Countries with the most coal plants in the world. [View all]

[NNadir]

Last edited Sat Apr 18, 2026, 10:45 AM - Edit history (1)

The fossil fuel industry has reappeared trying to greenwash fossil fuels as "hydrogen" made by electrolysis, using slick videos, generally featuring Potemkin Village hydrogen buses, cars, etc. in China, featuring vast stretches of land rendered into solar industrial parks that will all be electronic waste in about 25 years.

I recently commented on the return of the fossil fuel greenwashing posts referring to China here:

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

China has the most coal plants in the world, it turns out, more than the next 18 countries combined.

From Statistica, Countries and territories with the largest number of operational coal power plants worldwide as of July 2025




Like everywhere else on the planet, China does not make more than traces hydrogen via electrolysis, which is dependent on the rare metal platinum, and which represents a huge destruction of exergy no matter what the source of electricity is. This is reported in a scientific publication which I referenced in a post here:

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)

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The bold, italics and underlining is mine.

EST: Chinese Hydrogen Production Is Making Climate Change Worse.

With the fall of the United States as a scientific superpower, now underway, Chinese science and engineering is rapidly rising to take its place, and thus in China, they know the laws of thermodynamics, and thus make hydrogen from the steam reforming of fossil fuels, which, while destructive to the environment is far less so destructive than electrolysis.

Electrolytic hydrogen, like the rest of the hydrogen in China - the world's largest, by far, user of hydrogen for the Haber-Bosch process to make ammonia, on which the Chinese and the rest of the world depends for agriculture - is coal based.

The fossil fuel industry reps here seeking to rebrand fossil fuels as "hydrogen" routinely attack nuclear energy, since nuclear energy is the only viable tool for doing away with fossil fuels.

Every time the fossil fuel industry comes here to rebrand fossil fuels as "hydrogen" the lie needs to be addressed, and that's what it is, a lie.

Have a nice weekend.