Coal plants in operations as of July 2023:China pursues cheap, reliable, and abundant energy. We are chasing illogical fantasies of wind and solar that cannot work without utility-scale energy storage and there IS NO SUCH ENERGY STORAGE technology. Even if there were, you have to overbuild by four or five times because of the poor capacity factor of wind and solar.
- China 1,142
- India 282
- U.S. 210. 170 of these are scheduled to be de-commissioned by 2030. The U.S. has NO PLANS to build any new coal-fired plants.
During the first six months of 2023, China issued permits for the construction of approximately 50 new coal-fired power plants. That is an average of TWO PER WEEK.
China has 300 coal-fired plants under construction, permitted, or awaiting permitting. If all 300 plants are constructed, China’s inventory of coal-fired power plants will increase by more than 25%. Currently, China has six times more coal-fired power plants under construction than the rest of the World combined.
You can put coal plants anywhere you have coal transportation rail lines, cooling water, and transmission line access -- in other words, almost anywhere. But you can only site wind and solar at appropriate locations and the best wind sites are already gone and solar only works at low latitudes.