China: record coal production, despite lockdowns
China produced a record amount of coal last year, though production ended with a decline due to the latest wave of covirus infections.
Total production for the year reached 4.496 billion tonnes, up 9% from 2021, according to official statistics data reported by Reuters.
In March last year, Chinese government officials said the country would continue to maximize the use of coal as it prioritizes energy security. This is what Europe also did after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, when gas prices skyrocketed and were no longer guaranteed.
Although China is the most ambitious investor and developer of wind and solar energy to replace fossil fuels, coal continues to account for a large share of its energy production, accounting for 57% of the total in 2020.
“We don't want to be like Europe and transform ourselves at the cost of energy security. Now they are claiming to take one step back to take two steps forward later,” Li Zheng, a professor of climate change and energy at Tsinghua University, said in November last year. A shared statement.
In addition, China suffered from an electricity shortage in 2021 and appears determined not to allow it to happen again, as was the case with the gas shortage in December 2017. To avoid a repeat, the country is making sure there is enough primary energy, regardless of its form, and coal continues to be one of the most readily available forms of primary energy.
China's coal generation capacity expansion could reach 270 GW by 2025, more than the total US coal generation capacity at this time, according to estimates.
Even with these plans, China, which is the world's largest emitter, aims to peak its emissions by 2030 and reach net-zero status by 2060.
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The article China: record coal production, despite lockdowns comes from Scenari Economici .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/cina-record-della-produzione-di-carbone-nonostante-i-lockdown/ on Tue, 17 Jan 2023 16:08:44 +0000.