Annual power generation from coal in emerging countries has jumped 54% since the start of the decade, from 4,467TWh in 2010 to 6,863TWh in 2018 as power sector CO2 emissions have surged. From 2017 to 2018 alone, it spiked 7%, the highest increase since 2013. In 2018, coal accounted for 47% of all power produced in developing economies. Results are from Climatescope which is an annual survey of 104 emerging markets conducted by research firm BloombergNEF (BNEF).
* About 80% of the emerging country energy additions and new energy construction spending are made in China and India.
* Actual energy usage is kilowatt-hours. Kilowatt capacity is misleading because every kilowatt of coal power can out generate solar by three to four times.
In 2018, developing nations added 201GW of new power-generating capacity to their grids with clean energy (non-large hydro renewables) accounting for just over half the total.
107GW of renewables were installed in emerging economies in 2018.
66GW of Solar energy was installed in 2018 in emerging economies
29 GW of wind was added in emerging economies
Small hydro, biomass and geothermal combined saw 12GW added to emerging economies
Two-thirds (71GW) of all developing nation clean energy capacity was installed in China in 2018. Still, China clean energy capacity additions slipped 7% from 2017.
In 2018, new clean energy financing for emerging markets totaled $133 billion which was down from $169 billion in 2017.
India is one of the world’s major clean energy players. India installed 14GW of wind and solar in 2018. While that was down from 15GW in 2017, India scored best on the Climatescope survey to finish top of the table for the first time.
New construction of coal-fired power plants fell to its lowest level in a decade in 2018. After peaking at 84GW of new capacity added in 2015. Coal commissionings was 39GW in 2018. China accounted for approximately two-thirds of this.
SOURCES – Climatescope
Written By Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
The primary driver of global warming has been China’s unregulated economic rise. Clinton through Obama shifted heavily environmentally-regulated manufacturing and it’s power production to a place where there were no rules. It was a colossal strategy failure for both Reps and Dems.
Or do you think this happened merely on its own?
Gore on how a great deal it is to open up China to the WTO. There is plenty more where this came from. Don’t forget the Chinese election interference in 1996 and direct payments to Clinton/Gore’s campaign.
https://www.iatp.org/news/gore-to-lobby-lawmakers-to-support-china-trade
What environmental disaster are you referring to? Gore pushed open China? Wasn’t that more Clinton and Bush? Give some freaking evidence for your assertions. How about some references rather than just assertions?
From a dispatching point of view, solar and wind power gets dispatched before coal since its incremental cost is zero. Just this fact alone will put coal power plants out of business. To paraphrase, solar and wind plants can undersell all other types of power plant since fuel cost is zero.
You do know that the transfer of money is from Blue States to Red States, from leftists to conservatives.
He wasn’t suggesting fleece sweaters, probably.
They never will. They break down and die too quickly. And oh, the resources they consume!
Thank you your majesty! You are too kind. We will simply eat cake.
Eventually – but there are sunk capital costs.
If wind and solar match new coal, it is 10 more years before they match a coal plant only on fuel (for already existing coal plants). Another 10 before they match it on fuel including the cost of storage.
All that time the coal plant isn’t paying for the effect of the GHG it is putting out. So it’s actually cheaper to have a GHG tax.
Which brings forward the scenario above by 10 years, at a very cheap cost relative to just about any other world scale GHG reduction scheme.
The traditional Eskimo lifestyle is basically a really really good pro-GHG argument…
Chinese are the largest consumers of fleece by a country mile. What do you think they do, run around in yak wool coats? Alibaba only has around 52,000 different versions to buy.
There is a fix. I’ll let you figure that out. btw, if China and India replace all their coal fired plants with a “magical” solution, global CO2 emissions would be reduced by 20%. But what would poor Greta be complaining about then?
Could go back to whale hunting, it’s much more efficient than clubbing seals.
And same model in India. State funding to state companies that won’t get repaid in full.
there are none to buy. CCP loans.
Whenever leftists use the term “affordable”, it usually means someone else is going to pay for it.
Coal demand has been flat worldwide since about 2010. Neither China nor India has been approving new coal plants – just finishing the ones they already half built and then delayed
https://www.iea.org/coal2018/
Let’s just put forward Seal blubber as a “green, renewable” power source anyway.
The screeches of horror would be entertaining.
Their lives were unbelievably harsh. They won’t be voting to go back to seal blubber instead of diesel.
Cheaper is going to solve the problem. All the government needs to do is avoid putting barriers in the way.
They could wear a sweater. Eskimos lived for thousand of years without heating.
Not free from cost, just cheaper. You be surprise how green cheap is.
Who is buying the coal power plant bonds? The bonds will be worthless in ten to fifteen years.
People DID come up with a magical solution that is free from costs (or at least cost competitive with coal).
Problem? Magic is invisible and scary.
Choosing between coal heat & power and freezing to death, humans tend to choose coal every time. It seems to be a practical matter, which means that today’s fluffy brained folk will have to learn to live with it.
Fines will produce better results than incentives. A somewhat more restrictive Obama type regulations on a global scale that will also include some natural gas will do the trick. That and incentives and regulations to start HVDC transmission, non lithium Ion storage, a local habitat friendly reforestation effort on all on a global scale and a start of building the Antarctic wall in an effort that will take a century that is most of what we can do right now on the cheap and it is quite a lot. More solutions will mature in the coming decades and they will be added up.
We’re lucky the Chinese people don’t like fleece sweaters else the planet would really be in serious trouble.
You really think the locals would have been satisfied with candle light huts if Gore was never born and fleece sweater etc was manufactured in New Hampshire?
If every coal plant on the planet closes tomorrow the problem still remains, good luck getting rid of nat gas. There is no fix for this, short of someone coming up with a magical solution that is free from costs.
The west has only themselves to blame. We outsourced an environmental disaster to China, and for them to produce our toys, the timeline to serious global warming got shortened and our ability to do anything about it became next to impossible. Thanks Al Gore (who pushed the open-China agenda). We treehuggers tell me how angry they are that China eats coal for breakfast, I usually point to their fleece sweater and ask who is the problem here?