Why China is building so many coal plants despite its solar and wind "boom?"

[NNadir]

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...

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.

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:

... 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.

[thought crime]

1. Absurd question. Obviously, China's energy growth demand exceeds supply from any one single technology

Renewable energy is growing by leaps and bounds in China but it would be absolutely absurd to expect that it could currently begin to keep up with China's fast growing energy demand by itself. But eventually renewable energy will go a long ways to replacing coal.

Given your position, the question you should consider is, "Why is China building so many coal plants despite increasing the number of nuclear plants?". Do you think nuclear energy could currently begin to keep up with China's fast growing energy demand by itself?
Of course not. It doesn't, can't, and won't. A single source of energy won't cut it any time soon. A transition to 100% nuclear energy that you advocate would take a very long time and the cost would be prohibitive.

Your question is absurd and the answer is so obvious it throws suspicion on your motive.

[NNadir]

2. I am well aware, from many years of listening to antinukes, of their general indifference to fossil fuels, their poor...

...math skills, and their faith based denial of reality, their tiresome chanting and their gaslighting, the word "gaslighting" in this use being a pun, since all antinukes in effect push for the use of fossil fuels.

The tables in my recent post from the most recent edition of the IEA's World Energy Outlook demonstrates that the expensive and destructive solar and wind industries are trivial forms of energy, despite squandering vast economic, material and land resources. Solar and wind junk, all of which will be landfill within 20 to 25 years, soaked up 5.689 trillion dollars for no result in addressing the collapse of the planetary atmosphere, more than all other energy sources combined.

Understanding that the fossil fuel promoting antinukes cannot read, add or subtract, or think clearly and don't give a shit about the collapse of the planetary atmosphere, I indicated the numbers behind this disaster, again from the IEA, in this post, including the output of solar and wind junk and the cost here:

World Energy Investment 2015-2025, by Energy Type, read it, and if you don't weep, you should.

I am also aware that they don't give a flying fuck about fossil fuels and are only interested in attacking the only solution that has ever existed to address the collapse of the planetary atmosphere, nuclear energy.

There is not enough copper, cobalt, lithium, indium, neodymium, dysprosium or gallium on the planet for the useless solar and wind industry to match the land and material parsimonious output of nuclear energy, 31 Exajoules as of 2024, never mind enough to match the output of the coal industry, about which antinukes couldn't care less, the petroleum industry, about which antinukes couldn't care less, or the gas industry, about which antinukes couldn't care less.

Nuclear power plants are complex instruments, involving highly educated, highly trained, scientists and engineers. These people do not emerge instantaneously as well as I know, because my son is a emerging Ph.D. in nuclear engineering. The results of their work is to provide energy for many generations to come, unlike the solar and wind scam hyped by people with contempt for the future of humanity, since every solar and wind plant on the face of the Earth will be a decaying liability before today's toddlers get out college in 20 to 25 years.

China's nuclear powerplant construction capabilities are now the best in the world, scaling at an accelerating pace, but the building of the human resources to effect this change, decimated by years of ignorant propaganda by antinukes largely decimated this human resource all over the world. As antinukes have no respect for science and engineering, matched only by their contempt for humanity and the planetary environment, they don't grasp this.

Recently I referred to a Ukrainian apostate antinuke, who like me became pronuclear as a result of his understanding of the events at Chornobyl and understanding who and what nuclear engineers are:

WePlanet: What did you discover?


Serhii Kurykin: First, the people. There are no "accidental" professionals in the nuclear field. Those who work there are exceptionally educated, extremely dedicated, and fully aware of the immense responsibility they bear. You don’t survive in this field otherwise. Second, the systems. When nuclear plants are properly built and properly managed, they are remarkably safe. Routine operations are designed with prevention in mind. Constant vigilance is part of daily life at a nuclear plant. The Chornobyl reactor — the RBMK-1000 — was deeply flawed, partly because it was dual-use: designed for both civil and military purposes. Modern reactors are different. Lessons have been learned.

I added the bold:

Serhii Kurykin Reflects on Chornobyl, Change, and Ukraine’s Future

Serhii Kurykin is a Ukrainian environmental leader and former Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources. A co-founder of the Green World association and the Party of Greens of Ukraine, he has served as an MP, a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and later as Deputy Minister of Ecology. Today, he is a freelance consultant on environmental policy and co-founder of WePlanet Ukraine.

Every time an antinuke opens their mouths to chant dogma and demonstrate energy illiteracy, the result is clear enough, as is their contempt for humanity and its future, their contempt for all ecosystems, and their future and their contempt for science and engineering.

Thanks very much for another demonstration of this sad reality.

Have a great weekend.