The coal economy

[Randy W]

No matter where you are in China, coal dust is what you see in the air. Here in the South, we don't see the increase in pollution in the winter due to the municipal heating systems, but all the way down to Sanya, industry is heavily dependent on coal - and it shows in the air we breathe. The jobs and economy that depend so heavily on coal consumption will complicate things for a long time.

This video from the NY Times is a pretty good assessment of the situation

https://www.nytimes.com/video/players/offsite/index.html?videoId=100000003425188
Chinese co-exist with coal

Mass Layoffs in China’s Coal Country Threaten Unrest

Quote

 

" . . . Can it get any worse?”

It probably will.

The mine’s owner, the Longmay Group, the biggest coal company in northeastern China, announced in September that it planned to lay off 100,000 workers. The elimination of about 40 percent of the work force at 42 mines in four cities is the biggest reduction in jobs that anyone could recall in this steadily declining rust belt near the Russian border.

. . .

The coal industry is hurting nationwide, as coal prices have fallen nearly 60 percent since 2011, said Deng Shun, an analyst at ICIS C1 Energy, a consultancy based in Shanghai. And Longmay, he said, produces far less coal with extra workers than newer, more efficient companies.

“They are quite worried about social unrest, so they delay,” he said. “These layoffs should have happened two years ago.”

Still, there have already been flashes of discontent.

. . .

The number of strikes and labor protests nationwide nearly doubled in the first 11 months of this year, to 2,354, compared with 1,207 in the same period last year, according to China Labor Bulletin, a monitoring group based in Hong Kong. The organization said strikes and worker protests hit a record high of 301 incidents last month.

The reaction of the demoralized workers is being watched closely because the staying power of the Communist Party has been immutably linked to its ability to deliver continued economic progress. The unwritten social compact here is that the party delivers growth, jobs and higher living standards, and in exchange, the workers acquiesce to its monopoly on power, surrendering the right to organize unions or protest.

That bargain could fall apart if workers no longer believe the government is living up to its end.

The signs of severe economic trouble are evident. For-sale signs hang on the facades of restaurants that draw few customers.

Robberies are on the rise; manhole covers and cellphones are popular targets. Women say they have stopped wearing jewelry for fear of being assaulted.

. . .

When the full brunt of the layoffs comes, the violence could be terrible, he predicted. Since the last economic crisis, in the 1990s, a conspicuous new group had appeared: the owners of recently privatized small mines who drove around in Mercedes-Benzes.

“In the 90s, everyone was poor,” he said. “Now the rich are too rich, and the poor are too poor. Because of the layoffs, everyone is worried. No one has a way to live outside the mines. With the New Year holidays coming, there will be chaos in Hegang.”

Edited November 3, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

In China, electric vehicles run on coal - in the Scientific American

In Coal-Powered China, Electric Car Surge Fuels Fear of Worsening Smog

EVs charged in China produce two to five times as much smog-forming particulate matter and chemicals as gas-engine cars, studies find

 

Quote

The government has been promoting electric vehicles to cut the smog that frequently envelops Chinese cities, helping sales quadruple last year and making China the biggest market, the finance minister said at the conference. Less than 1 percent of passenger cars are now new energy, but the pace of growth raises their potential to worsen smog.

A series of studies by Tsinghua University, whose alumni includes the incumbent president, showed electric vehicles charged in China produce two to five times as much particulate matter and chemicals that contribute to smog versus gas-engine cars. Hybrid vehicles fare little better.

"International experience shows that cleaning up the air doesn't need to rely on electric vehicles," said Los Angeles-based An Feng, director of the Innovation Center for Energy and Transportation. "Clean up the power plants."

. . .

To promote new-energy vehicles, the government has offered various incentives in recent years including tax breaks, and set targets such as having 5 million new-energy vehicles on the road by 2020 - more than 8 times the current number.

. . .

"Right now smog is very heavy in China. This way, if everyone does their part, it will definitely cut down on pollution," Zhang said.

But Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei are all more than 90 percent reliant on coal for energy, Tsinghua's research showed.

Huo and academics point out that, at the very least, the proliferation of electric vehicles pushes more sources of pollution away from heavily populated urban centers.

Whatever the impact, Qin Lihong, president of startup electric automaker NextEV, said cleaning the grid would be the quickest route to clear skies.

"It's much easier for society to make hundreds of power plants better than change the hundreds of millions of cars in thousands of cities," he said.

 

 

Edited November 3, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

A recent study that doesn't seem to provide much in the way of new information, but it does seem to be more specific about airborne particulate pollution. In the NY Times

 

New Study Finds Persistent Peril from Urban Coal Soot in China and Indoor Smoke in India

 

 

The latest report on the “global burden of disease” finds air pollution caused the premature deaths of 5.5 million people in 2013, with China just ahead of India in deaths and the two countries together accounting for more than half the global total.

 

. . .

 

In China most deaths were urban and the result of pollution from coal-burning power plants. In India, the main danger is indoor cooking and heating fires fueled by dried dung or firewood.

 

. . .

 

In China, burning coal is the biggest contributor to poor air quality. Qiao Ma, a PhD student at the School of Environment, Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, found that outdoor air pollution from coal alone caused an estimated 366,000 deaths in China in 2013.

 

[Randy W]

It's nice to be first in SOMETHING! (even if it IS a bit of a stretch) - in the WSJ

 

China is Winning Environmental Clean-Up Race, Minister Says

 

The push to clean up the environment isn’t a race, exactly — but if it were, China would win it.

 

. . .

 

Specifically, Mr. Chen cited levels of sulfur dioxide, a pollutant that contributes to acid rain and respiratory illnesses. Government data show its levels peaked in 2007, following a nationwide campaign to install scrubbers in power plants and use coal with a lower sulfur content. “At the time, China’s average per-capita GDP was $2,460,” Mr. Chen said. “In the U.S., the peak for sulfur dioxide emissions was 1974, when the per-capita GDP was $7,400.”

 

. . .

 

Li Shuo, climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace East Asia, said that it was true that China had reached peak levels for a number of pollutants at an earlier stage in its development compared with other countries. Still, he said, “the argument tends to turn a blind eye” to the more critical issue of what heights pollutant levels peak at and what happens after that.

 

. . .

 

On Thursday, when a reporter raised a question about the documentary, the moderator advised the audience that certain questions were better reserved for other occasions and suggested Mr. Chen to stick to more “specialized issues” in his response.

 

Mr. Chen kept his answer accordingly brief. “The key is to resolve the problems we face by taking action,” he said. “This is very important.”

 

[Randy W]

in the WSJ

 

China Warns Officials: No Unrest, Or Lose Your Job

“For more than 10 years, one of the assessment criteria for promotion of regional officials is the extent to which they can minimize protests,” said Willy Lam, a China politics analyst at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “So most local officials pull out all stops to prevent petitioners going to Beijing.”

 

But this week’s announcement marks the first time authorities have come up with a definitive public statement explicitly warning party and state officials “at all levels” that their jobs are on the line, state media said.

 

Why the urgency?

 

The policy announcement comes two weeks after hundreds of unpaid coal workers took to the streets in the gritty northeastern city of Shuangyashan, after their provincial governor claimed a troubled coal company there did not owe its miners any wages. The governor, Lu Hao, later said he misspoke. Mr. Lu remains in office.

 

. . .

 

Party chiefs face a difficult task. Over the next five years, they need to shut down millions of tons of industrial capacity that’s making China’s economy inefficient. This means downsizing scores of steel, coal and other large industries that currently employ hundreds of thousands of workers. They have promised to do this without large-scale layoffs. Those displaced, Mr. Li said, would be given new jobs or government assistance.

 

. . .

 

Dogged by the prospect of more layoffs and deepening economic woes, the question looms: How many officials will China axe?

 

[Randy W]

Speaking of China's coal usage . . .

 

Making Sense of China's Drop in Coal Use

It's happened for the second year in a row, but reduced coal consumption doesn't necessarily translate into reduced emissions

Of the many statistics in the Work Report, a lot of media attention has focused on China’s dropping coal consumption numbers, with analysts suggesting that this decline could mean China will reach peak carbon emissions well before its 2030 goal. Last year, when China reported aprecipitious 2.9 percent drop in 2014 coal consumption, an amount roughly equal to Venezuela’s 2012 total primary energy consumption, there was skepticism regarding the validity of these numbers, given perenial uncertainty surrounding China’s official energy statistics. A decrease of this magnitude in coal consumption had been unexpected, and China energy experts were quick to point out that a single year’s downturn does not change the fundamental role coal plays in China’s economy, given that nearly 80 percent of China’s electricity is coal-fired.

The belief that China’s reduced coal consumption in 2014 was an anomalous blip has been turned on its head now that 2015 saw an even greater drop, of 3.7 percent, in coal consumption. But does this downward trend in coal consumption translate directly to carbon emissions? Have China’s emissions peaked?

 

[Randy W]

This is from Forbes, which I believe has a paywall, although I was able to access and post the entire article here. Read if interested. Most of what falls out of the sky no matter where you are in China, I am pretty sure is coal and concrete dust.

If China Is So Committed To Renewable Energy, Why Are So Many New Coal Plants Being Built?

 

 

It seems like a contradiction: a country claiming that they are committed to improving its air quality, who has put up more windmills, solar panels, and hydropower dams than anywhere else in the world, as well as issuing piles of forward-thinking environmental policies, that is still building large amounts of brand new coal-fired power plants.

So how do we account for this apparent contradiction? Is China’s position on renewable energy little more than political doublespeak? Does the country want its coal and clean skies too?

China, a country known for its smoggy skies and hazardous environmental conditions has rapidly become the global leader in developing and implementing renewable energy technologies on a mass scale. The country’s central government understands that there is a problem that needs to be fixed as fast as possible. In the words of Energy Innovation’s Hal Harvey, who has been instrumental in advising China on energy issues, “They get it.”


In this Dec. 3, 2009 file photo smoke billows from a chimney of the cooling towers of a coal-fired power plant in Dadong, Shanxi province, China. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File)

Responding to the air pollution crisis, China’s central government has made some monumental strides. It is estimated that by 2020, over 15 percent of China’s energy capacity will come from non-fossil fuel sources, and the country is the clear global leader when it comes to renewable energy.

The most wind energy capacity in the world is in China.

The most solar energy capacity in the world is in China.

The most hydropower capacity in the world is in China.

However, the most coal-fired energy capacity in the world is also in China.

Even as China adds mountains of renewable energy capacity and develops progressive government policies to improve air quality, the old incumbent coal is still maintaining its leading position — and its looking to do so for a long time yet.

China’s National Action Plan for Air Pollution Prevention and Control’s mid-term review, which was released on July 5th, shows that the eight provinces which make up their ‘key regions,’ added on a massive 50.8 GW of new coal-fired energy capacity between the years of 2013-15. For scale, the country’s total installed energy capacity in 1980 was 66 GW. On top of this, the report showed that 42 GW of additional coal-fired capacity is currently under construction, with 11 GW more being approved just last year. Meanwhile, just 10.8 GW of coal-fired capacity in these provinces was taken offline during this same period. Considering that each coal-fired power plant has a lifetime of thirty to fifty years, it seems as if China has hedged its biggest energy bet on coal for the foreseeable future.

But as the National Action Plan for Air Pollution Prevention and Control, a mandate from China’s State Council, has already banned the increase of coal-burning energy capacity, how can these numbers be explained?

First of all, not all coal is equal and neither is every coal-fired power plant. At the same time that China is transitioning from fossil fuels to renewables the country is also transitioning from high-polluting, cheap coal to premium, ultra-supercritical coal, which is burned at a very high temperature and at a very high rate of efficiency. Some of these new coal plants in China are better than anything seen yet in the US, and in the words of Harvey, China is “backing out really crappy old coal with better coal.”

“New power plants certainly have much more aggressive emission control technologies than older plants, although many older plants are being fitted with these control technologies as well,” said Lauri Myllyvirta, a researcher at Greenpeace. “China has managed to reduce SO2 and NOx emissions from the power sector very rapidly in the past few years, above all due to retrofitting and due to stagnating power generation from coal, which has allowed emission controls to catch up. Where the logic falls apart is that very little capacity is being retired.”


Continued from page 1

China’s central government, regardless of how it appears, is not an omnipotent, monolithic organization. Provincial level governments still maintain massive amounts of decision making autonomy, as well as the power to occasionally enact initiatives which run against the grain of Beijing. As most energy planning is carried out at the provincial level, the end results sometimes don’t run flush with national policy.

“The major error the central government seems to have made is to devolve energy planning to provincial authorities, who are clearly not paying any attention to market demand for power generation from coal – any kind of investment will boost GDP numbers,” Myllyvirta said.

According to Myllyvirta, there are some very clear drivers behind China’s local governments’ hesitancy to sever ties from coal.

1) Coal power is an easy way to generate economic activity at a time of reduced growth, not only via the construction of coal plants but through supporting local miners, who are struggling;

2) The profit margins for coal-fired power plants are currently over-inflated, as the cost for coal is market driven, and has dropped significantly, but cost of electricity, which is government regulated, has remained unchanged;

3) Expectations of future energy demand have not yet been adjusted to take into account the vast amount of renewable energy coming online and slowing economic growth.

So while the contradiction of attempting to reduce carbon emissions on one hand while increasing coal-fired energy capacity on the other can be contextualized, it cannot be completely explained away. Increasing coal energy capacity so dramatically at the height of a national air-quality crisis mitigates some of the gains made in renewable energy.

However, just because just because China has X-amount of new coal-fired energy capacity doesn’t necessarily mean that all of this capacity is being utilized — not at all. By the numbers, China has upwards of 200 GW of redundant coal-fired power capacity and, ultimately, has little use for many of the new coal plants that are currently being built.

 

 

[Randy W]

from the SCMP. The study was performed in Xian as one of the more polluted cities, but I believe the findings apply anywhere in China.

 

China’s Xian chokes on smog specks ‘harder than steel’

Researchers in pollution-prone Xian test the properties of the city’s bad air but health specialists say the bigger concern is just how small the particles are

 

 

They also found that the particles came in different shapes, with some like balls and others threads.

But Liu said the biggest surprise was just how hard most of the particles were.

About 70 per cent of the particles were hard enough to cause wear in most industrial machines made from alloys, he said.

“They’re so hard they could even cause damage to precision machinery,” Liu said.

. . .

Health experts said the hardness of the pollutants was not necessarily a factor when it came to respiratory health.

Zhang Xin, from the respiratory department of Shanghai’s Zhongshan Hospital, said the biggest concerns for respiratory doctors were the size of the smog particles and their chemical make-up.

“The seriousness of the damage caused by the materials we inhale depends on how far the particles can penetrate our body and what elements they comprise,” Zhang said.

 

[Greg.D.]

The article is exactly right: we care about those that are "respirable". Actually enter into our blood (the 2.5 micron ones).

 

Interestingly, you can see their shape via scanning electron microscopy and then using X-ray spectroscopy on the very particles you are looking at, analyze their composition. Spherical shapes are likely from arc or combustion processes, irregular shapes from grinding, etc.

 

in the U.S., we're making it 1968 again so we'll be talking about this a lot more.

[Randy W]

The recent power crisis highlights the challenges in China’s transition from the world’s largest producer, importer, and consumer of coal to cleaner forms of energy.

from the Sixth Tone on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/sixthtone/posts/3076573112661528

Between Coal and Climate Goals, China Faces a Balancing Act
Recent power crisis underscores the challenge for the country’s road to resign from coal.

Quote

 

The challenges have prompted the Chinese government to take extraordinary measures, with the country’s top economic planning agency, the National Development and Reform Commission, stepping in to rein in sky-high coal prices starting mid-October. China also temporarily reverted its agenda to cut its reliance on coal, approving additional 153 coal mines to increase an estimated 220 million metric tons a year of extra coal.

That move has raised eyebrows at home and abroad, worrying environmentalists over its impact on China’s climate goals. Experts said it could hamper the ongoing carbon reduction momentum — China plans to peak carbon emissions by 2030 — as world leaders gather for the United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP26, in Glasgow over the next few days.

“The growth of fossil fuel use this year is a foregone conclusion,” Yang Fuqiang, senior adviser on climate and energy at the National Resources Defense Council, told Sixth Tone, adding China’s carbon emissions are expected to rise this year due to the significant rebound of coal use. “I don’t think the rebound will continue for long or it should be interpreted as a joke ahead of COP26. But it does show that carbon reduction is an arduous task.”

Coal powers almost two-thirds of China’s electricity generation, though the country is accelerating the use of renewable sources in its energy mix. But lower coal inventories and market imbalance over the past months, which saw a tipping point in September, resulted in one of the country’s worst blackouts in recent memory. That caused a knock-on effect to supply chains and worried workers over declining wages and their health due to irrational working hours at night.

 

 

[Randy W]

China owns the world’s largest coal power fleet. However, data shows the average utilization of coal power plants — the proportion of time they spend generating power — fell from 60% 11 years ago to just 50% in 2021. Part of the issue is that coal power generation isn’t economically viable.

from the Sixth Tone on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/sixthtone/posts/pfbid0bHp4StXPdwLY9ycNa9ddeNSjUvkX7fPXBizv9KoMxeRCfaeezYBPatrhupjWKPjBl

China’s Coal Conundrum
The country is responding to seasonal spikes in demand by plowing money into coal, but the real problem is grid management.

Workers crimp wires on a power transfer project in Yichang, Hubei province, April 13, 2022. Lei Yong/VCG

Quote

 

Although the overall growth in demand for electricity has been tepid in recent years, a combination of high fuel prices, insufficiently flexible grid operations, and sudden, unpredictable spikes in demand due to extreme weather continue to strain power supplies during peak periods. During one such crisis last fall, over 20 Chinese provinces curbed or rationed power, impacting the lives of tens of millions of residents.

The government has responded by working frantically to boost coal production and power generation. Investment in coal mines and power has soared, despite signs of overcapacity in the industry. At least five new major coal-fired power projects were approved for construction in the first six weeks of the year; three “billion-dollar” coal mine projects were greenlit in February. And in May, the central government announced 10 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) in favorable loans for coal power generators. Overall, 8.63 gigawatts of new coal power projects were approved for construction in the first quarter of 2022, equal to half the yearly new approved capacity for 2021.

This massive investment in coal complicates China’s carbon reduction goals. The aim to reach carbon neutrality before 2060 requires an almost complete phase-out of conventional coal-fired power by 2050, leaving little time for these new plants to operate — and giving their owners a vested interest in a slower transition. Ensuring adequate power supplies in an era of increasingly dangerous heat waves and a growing reliance on electrification for both heating and cooling is important. But what China faces today is less a problem of insufficient supplies — in fact, the coal power industry suffers from overcapacity — than bottlenecks in transmission.

 

 

[Randy W]

The world must hope China's fondness for coal in pursuit of energy security fades soon, while the US and Europe do more to cut their emissions, David Dodwell writes.

from the SCMP on Facebook 
https://www.facebook.com/scmp/posts/pfbid0giYZpkPsco9sAcJjaaQsAABPnHPL6HwVeTLoEFZdF6HFkLSnMMoL7ieR2HVT3LPHl

 

Climate change: is China’s surge in coal consumption just a passing phase?

• China’s increase in coal use is inflicting damage on its green credentials, given its progress in developing renewable energy
• The world must hope its fondness for coal in pursuit of energy security fades soon, while the US and Europe do more to cut their emissions

Quote

 

Even more perplexing is that the main culprit is China, giving its critics yet more ammunition. It’s no surprise, then, that Group of 20 climate negotiators in Chennai last week were, according to the Financial Times, fuming at China for refusing to debate crucial issues such as methane emissions and reduced use of oil, gas and coal.

Concern over China’s progress in reducing carbon dioxide emissions is perfectly legitimate. As the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) latest China energy-sector road map made clear, “There is no plausible path to limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees without China.” As the world’s largest energy consumer and carbon emitter, accounting for around a third of global carbon emissions, the IEA said, “No pledge [to reduce emissions] is as significant as China’s.”

The problem is that China presents an uncomfortable paradox. It has made great progress in developing renewable energy. By 2024, it is expected to account for 50 per cent of the world’s new solar power projects, 60 per cent of new onshore wind and almost 70 per cent of new offshore wind.

In 2022, it accounted for 49 per cent of renewable energy capacity added worldwide. It is also by far the leader in putting electric vehicles on the road. China was home to 14.1 million electric vehicles in 2022, compared to just 2.96 million in the US and 1.89 million in Germany.