Can we fix the climate without China?? 

I assume China’s old coal fired plants are horribly inefficient and polluting, and that newer ones will operate more cleanly in comparison. If excess capacity becomes a big issue, presumably they’ll just decommission their older plants.

> 40 MtCO2 are captured through CCS Wow that's a lot > one tenth of one percent of annual CO2 emissions 😔

More great curated information, interesting Xi Jinping has stopped Australian coal imports that is believed, in Australia, to be punishment for the current govt's pro USA stance on China. However, this video shows it may also be about restricting access to coal in rebellious coal generater building provinces. An interesting twist.

I’ve never had cause to doubt the seriousness with which China’s central Government takes decarbonisation and climate change mitigation. Understanding that they don’t have ultimate power over all the regional decision makers comes as a surprise but explains the contradictions between new coal plant commissioning in some parts when new coal plants have been abandoned before completion in other parts. I think they stand a better chance of success than we do, frankly because the top leadership is so committed, whereas ours is only committed to APPEAR to be acting.

I look forward each week to your videos. Thank you!

As a Chinese, I'm rationally skeptical about the goals set our centre, but optimistic and supportive from a macro perspective. Anyway, my lifestyle is low-carbon enough: EV bus and metro, solar heater, smart AC, private solar panel on the roof even can sells power to the company sometime.

China only has 3 or 4 decades worth of (their own) coal reserves left. If true, and knowing China values social stability above all, meaning minimizing import dependency, maybe the effort to go green makes sense on more than just the climate level.

The reason why China continue to build more coal power plants is because national security concerns. Sea routes that ship oil and natural gas is controlled by American. Any conflict could disrupt the supply completely. So China needs coal power plants as backup in case there is no oil or natural gas supplies.

I'm a retired electrical engineer who has worked in both coal fired power plants and nuclear plants. Coal is absolutely filthy;- nuclear much cleaner, however my solution to the electrical power crisis is to develop Thorium Reactors no containment dome needed! A Thorium reactor can't go critical and there's a lot more Radioactive Thorium laying around then Uranium.

I'd be interested in a round up of the renewable technologies that can be retrofitted around old coal plants

Great job as always! I was unaware of China's internal political dynamics. Amazing how little actual useful information makes it's way into the corporate media. Thank goodness for independent media!

Majority of the CCP members are engineers, they love numbers and predicted outcomes. They can also follow through on long term targets without the need to fight for terms. Very likely to achieve this goal.

Thanks for including the plight of the Uighur people. They need all the support they can get.

Excellent content as always - keep up the great work!

Refreshingly critical of China without any inappropriate gusto. All governments should be held to this standard

Dave... waiting whole week for next video is making me very restless. Anticipation of what is coming is very suspenseful for me... it is worth the wait. BEST CANNEL ON RU-vid...

Thank you for the great research and reporting.

Excellent video. Always looking forward to these type of topics. Keep up with it sir!

The best carbpn sequestration method would be to put it back into the soil through photosynthesis. This is how mother nature done it last time. Good for the atmosphere, good for the soil, good for our food chain with higher quality foods. Less flooding, less draught, with improved water infiltration. Good for aquifer replenishment, good for everything. Stop using N and P fertilizers which use huge amounts of energy to process. Theres enough enough N in the air for all our requirements if we look after free living Nitrogen fixing bacteria. And most soils have enough P in them for a thousand years if we use fungi and bacteria to release it from the soil matrix

Chinas goal is being energy independent without scarcity. They will run out of cheap coal eventually. By 2050, other technologies will be ready.

The main take-away from this video for me is that China building that many coal plants might not be so bad after all. What I've heard before is that they're the latest, most efficient coal plants. But if wind and solar are really going to vastly outcompete soon and most of the coal plants turn out to be wasted money, that is going to be an actual relief. Although it seems hard to believe the central government would just allow the local governments to waste this amount of money for special interests..

*Love* the way you put things!

... all of your content, not just todays, is so much easier to understand thanks to all the work that must go into your channel. Thx again 👍🏼☯️🖖🏼

Great video, very informative. Well done.

they are not addicted to coal they are using it as a way out of poverty thats all. the starve no starve later most people pick later. the local areas are doing what they can to survive

Bravo! Nicely done, as usual

Very nice presentation!!

Thank you!

Great video as always Thanks for sharing :-)

Just Have A Think,👏👍

Thank you for pointing out the difficulties in crafting national policies. I often hear that this nation or that nation is doing something deliberately, as if it is a single person. People forget that a vast country always has different interest groups that try to pull it in their own direction. I sincerely hope China will reduce their coal consumption. More centralized government means they can more easily do whatever they plan. On the other hand, this means the economy is not exposed to pure market forces, the ones that reduced US coal consumption by 60% in the last 13 years.

Make a video on India's solar park in gujrat which will be larger than Singapore and will generate 30 GW of energy

Brilliant as always.

I reinforce Neil's comment, really good content and subject matter, thank you!

I think a tax for CO2 would be the right push and the answer for anyone to make renewable energy cheaper etc

An excellent video on a serious macro topic! Governments everywhere tend to overpromise on their 10+ year goals, knowing that by then they won't be there to be held accountable. Subsequent governments will blame their predecessors, or simply change those goals. My Florida government is no different in talking renewables while speeding up natural gas installations. CCGT is of course better than coal but by far not enough to make the type of change required. If the UN were an apolitical global organization, it could create a world body of independent scientist to examine each country's plan and hold them accountable. It is not. Some serious research and science-based journalism are urgently necessary to critically evaluate every nation's plan and try to hold their current governments accountable. Regarding China, adding coal capacity is not only wasteful but adds to emissions due to production of unnecessary metal and concrete and removal of vegetation for those unnecessary coal plants, mines and infrastructure. I am also quite skeptical about the cited 670 g/kWh energy-specific emissions figure (btw, I assume it is incorrectly labeled as "coal emissions", should be "CO2-equivalent emissions"), given that U.S.'s figure is 418 g CO2-equiv/kWh and that a 2017 UK research paper* projected China's 2020 emissions at 821-860 g/kWh. {*"China’s electricity emission intensity in 2020 - an analysis at provincial level", 9th International Conference on Applied Energy, ICAE2017, 21-24 August 2017, Cardiff, UK.}

No. The answer to both the header and sub header are no.

Keep it up, I like your work so much. Its amazing how you can talk so calm about humanity literally destroying the only planet which can harbor life!

Great work! What about doing an analysis of the positive climate effects of precision fermenation and/or the predictions past and present provided by Tony Seba?? Seems brilliant to me!

Amazing video. Didn't realize coal fleet utilization was so low. Maybe worth a mention that infrastructure building in China is as much a jobs program as it is a rational economic exercise.

HI Your Reserch IS The Best On This Platform, Thank You And Your Team?

Presumably renewables wil be cheaper than coal as it is now in the west. If that is the case, surely building an excess of coal plants will end up being more about wasting money rather than adding to co2 emissions. Increasing renewable a capacity should reduce coal used regardless of an increase in number of coal plants

Regardless of the politics, which is by no means minimal, at least they have publicly committed to a zero objective. China, UK, USA, Australia etc are all failing politically to do “what they say” when it comes to black energy, scientific fact has been ignored for over 50 years. It would be great to hear some examples and analysis of countries doing “it right”.

excellent....i was searching for China information to reply to my viewers comments....you exceeded all i hopes to learn with good information, thank you. Prof Simon.

This Video Is Fantastic

China's population is aging and production is moving to other countries. This will both help them reach their targets and explains the push for alternative energy. They hope to sell alternative energy solutions to the other nations that increasing their industrial capacity. This isn't about "good" or "evil", it's just business.

Wind and solar energy combined with battery storage are safer, cleaner and cheaper than fossil fuels. Any investment in new fossil fuels will become stranded assets.

It’s good to just have a think. Sometimes I even have another think as well.

In China, there is still electricity shortage with often some factories that have to shut down or work at night. Many coal plant can also be built because at the same time they close a lot of small none efficient coal plant, to replace them with big more efficient coal plant... and install renewal as fast as they can (and fastest worldwide).

Thanks team for the real truth!!! Bravo.. excellent education!!!! Peace Solidarity Truth cheers

Possibly the newer coal stations are to replace those that may be 30/40 years old and highly inefficient? Newer stations could also be more easily prepped to be fitted with carbon capture?

Your analysis and discussions are factual and very reasonable. I remain cautiously optimistic but we hope China will do better for their own people.

Thank you, great info! As a Queensland Australia resident, the power of the coal lobby dominates many decisions. Bravus Adani Carmichael mine for example. Surprised that Xi Jinping has similar problems.

What about Africa? There are many undeveloped countries and they will use coal to boost thier economics/build infrastructure. Am I wrong?

Thanks for the video. Are there any bio-engineered CCS in the works? Perhaps, improving on diatoms/phytoplankton?

STEP 1: CO2 tax STEP 2: import tull depending on co2 of exporter Result: pressure for global decarb, markets adapt.

Hello. I'd like to thank the patreons for doing what many of us can't do. Hopefully whatever reasons we have for lack of investment ability, will be temporary. Disabled, retired and low waged people especially need this free access to allow us to remain engaged. Patreons your contribution is very much appreciated. ❤️

Dave - I think your title is missing the letters e and t, 'et' at the end!

There's no currently operating commercial direct air capture plants, but there are a number of firms that are in the process of changing that at the moment. It's impossible to say for certain what the cost of direct air capture will going to be, but it'll likely be cheaper than a lot of other mitigation efforts. I wouldn't be too pessimistic on that.

At 12:15, the emission factors of 672 and 356 grams/KWH(?) are confusing. The EPA gives numbers of 205 to 227 pounds of CO2/MBTU(heat) for US coal, referring to the heat content from burning US coal. There are 293 KWH per MBTU, and 454 grams per pound, so the CO2 emission factor of US coal varies from 318 to 352 pounds of CO2 per KWH(heat) in US coal. When burning coal to produce electricity, these emission factors go up. If we assume the Chinese numbers are the emission factors for electricity production from their coal, then their current heat to electricity efficiency comes to a minimum of 318/672 = 47%. That is quite a bit higher than the maximum published efficiency of 42% claimed in 2019. Is there coal that much better than US coal? Or have further improvements been made in their power plants?

I hope China is actively working on thorium nuclear power plants. I am by no means an expert in the field, but this technology seems interesting. There is less nuclear waste of products and these plants, due to their low pressure design appear safer. Renewable energies are fine, but it will never be enough for a huge country like China. The nuclear option is the only one which can allow a sustained and stable production of energy.

Anybody that doubts China is simply not paying attention.

If there is an single country that can actually meet the climate goals, I believe it is China. The comment you made on the regional governments not listening to the central government struck me as odd though. I remember watching a video a while back on how the government is structured. The 5 year plans are debated by the members of the Chinese government, after which a consensus is reached, then that become the official policy of all of China. There ought to be no regional government acting out of turn. This leads me to think that there is a reason those plants are being constructed. Alternatively, China is now cooperating with Russia on new nuclear power plants for future energy. In my opinion this is the only way forward for energy production in the long term. So this is good news.

do these studies take in the growth of forest, etc. in china's deserts? the plants take in co2 and produce o2.

Over 1000 coal plants and over 180 under construction ☠️ Good luck and good night 😱

Steam methane reformation combined with carbon capture and storage could be a method of vast clean hydrogen production. Using CO2 to pressurize natural gas wells for increased production and then producing Hydrogen and CO2 from that natural gas is a sustainable form of energy. This would be a great niche market helping our species transition to a cleaner future.

China is very complicated and you have done a good job of diving into it, for a novice audience. Might I suggest that the over capacity, from a national government perspective, is not accidental at all. It gives you a buffer in case of war and potential losses. It sets you up to be a national exporter of power, further dominating and creating dependency in neighboring countries. And crucially it frees you from oil imports more quickly than would otherwise be the case because you can quickly electrify transport having no limit to the power available. One crucial point that you don’t seem to understand or wish to speculate about is the fact that China has no immediate interest in reducing emissions. It’s not even on the radar. What China says and what China is doing and will do are worlds apart.

As I commented in Patreon… herding cats!

You mentioned that shutting down coal implies they would need more renewables to meet their emission targets ( about 5 min into the video i think ). But: renewable biomass isnt having low lifecycle emissions while non-renewable nuclear does. I'd appreciate if you would decouple the idea of renewables as a synonym for low-carbon emission tech in future videos. Include nuclear when it comes to low-carbon emission tech and exclude biomass. See IPCC table A.iii.2 on page 1335 and Figure 7.6 on page 539 in IPCC 2014 (AR5) for details about what is low carbon tech and what isnt.

Assuming that forced Labour is taking places in China, that is obviously something to be opposed. However if anyone in the USA is thinking of condemning this practice you should be aware that the US has the largest forced Labour force in the world. The US alone has 25% of all the worlds prisoners, far more than China. Prisoners can be forced to work for a few cents an hour, and this industry is absolutely huge. US army equipment and most white goods produced in the US uses this forced Labour force.

How many of China’s power stations are required to supply computers for mining Bitcoin?

hi dave, thanks for another well documented video-))). i do believe that the chinese do want to be energy neutral(not carbon neutral)... if inflation rises much more than expected,they will have some advantages... that saying."will we get to 2060"????

I'm not a huge fan of China for reasons but I can see them pulling this off. If the Party can maintain stability they have proven to be resourceful with time and focus. See the rover. Better yet, hopefully America is back and will solve the energy-carbon problem and export the solution to the world as a leader and not what it has recently been.

Carbon neutral by 2060 or carbon zero policies are all very much idealistic fantasies, but in reality practically redundant when most countries achieve these ambitious targets by simply buying offsets on the carbon markets or sign up to non-binding agreements. Trading carbon is evolving as a gold pot for some potential investors and a drain on countries that do the heavy lifting/manufacturing for the world. When money is sent offshore via carbon offsets, then the original problem generally remains. In NZ spends, 1.4 billion per year, according to sources as these things are usually hidden in secret from the public, goes to offshore carbon trading for allegedly not making a 30% less than 2005 carbon target. ( Hard to do when your population has drastically increased) That money could be spent on many things. E.g. 1. Saving the threatened native birdlife from imminent extinction. 2. Setting up local recycling stations and processing plastics so we don't have offload to Asia where it is not recycled correctly and tends to end up polluting the waterways, air/land. This is the real problem I have with, with having a hypersensitivity/phobia to CO2 and climate fascination ... things needing urgent attention are sidelined. The real issue/problem with coal is, of course, not the CO2 which has almost little/marginal effect on temperature at above 300ppm ( 20ppm are responsible for half the greenhouse effect from CO2, and then it is a reducing curve and now that it is reaching its saturation level of absorption of infrared on it frequencies that it can absorb. CO2 quantitatively can not increase the temperature by but the smallest of fractions and that is including the feedback from increasing relative humidity, which also has it limits. - This is the physics that never seems to make it through to channels like this, who see all CO2 as the climate control knob and become fanatic in its reduction. The main problem with coal/petrochemicals is pollution which causes respiratory problems/death. PM2.5 carbon particles. This is why we need a steady transition to cleaner, reliable ways to make energy. (Not just solar/wind) In the 1950s, the clean air act was brought in, and it quickly reduced pollution, new technology helped including catalytic converters for cars. I suggest to learn from what worked and that the best way forward is to set a new higher standard - air quality and require the providers of energy to reach it. That is where China needs to start and focus on the urgent issue that millions of its people are dying from pollution.

Just an interesting factoid of the power house - Since 2003, China has poured more cement every two years than the US managed in the entire 20th century. If you are concerned about coal and CO2 maybe cement might be the next.

What does "economically viable CCS" mean? Would changes in tax policies perhaps wholescale shifting to taxing ONLY carbon on a revenue neutral basis - make CCS economically viable?

Hydrocarbon burning is great for global dimming, which we all know - or should know - has a VERY large downward effect on global temperature rise.

I don't know about you, but all these millions, billions and trillions leave me wondering what it all means. Here's a useful metric for comparison of size. Just remember: a million seconds is 11 DAYS A billion seconds is 31 YEARS And a trillion seconds takes us back to the Stone Age.

Fascinating that they’re still building yet and still more coal power plants, and even more so when there is no forecast demand for them. There’s got to be something we’re not privy to here in the West... Nevertheless, it is nice to see some reporting that drives home the fact that it is by no means all about North America and Europe. China and India EACH have more people than would be good for the whole world, and are both rapidly industrializing. Those two nations alone will largely shape the human caused portion of the climate change. The greatest impact they could have would be to immediately go to a one child policy, saving not only carbon emissions, but all emissions, and all other resources.

Remarkably well balanced and insightful. Perhaps Chinese can aim at one kwh/time(hour or day) till it goes upsolar per rooftop, without prosecuting uighurs and others, used to replace, coal intensive usages

Good job. No fake news here.

EXCELLENT ! .... GREEN ENERGY WHILE INCREASING COAL PRODUCTION ARE A CONTRADICTION ! 🌳🌏

Another reason for the building of those coal powerplants could be that the Chinese govt. uses infrastructure projects to help economic growth. Everywhere I was in China things were being built. It provides jobs. So it could well be they full well know they arent gonna use those powerplants, but just build them to keep the money flowing. Just a thought.

I love your videos and just want to say that I applaud all efforts to seek net zero that are well thought out. I am skeptical of some new technologies. When I’m looking at new things, I often look for pitfalls. Obviously the mistreatment of any workforce is abhorrent, but especially so when done along racial or prejudiced lines. Carbon capture is a huge waste of resources and in my opinion could have long term geologic consequences. Though plants grow slowly and die, trees stored carbon for us before we cut most of them down. If trillions of trees could be planted each year or quarter, couldn’t that be a more ecologically friendly option?

I could think of good reasons to be building new coal electricity generation - to replace old plants which are far more polluting and less efficient, and to provide generation when renewables are intermittently not delivering. They are not fools who can't see that coal generation plants will be under utilised. As for Xinjiang 'force labour' involvement in the production of solar panels, it sounds like a political smear of everything associated with Xinjiang and China. China has and will have an increasing shortage of labour, so I expect people's state benefits is conditional in some ways. In which case, they may require taking up vacant jobs as a condition. I don't see this as force labour. Meanwhile, some mining workers are redeployed to green mountains & deserts. That should be worthwhile employment for years to come.

No mention of the impact on (eg Inner Mongolian) coal workers and how they might realistically be re-employed. Topic for another video?

6:05 - Just look at that gigantic Communist Party building ... it is like something out of Star Wars.

Always appreciate your work. One thing lacking in my opinion, is the social cost of the solutions. China can't afford to stop coal mining, because of its high population. They need jobs. So the question of viability of carbon reducing solutions is also : "can they provide enough employement to be accepted"? A theorically working solution won't take place if it's rejected by the masses because they'll end up jobless. Can you take this in account in your videos ? The human cost.

Building coal power stations includes millions of tons of concrete that is very polluting when it is made. So even building these plants will emit thousand of tons of CO2 and other dangerous gases.

All these forecasts are based on the current technologies. There will be surely technologies that increase the performance and even new technologies which will help reduction of release and maybe absorption of CO2. Many thanks for mentioning the conditions of Uighurs in China. This shows you are not only looking at the technological sides but also include the moral and humanitarian sides which to my opinion is an obligation for us as human beings.

One word: Thorium.

I’m curious if anyone knows why Chinese localities are more keen on coal power specifically (rather than other fossil fuels or nuclear)?

New coal adds... Supposedly they're shutting down old, small, urban, dirty plants... So what's the net add/subtract?

Has anyone noticed that everything said here is a hypothesis at best?

I hope you know Charlie Kronick at Greenpeace (UK). If not, you should....

I've always been leery of CCS. I can see its potential when it's built in to the process generating the CO2 and can be powered by that process, however parasitically. But as a modifier of the existing atmosphere it seems to me that generating power to remove some of the effects of generating power has some flaws in it. It all depends on the source of the power, I suppose. It strikes me, from this perspective, that CCS seems more of a last ditch effort at eating a cake and still having it after. Sort of like "Solar freaking roadways!" (pat pend). A way to feel good about your climate efforts while retaining the right to drive your car.

Hemp based engineered construction lumber and boards. Locked up in buildings. done. Carbon capture.

Much will come down to China's role as World manufacturer. If countries make more of their own goods then the Chinese "export" model falls down.

Maybe Chine will bring the Co2 emissions under control. Concerning India I have my doubts. They will pursue uncontrolled coalfired plant growth.

You missed the nuclear angle. It appears that China is going nuclear with hydrogen supplying most power needs for things like steel and cement making. While presently in the beginning stages it looks like modular plants are being develop which will enable a fast ramp up of nuclear power. Both older light water designs and forth generation designs are being developed. Once these reactor designs are perfected rabid build out of these zero carbon power sources is possible thus making the zero net carbon emissions goal of 2060 quite possible.