are crucial – failure to act will have a devastating impact on us all.”

FOEI says a number of key areas must be resolved if a fair and meaningful agreement is to be reached in Paris next year, including:

  • Wealthy industrialised nations must pledge bigger cuts in their emissions by 2020;
  • Wealthy industrialised nations must provide adequatefinance and technology to enable developing countries to tackle climate change and adapt to its impacts and support those already being impacted;
  • Wealthy industrialised nations must provide the finance and technology for a global renewable energy transformation;
  • All countries to commit to doing their fair share of effort to keep temps below 1.5C.

Catch-up time – but it can be done!

But those not keen on limiting their own development were happy. “We got what we wanted”, said Prakash Javadekar, India’s environment minister.

Despite the different views the talks did not break down, and so there is still hope. This assessment from Mohammed Adow, Christian Aid’s senior climate change adviser, probably accurately sums up the Lima result:

“The countdown clock to Paris is now ticking. Countries had the chance to give themselves a head start on the road to Paris but instead have missed the gun and now need to play catch-up.”

And Meyer says there is still hope that things may come good at Paris in 2015: “While the Lima summit fell short of expectations, the pressure is still on countries to put forward their best emissions reduction offers early next year.

“The good news is that the world’s three largest emitters – China, Europe, and the US – have already committed to do so, and others are expected to join them.”

 

 

Paul Brown writes for Climate News Network.

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

 




388160

COP20: an agrement of sorts. Now, a rocky climate road to Paris Updated for 2026

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A deal struck in Lima between 196 nations yesterday leaves open the possibility of saving the planet from dangerous overheating. But its critics say the prospects of success are now slim.

The talks – which ran two days longer than scheduled – set a series of deadlines which mean that every nation is charged with producing its plans to cap and reduce emissions and adapt to climate change.

These commitments will then be assessed to see if they are enough to prevent the world heating up more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels, the threshold political leaders say must not be crossed in order to avoid dangerous climate change.

The Lima agreement invites all countries to set out their plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 31 March. The next step will be to draft a legally binding international agreement on how to get below the 2°C threshold. This text is to be made available to all countries for comment by May 2015.

All eyes on Paris

By 1st November the secretariat of the UN Climate Change Convention is supposed to have assessed whether the commitment of these 196 nations is enough to stop the world overheating – and, if it is not, to point out by how far they will miss the target.

All this is to set the stage for a dramatic final negotiation in Paris in a year’s time, when a blueprint for a legally enforceable deal is supposed to be on the table. This is a tall order, however, because each time the parties meet the rich and poor countries wage the same arguments over again.

The developing countries say the rich developed countries that caused the problem in the first place must make deep cuts in their emissions and pay huge sums for the poorer countries to adapt to climate change.

The rich countries say that the fast industrialisation of many developing countries means that these countries must cut emissions too, otherwise the world will overheat anyway.

The poorest countries of all, and the small island states, who everyone agrees have no responsibility for the problem, want much more dramatic curbs on emissions, and more money for adaptation to sea level rise and climate extremes than is likely to be forthcoming.

The new climate reality: China, India, Brazil are now big-scale emitters

The talks take place amid their own jargon, with phrases like the “principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in light of different national circumstances” seen as essential to point up the difference between rich and poor nations and what they are expected to do.

The talks have dragged on for 15 years since the signing of the Kyoto Protocol, in which the rich nations agreed to the first cuts in emissions while allowing the poorer nations to continue developing.

Now that China has overtaken the US as the world’s biggest polluter, and countries like Brazil and India are fast catching up, the scientific case is that every country has to curb its emissions, or else everyone faces disaster.

But whether the talks have gone far enough to allow a deal to be reached in Paris next year is a matter of many opinions.

“As a text it’s not perfect, but it includes the positions of the parties”, said Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, the Peruvian environment minister, who presided over the talks and must have been relieved he got a text on which every country was prepared to agree.

Eco-NGO’s caustic reaction

Environmental groups were scathing about the outcome. Sam Smith, chief of climate policy for WWF, said: “The text went from weak to weaker to weakest and it’s very weak indeed.

“Governments crucially failed to agree on specific plans to cut emissions before 2020 … The science is clear that delaying action until 2020 will make it near-impossible to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, yet political expediency won over scientific urgency.”

“It’s definitely watered down from what we expected”, said Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists. “There are deep and long-standing divisions on major issues including climate finance, which countries are more obligated to take action to reduce emissions, and whether to give greater priority to adaptation.

“These divisions nearly derailed the process in Lima; if they aren’t addressed, they threaten to block an agreement in Paris.”

Another problem, he added, was that many of the proposals made by the industrialised countries were obscure and incomplete: “The resistance by some countries to allowing scrutiny of their proposals is troubling.”

All eyes to Paris 2015

Friends of the Earth’s International’s Asad Rehman was equally scathing. “The only thing these talks have achieved is to reduce the chances of a fair and effective agreement to tackle climate change in Paris next year”, he said.

“Once again poorer nations have been bullied by the industrialised world into accepting an outcome which leaves many of their citizens facing the grim prospect of catastrophic climate change. We have the ingenuity and resources to build the low carbon future we so urgently need – but we still lack the political will.

“With the world speeding towards catastrophic climate change, wealthy industrialised nations who have contributed most to our polluted atmosphere must take the lead in tackling this threat. The next 12 months are crucial – failure to act will have a devastating impact on us all.”

FOEI says a number of key areas must be resolved if a fair and meaningful agreement is to be reached in Paris next year, including:

  • Wealthy industrialised nations must pledge bigger cuts in their emissions by 2020;
  • Wealthy industrialised nations must provide adequatefinance and technology to enable developing countries to tackle climate change and adapt to its impacts and support those already being impacted;
  • Wealthy industrialised nations must provide the finance and technology for a global renewable energy transformation;
  • All countries to commit to doing their fair share of effort to keep temps below 1.5C.

Catch-up time – but it can be done!

But those not keen on limiting their own development were happy. “We got what we wanted”, said Prakash Javadekar, India’s environment minister.

Despite the different views the talks did not break down, and so there is still hope. This assessment from Mohammed Adow, Christian Aid’s senior climate change adviser, probably accurately sums up the Lima result:

“The countdown clock to Paris is now ticking. Countries had the chance to give themselves a head start on the road to Paris but instead have missed the gun and now need to play catch-up.”

And Meyer says there is still hope that things may come good at Paris in 2015: “While the Lima summit fell short of expectations, the pressure is still on countries to put forward their best emissions reduction offers early next year.

“The good news is that the world’s three largest emitters – China, Europe, and the US – have already committed to do so, and others are expected to join them.”

 

 

Paul Brown writes for Climate News Network.

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

 




388160

BLM sued – no environmental review of coal leasing since 1979 Updated for 2026

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It has been 35 years since the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) last performed an environmental review of its coal leasing program.

But now two environmental groups are suing the BLM to force a review of the program.

Given advances in scientific knowledge of the risks posed by mining and burning coal to human health and Earth’s climate made since 1979, the groups argue that the review will

“compel the Bureau of Land Management to deliver on its legal obligation to promote environmentally responsible management of public lands on behalf of the citizens of the United States.”

Friends of the Earth and the Western Organization of Resource Councils filed the lawsuit in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, naming Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell and BLM Director Neil Kornze as lead defendants, along with the Department of the Interior and the BLM.

BLM coal producing 14% of US’s CO2 emissions

Citing requirements under the National Environmental Policy Act and the Administrative Procedure Act, the complaint states:

“Even though coal mined under the federal coal management program is one of the single greatest contributors to US greenhouse gas emissions, constituting approximately 14% of annual carbon dioxide emissions and 11% of annual greenhouse gas emissions, BLM has unlawfully failed to evaluate and consider these environmental effects.”

The lawsuit comes as President Obama is arguably getting tougher than ever on climate action, having recently signed a non-binding climate deal with Chinain which both countries pledge to lower emissions. Obama’s EPA is also pursuing the Clean Power Plan, which aims to rein in emissions from power plants, especially those that are coal-fired.

“There is an inconsistency between the President’s declared policy on global warming and the coal leasing policy of the BLM”, Ben Schreiber, Friends of the Earth’s Climate and Energy Program Director, said in a press release.

“The lawsuit is saying, under the law, the BLM must provide an updated programmatic environmental impact statement that examines the contribution of mining and combustion of BLM coal to climate change and consider alternative energy policy options that would help reduce global warming.”

40% of US coal produced under BLM leases

According to the BLM website, the agency is responsible for coal leasing on 570 million acres of land owned by the federal government, and receives revenues at three points: when it issues a lease, via annual rental payments of $3.00 per acre “or a fraction thereof”, and as royalties based on the value of the coal once it is mined. The state where the coal was mined also gets a share of the revenue.

The BLM does not comment on pending litigation, but its website states: “The BLM works to ensure that the development of coal resources is done in an environmentally sound manner and is in the best interests of the Nation.”

While its ‘Suitable Lands for Coal Leasing’ guidelines list “protection of critical environmental areas” as a requirement, there is no mention of climate change implications.

The amount of coal mined through the lease program has doubled since 1990, according to Bloomberg, and now constitutes as much as 40% of coal extraction in the US.

The Powder River Basin, which extends from central Wyoming into southern Montana and produces 41% of US coal, is the region with the most federal coal leases, producing more than 80% of coal mined from federal lands.

Local impacts: toxic emissions, polluted aquifers

“People living in the Powder River Basin have endured many hardships not predicted in the outdated environmental studies”, Bob LeResche, a rancher from Clearmont, WY who serves as a Vice Chair of WORC, said in a statement.

Impacts include “lack of access to grazing lands, un-restored groundwater aquifers, toxic emissions from explosions, costly and dangerous railroad traffic in major cities to name a few.

“A full environmental study will enable the BLM to fulfill their duty to promote environmentally responsible management of public lands in light of climate change on behalf of the citizens of the United States.”

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen is underwriting the lawsuit via his Paul G. Allen Family Foundation.

“More than 40 percent of all the coal mined in the United States is owned by US taxpayers, yet the BLM has not fulfilled its obligation to manage these resources responsibly”, said Dune Ives, co-manager of the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation.

“The American people should not have to go to court to get the government to do its job, but we need to do what’s necessary to protect our lands for future generations.”

 

 

Mike Gaworecki is an activist, writer, and musician who lives in San Francisco. He has several years’ experience as an online campaigner working on energy, climate, and forest issues for organizations like Greenpeace and the Rainforest Action Network. His writing has appeared on The Ecologist, Alternet.org, Treehugger.org, Change.org, HuffingtonPost.com, and more.

This article was originally published on DeSmogBlog.

 




387881

There’s no place for nuclear in the ‘Clean Power Plan’ Updated for 2026

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Dear Administrator Gina McCarthy,

We strongly support the Environmental Protection Agency’s goals in the Clean Power Plan draft regulation, and we are grateful for the agency’s leadership in setting a critical policy for reducing emissions from the electricity generation sector.

We also appreciate the fact that the Clean Power Plan’s purpose is to create enforceable goals for states to reduce emissions, and a framework (the Best System of Emissions Reduction / BSER) for them to implement and comply with the targets.

The framework must be flexible and adaptable, to account for technological advances and regional differences in energy resources and regulatory systems, but it must also encourage rational and effective policies.

Unfortunately, the treatment of nuclear energy in the draft rule is unsupported by meaningful analysis, and would make it possible for states to implement the rule in ways that are counterproductive to the Clean Power Plan’s purpose of reducing emissions.

The role of nuclear power must be re-evaluated

We are, additionally, very concerned about industry proposals to expand provisions to encourage nuclear. We urge the EPA to conduct a thorough and fact-based analysis of nuclear, and to do the following:

  1. Remove the preservation of existing nuclear reactors from the BSER.
  2. Do not force Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee to finish building new reactors.
  3. Conduct a thorough and accurate analysis of the environmental impacts of nuclear power, from radioactive waste and uranium mining to reactor accidents and water use.
  4. Recognize and incorporate the much greater role renewable energy and efficiency can, will, and must play in reducing carbon emissions and replacing both fossil fuels and nuclear.

We recognize that the EPA has undertaken a monumental task in developing the Clean Power Plan – perhaps the most important single step in setting the U.S. on the path to reducing emissions enough to avert the worst of global warming and climate change.

It is essential that we begin making substantial reductions in emissions immediately, and that the institutional inertia and narrow self-interest of utilities and major power companies do not stand in the way of deploying the most cost-effective and environmentally sustainable energy solutions.

For that very reason, it is important the regulation ensures states do not get off on the wrong foot and implement the rule in ways that are counterproductive.

False and irrational assumptions

Unfortunately, the Clean Power Plan’s treatment of nuclear incentivizes the preservation and expansion of a technology that is and has always been the most expensive, inflexible, and dangerous complement to fossil fuels.

The Clean Power Plan incorporates nuclear into the BSER in two ways:

  • Assumes five new reactors will be completed and brought online in the states of Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee, and irrationally estimates the cost of doing so as $0. In fact, billions more remain to be spent on these reactors and there is a great deal of uncertainty about when, if ever, they will be completed, facing years of delays and billions in cost overruns. The cost assumption would force states to complete the reactors no matter the cost, rather than enabling them to choose better ways to meet their emissions goals. Even though renewables and efficiency could be deployed at lower cost than nuclear, the draft rule would make it look like they are much more expensive because of the zero-cost assumption about completing the reactors.
  • Encourages states to ‘preserve’ reactors economically at-risk of being closed, equivalent to 6% of each state’s existing nuclear generation. While it is true that about 6% of the nation’s operating reactors may close for economic reasons, this provision encourages every state to subsidize existing reactors, greatly underestimates the cost of doing so, and overestimates their role in reducing emissions. Uneconomical reactors have high and rising operating costs, and cannot compete with renewables and efficiency. If anything, EPA should simply recommend that low-carbon energy sources be replaced with other low-carbon resources, but singling out nuclear for ‘preservation’ suggests it is better for states to lock themselves into obsolete and increasingly uneconomical nuclear.

The rule also says states may utilize two other ways of adding nuclear capacity as options for achieving the goals, even though they are not incorporated in the BSER:

  • New reactors other than those currently in construction. EPA recognizes that new nuclear is too expensive to be included in the BSER, so it should not suggest states consider it as a way of meeting their emissions goals.
  • Power uprate modifications to increase the generation capacity of existing reactors. Power uprates are capital-intensive and expensive, and several recent projects have been cancelled or suffered major cost overruns, in the case of Minnesota’s Monticello reactor, at a total cost greater than most new reactors ($10 million/megawatt). [1]

Rather than suggesting states waste resources on nuclear generation too expensive and infeasible to be included in the BSER, EPA should include an analysis of these problems so that states can better evaluate their options and select lower-cost, more reliable means for reducing emissions, such as renewables and efficiency.

Serious nuclear concerns ignored

The Clean Power Plan also considers some non-air quality impacts of nuclear generation, as it is required to do under the Clean Air Act. However, the EPA’s evaluation is both woefully incomplete and alarmingly inadequate. EPA dismisses concerns about radioactive waste and nuclear power’s impact on water resources, simply characterizing them as equivalent to problems with fossil fuel generation.

In fact, radioactive waste is an intractable problem that threatens the environment for potentially hundreds of thousands of years. In addition, nuclear reactors’ use of water is more intensive than fossil fuel technologies, and a majority of existing reactors utilize the most water-intensive once-through cooling systems.

Regardless, however, rather than only comparing them to fossil fuels, EPA should have compared these impacts to the full range of alternatives, including renewables and efficiency, which do not have such problems.

EPA leaves out a host of other environmental impacts unique to nuclear, including uranium mining and nuclear accidents.

There are over 10,000 abandoned uranium mines throughout the US, which are subject to lax environmental standards, pose major groundwater and public health risks, present serious environmental justice concerns, and could entail billions in site cleanup and remediation costs.

The failure to consider the impacts of a nuclear accident is a glaring oversight, in the wake of the Fukushima disaster. EPA must consider both the environmental and economic impact of nuclear accidents.

Renewables can do the job!

In general, the Clean Power Plan’s consideration of nuclear appears to be based on a dangerous fallacy: that closed reactors must be replaced with fossil fuel generation, presumably because other low- / zero-carbon resources could not make up the difference.

In fact, renewable energy growth has surpassed all other forms of new generation for going on three years, making up 48% of all new electricity generation brought online from 2011 to July 2014. [2]

The growth rate of wind energy alone (up to 12,000 MW per year) would be sufficient to replace all of the ‘at-risk’ nuclear capacity within two years, at lower cost than the market price of electricity, [3] let alone at the subsidized rate for nuclear the draft rule suggests.

Assuming that closed reactors will be replaced with fossil fuel generation both encourages states to waste resources trying to ‘preserve’ (or even build) uneconomical reactors rather than on more cost-effective and productive investments in renewables and efficiency.

While states are free to develop their implementation plans without using the specific energy sources included in the BSER, the rule should not promote such foolishness.

No amount of spending or subsidies for nuclear has been effective at reducing the technology’s costs nor overcoming lengthy construction times and delays, whereas spending on renewables and efficiency has had the effect of lowering their costs and increasing their rate of deployment.

The economic problems facing currently operating reactors merely underscore the point that nuclear is not a cost-effective way of reducing emissions.

We are hopeful that the Clean Power Plan will be a watershed in setting the country on a path to emissions reductions and climate action, and we are grateful to the EPA for taking this step.

We believe that correcting the problems with the way nuclear is considered in the draft rule, and increasing the role of renewables and efficiency, will make the Clean Power Plan much stronger and lead states to implement it more productively and cost-effectively.

 

 

Action – organizations: Make sure your organization is signed on to our comments on the Clean Power Plan, which expand on the points above. The comments, and current list of endorsers, are here. If your organization is not listed, please sign on now by sending an e-mail to me at nirsnet@nirs.org with your name, title, organization name, city, and state (and country if outside the US – we encourage our international friends to support us in this effort!). Please sign on by midnight, Sunday, November 30, 2014.

Action – individuals: Please send in your comments on our action page here. And please share the action page with your friends and colleagues using the logos at its top, or share our previous Alert on the issue on Facebook and Twitter here. More than 19,000 of you have acted so far; we want to top 20,000 (do I hear 25,000?) comments before the December 1 deadline. Your help in outreach is essential to meet that goal.

Tim Judson is Executive Director of Nuclear Information & Resource Service, Takoma Park, MD.

For full list of signatories see NIRS.

References

1. Shaffer, David. ‘Xcel management blamed for cost overruns at Monticello nuclear plant‘. Minneapolis Star-Tribune, July 9, 2014.

2. Sun Day Campaign. ‘Renewables Provide 56 Percent of New US Electrical Generating Capacity in First Half of 2014‘. July 21, 2014.

3. Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory. ‘2013 Wind Technologies Market Report‘. US Department of Energy. August 18, 2014.

 




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There’s no place for nuclear in the ‘Clean Power Plan’ Updated for 2026

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Dear Administrator Gina McCarthy,

We strongly support the Environmental Protection Agency’s goals in the Clean Power Plan draft regulation, and we are grateful for the agency’s leadership in setting a critical policy for reducing emissions from the electricity generation sector.

We also appreciate the fact that the Clean Power Plan’s purpose is to create enforceable goals for states to reduce emissions, and a framework (the Best System of Emissions Reduction / BSER) for them to implement and comply with the targets.

The framework must be flexible and adaptable, to account for technological advances and regional differences in energy resources and regulatory systems, but it must also encourage rational and effective policies.

Unfortunately, the treatment of nuclear energy in the draft rule is unsupported by meaningful analysis, and would make it possible for states to implement the rule in ways that are counterproductive to the Clean Power Plan’s purpose of reducing emissions.

The role of nuclear power must be re-evaluated

We are, additionally, very concerned about industry proposals to expand provisions to encourage nuclear. We urge the EPA to conduct a thorough and fact-based analysis of nuclear, and to do the following:

  1. Remove the preservation of existing nuclear reactors from the BSER.
  2. Do not force Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee to finish building new reactors.
  3. Conduct a thorough and accurate analysis of the environmental impacts of nuclear power, from radioactive waste and uranium mining to reactor accidents and water use.
  4. Recognize and incorporate the much greater role renewable energy and efficiency can, will, and must play in reducing carbon emissions and replacing both fossil fuels and nuclear.

We recognize that the EPA has undertaken a monumental task in developing the Clean Power Plan – perhaps the most important single step in setting the U.S. on the path to reducing emissions enough to avert the worst of global warming and climate change.

It is essential that we begin making substantial reductions in emissions immediately, and that the institutional inertia and narrow self-interest of utilities and major power companies do not stand in the way of deploying the most cost-effective and environmentally sustainable energy solutions.

For that very reason, it is important the regulation ensures states do not get off on the wrong foot and implement the rule in ways that are counterproductive.

False and irrational assumptions

Unfortunately, the Clean Power Plan’s treatment of nuclear incentivizes the preservation and expansion of a technology that is and has always been the most expensive, inflexible, and dangerous complement to fossil fuels.

The Clean Power Plan incorporates nuclear into the BSER in two ways:

  • Assumes five new reactors will be completed and brought online in the states of Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee, and irrationally estimates the cost of doing so as $0. In fact, billions more remain to be spent on these reactors and there is a great deal of uncertainty about when, if ever, they will be completed, facing years of delays and billions in cost overruns. The cost assumption would force states to complete the reactors no matter the cost, rather than enabling them to choose better ways to meet their emissions goals. Even though renewables and efficiency could be deployed at lower cost than nuclear, the draft rule would make it look like they are much more expensive because of the zero-cost assumption about completing the reactors.
  • Encourages states to ‘preserve’ reactors economically at-risk of being closed, equivalent to 6% of each state’s existing nuclear generation. While it is true that about 6% of the nation’s operating reactors may close for economic reasons, this provision encourages every state to subsidize existing reactors, greatly underestimates the cost of doing so, and overestimates their role in reducing emissions. Uneconomical reactors have high and rising operating costs, and cannot compete with renewables and efficiency. If anything, EPA should simply recommend that low-carbon energy sources be replaced with other low-carbon resources, but singling out nuclear for ‘preservation’ suggests it is better for states to lock themselves into obsolete and increasingly uneconomical nuclear.

The rule also says states may utilize two other ways of adding nuclear capacity as options for achieving the goals, even though they are not incorporated in the BSER:

  • New reactors other than those currently in construction. EPA recognizes that new nuclear is too expensive to be included in the BSER, so it should not suggest states consider it as a way of meeting their emissions goals.
  • Power uprate modifications to increase the generation capacity of existing reactors. Power uprates are capital-intensive and expensive, and several recent projects have been cancelled or suffered major cost overruns, in the case of Minnesota’s Monticello reactor, at a total cost greater than most new reactors ($10 million/megawatt). [1]

Rather than suggesting states waste resources on nuclear generation too expensive and infeasible to be included in the BSER, EPA should include an analysis of these problems so that states can better evaluate their options and select lower-cost, more reliable means for reducing emissions, such as renewables and efficiency.

Serious nuclear concerns ignored

The Clean Power Plan also considers some non-air quality impacts of nuclear generation, as it is required to do under the Clean Air Act. However, the EPA’s evaluation is both woefully incomplete and alarmingly inadequate. EPA dismisses concerns about radioactive waste and nuclear power’s impact on water resources, simply characterizing them as equivalent to problems with fossil fuel generation.

In fact, radioactive waste is an intractable problem that threatens the environment for potentially hundreds of thousands of years. In addition, nuclear reactors’ use of water is more intensive than fossil fuel technologies, and a majority of existing reactors utilize the most water-intensive once-through cooling systems.

Regardless, however, rather than only comparing them to fossil fuels, EPA should have compared these impacts to the full range of alternatives, including renewables and efficiency, which do not have such problems.

EPA leaves out a host of other environmental impacts unique to nuclear, including uranium mining and nuclear accidents.

There are over 10,000 abandoned uranium mines throughout the US, which are subject to lax environmental standards, pose major groundwater and public health risks, present serious environmental justice concerns, and could entail billions in site cleanup and remediation costs.

The failure to consider the impacts of a nuclear accident is a glaring oversight, in the wake of the Fukushima disaster. EPA must consider both the environmental and economic impact of nuclear accidents.

Renewables can do the job!

In general, the Clean Power Plan’s consideration of nuclear appears to be based on a dangerous fallacy: that closed reactors must be replaced with fossil fuel generation, presumably because other low- / zero-carbon resources could not make up the difference.

In fact, renewable energy growth has surpassed all other forms of new generation for going on three years, making up 48% of all new electricity generation brought online from 2011 to July 2014. [2]

The growth rate of wind energy alone (up to 12,000 MW per year) would be sufficient to replace all of the ‘at-risk’ nuclear capacity within two years, at lower cost than the market price of electricity, [3] let alone at the subsidized rate for nuclear the draft rule suggests.

Assuming that closed reactors will be replaced with fossil fuel generation both encourages states to waste resources trying to ‘preserve’ (or even build) uneconomical reactors rather than on more cost-effective and productive investments in renewables and efficiency.

While states are free to develop their implementation plans without using the specific energy sources included in the BSER, the rule should not promote such foolishness.

No amount of spending or subsidies for nuclear has been effective at reducing the technology’s costs nor overcoming lengthy construction times and delays, whereas spending on renewables and efficiency has had the effect of lowering their costs and increasing their rate of deployment.

The economic problems facing currently operating reactors merely underscore the point that nuclear is not a cost-effective way of reducing emissions.

We are hopeful that the Clean Power Plan will be a watershed in setting the country on a path to emissions reductions and climate action, and we are grateful to the EPA for taking this step.

We believe that correcting the problems with the way nuclear is considered in the draft rule, and increasing the role of renewables and efficiency, will make the Clean Power Plan much stronger and lead states to implement it more productively and cost-effectively.

 

 

Action – organizations: Make sure your organization is signed on to our comments on the Clean Power Plan, which expand on the points above. The comments, and current list of endorsers, are here. If your organization is not listed, please sign on now by sending an e-mail to me at nirsnet@nirs.org with your name, title, organization name, city, and state (and country if outside the US – we encourage our international friends to support us in this effort!). Please sign on by midnight, Sunday, November 30, 2014.

Action – individuals: Please send in your comments on our action page here. And please share the action page with your friends and colleagues using the logos at its top, or share our previous Alert on the issue on Facebook and Twitter here. More than 19,000 of you have acted so far; we want to top 20,000 (do I hear 25,000?) comments before the December 1 deadline. Your help in outreach is essential to meet that goal.

Tim Judson is Executive Director of Nuclear Information & Resource Service, Takoma Park, MD.

For full list of signatories see NIRS.

References

1. Shaffer, David. ‘Xcel management blamed for cost overruns at Monticello nuclear plant‘. Minneapolis Star-Tribune, July 9, 2014.

2. Sun Day Campaign. ‘Renewables Provide 56 Percent of New US Electrical Generating Capacity in First Half of 2014‘. July 21, 2014.

3. Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory. ‘2013 Wind Technologies Market Report‘. US Department of Energy. August 18, 2014.

 




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