It is quite possible that cheap electricity from coal-fired power plants will win the AI race for China.
From Bloomberg, June 25/26:
China is leaving room for coal consumption to grow in coming years, as the stability of the world’s largest energy market continues to outweigh climate concerns.
“We will always prioritize energy security,” Wang Hongzhi, head of the National Energy Administration, said at a briefing on Friday to introduce the country’s new five-year plan for the sector, crediting the strategy for allowing China to successfully withstand the supply shock caused by the Iran War.
The new plan calls for strengthening coal’s role as backstop for the energy system. That includes enhancing coal resources in five existing production hubs, while allowing capacity to expand in central and eastern regions. Officials also gave a green light to further growth in the coal-to-chemicals industry.
Construction of new coal-fired power plants has boomed since a spate of electricity shortages in 2021 and 2022 as Beijing has touted the fuel’s role as a reliable back-up to intermittent renewables. China added 95 gigawatts of new thermal power capacity last year, the most since at least 2008, and requests for new permits in the first quarter of 2026 are ahead of last year’s record pace.
Read more: Chinese Firms Speed Up Plans to Build New Coal Power Plants: GEM
Meanwhile, the country’s coal-to-chemicals sector has grown rapidly in recent years, in part because the powerful mining lobby — heedful of the challenge from renewables in power generation — wanted to develop another source of demand for their product. Coal was given a further boost after the war in Iran pushed up prices of rival feedstocks such as naphtha and liquefied petroleum gas.
Softer Target
The new plan does put some limits on the expansion of fossil fuels, but experts view them as relatively weak, continuing a trend of China relying on clean energy to deliver bottom-up progress on emissions rather than enforcing tighter top-down controls.
The new road map reaffirmed the goal set in China’s overall five-year plan released in March, which called for coal consumption to reach a peak during the period. That’s a softer target than President Xi Jinping’s previous pledge to reduce coal use. The timeframe for completing the new dual carbon control system, which would include a cap on overall emissions, has also yet to be released.
While China’s direction of travel is toward lower emissions and eventual carbon neutrality, officials are signaling the journey will be slow and steady.
The goal of getting 50% of power from clean energy still allows fossil fuel generation to increase 10% over the period, according to the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air. The new target on carbon intensity also leaves ample space for fossil fuels, which could be considered generous given that emissions from the power sector already fell last year....
....MUCH MORE
Although China will tout the "50% from non-coal sources," they have been building coal-fired power plants and coal infrastructure faster than the rest of the world combined. Here is a September 21, 2025 post, reposted in full:
"China Accelerates Coal Plant Commissioning To 9-Year High"
Following on September 17's "China’s Coal Power Can Win The AI Race".
From OilPrice, September 3:
Despite record solar and wind capacity additions and booming renewable energy output, China is not giving up on coal, on the contrary.
During the first half of 2025, China commissioned as much as 21 gigawatts (GW) of coal power, the highest amount in the first half of the year since 2016, the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) and Global Energy Monitor (GEM) said on Monday in their H1 2025 biannual review of China’s coal projects.
Projections are that coal capacity commissioned for the full year would exceed 80 GW.
Globally, China is the leader in renewable energy capacity installations, but it is also a leader in coal-fired power and continues to be the key driver of record-high global coal demand.
In addition, China is looking to boost its domestic coal demand and prices this year. Coal prices in China have been depressed this year, weighing on the profits and profitability of the coal producers.
Despite previous signs of slowdown in coal power last year and a clean energy boom so far this year, coal power remains strong in China, with new and revived projects the highest in a decade, clean energy proponents CREA and GEM said in their half-year report.
The surge in coal plant commissioning follows the jump in coal project permitting in 2022 and 2023, when China was permitting, on average, two new coal power plants every week. The years 2022 and 2023 saw more than 100 GW of coal power capacity approved in each of the two years.
“This trend will likely continue into 2026 and 2027, unless policy action is taken,” the report said.
Just 25 GW of coal projects were permitted in China in the first half of 2025, but new and revived projects came to 75 GW, the highest in a decade, and construction starts and restarts reached 46 GW, which is equivalent to the entire coal power capacity of South Korea, CREA and GEM found....
....MORE
August 2023 - "China Has Approved More Than 50 Gigawatts Of New Coal Power"
....Every year there's a new excuse.
As we said in June 2021's "Who Is Helping Finance China's Coal Infrastructure Build-Out?":
If you guessed HSBC you may already be a winner.
Or you may be a coal financier with knowledge of the business.
China has no intention of stopping their own coal development or that of their client states in Asia and Africa.* They make lovely, soothing speeches about climate and stuff and build $30 billion dedicated coal hauling railways....
When you see infrastructure like
this being built you know the nice words from the Chinese are aimed at
the stupid and credulous:
March 2021 - China Does Not Plan To Stop Burning Coal
Run-through rail car dumpers at the Port of Huanghua in Hebei. pic.twitter.com/BD5Th5s2eu
— MachinePix (@MachinePix) February 9, 2021
Stunning aerial view of China's longest coal transport route, a heavy-loaded #railway scheduled to be completed later this year pic.twitter.com/KHd9DyUohw
— China Xinhua News (@XHNews) July 20, 2019
Some more from the Covid-time:
"Report: China emissions exceed all developed nations combined"
"China has ‘no other choice’ but to rely on coal power for now, official says"
China's Electricity Derived From Thermal (coal, oil, etc) Up 21.1% Q1 2021 vs. Q1 2020
One of our sources said the growth in thermal plant capacity* (not production) in 2020 was 38.4 gigawatts. This is the equivalent of adding a large (1,000 megawatt) coal plant every nine days. Every nine days.
Continuing that trend, coal plant capacity additions just in the first quarter of 2021 were 10,600 megawatts....
See also March 18's "China Energy Stats and Policy"
"China's new coal power plant capacity in 2020 more than three times rest of world's"
"China generated 53% of the world’s total coal-fired power in 2020"
Let's Get This Straight: China Has No Intention Of Giving Up Coal
Something we've been saying for so long I start to bore myself.
It's time to name (can't shame, they have no shame) the enablers of the massive long con China is running.
From the financiers backing Chinese coal to the lobbyists to the useful idiots to the UNocrats and the International Emissions Trading Association, to China's handmaidens in the American media, they are nothing but a bunch of liars and thieves
enablers, apologists and grifters. Supergrifters. The time is long past
when they deserve any attention at all and frankly, if I had my
druthers, they would be dealt with the way the IRA dealt with
Supergrasses. Not that we have any love for the IRA.
China Does Not Plan To Stop Burning Coal
"Report: China emissions exceed all developed nations combined"
Follow-up: Just How Much Coal Fired Power Is China Currently Planning/Building?"
Have I mentioned that China has been lying about their climate goals and decarbonization efforts for 25 years?
It wouldn't be worth commenting on except for the fact China burns quite a bit of coal.
- China Never Had Any Intention Of Quitting Coal
- "IEA urges India and China to put climate pledges into action as coal power generation reaches record levels"
- China Is Now Backtracking On All Those Nice Global Warming Promises They Made At COP26
- 'Global Warming": "Useful idiots' who let China off the hook: Why is there such an apparent lack of concern over their determination to keep burning coal"
....China is not just the largest burner of coal but it burns more coal than the rest of the world combined, and they have burned more coal than the rest of the world combined since at least 2014 and probably longer.....
And many, many more. Just call us your little ray of institutional memory sunshine on this stuff.
https://climateerinvest.blogspot.com/search?q=china+coal&max-results=20&by-date=true
