China To Boost Non-Fossil Fuel Use To 20 Percent By 2030 (reuters.com) 43
An anonymous reader shares a report: China aims for non-fossil fuels to account for about 20 percent of total energy consumption by 2030, increasing to more than half of demand by 2050, its state planner said on Tuesday, as Beijing continues its years-long shift away from coal power. In a policy document, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions will peak by 2030 and total energy demand will be capped at 6 billion tons of standard coal equivalent by 2030, up from 4.4 billion tons targeted for this year.
I believe the "coal usage will go up 35%" bit (Score:1)
That's the only part of this post I believe.
Re:I believe the "coal usage will go up 35%" bit (Score:5, Informative)
Note the phrase "coal equivalent".
At the moment China burns about 3 billion tonnes of coal a year, mostly to generate electricity. They don't burn a lot of gas right now compared to other nations. They're planning a big increase in their total generating capacity up to about 2TW and a lot of that increase is going to be fuelled by gas as they cut back on coal but they're going to emit more CO2 in total in the process because of the increase.
Right now China burns about 2 tonnes of coal per capita each year. America burns about 3 tonnes of coal per capita annually but it also burns a lot more gas and oil per capita to power their first-world economy and infrastructure, military, road and air travel etc. China wants that sort of economy and infrastructure too.
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If you have a different theory, we'd love to hear it. Where is this sudden spike in heat coming from? Nobody's disagreeing with you that the earth has increase and decreased before. However, every other time it's gone up just 1 degree, it's been over the course of a 1000-4000 years, not a less than 100. ( https://xkcd.com/1732/ )
There's also approximate data points for temperatures from 20 thousand years ago (for example: https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/schmidt_01/ )
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The oceans, nimrod. Heat storage at first went into the oceans. If you followed the NOAA research charts, you'd know that. But you're just a denier trying to find an excuse for why we should let you destroy the world.
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I'm not going to worry about terms like "climate denier" or use something like "scientific consensus". That shouldn't convince you really of anything.
I use the word "definitive" because that's when satellite corrections took place, leading to a corroboration of evidence gathered. I really don't give a shit if you think that its natural cycles or our current hundred years aren't "statistically significant" for whatever the hell that means. It's pretty basic fucking observation that you can do in your kitchen
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2. I think that releasing billions of tons of CO2 is a problem but not for the problem of the earth warming up to temperatures that, at worst, were common only a short while ago geologically.
I think the most important thing is to get to a post carbon age - and we don't get there by shrill cries of the apocalypse and making obscenely poor predictions (take a look at Al Gore's predictions). We get there by having a
The problem is not the ratio but the total carbon (Score:4, Insightful)
While it is true that China is rolling out more all-electric cars SUVs and trucks than North America, the problem is not the ratio of electric vehicles but the shift from 80 percent bicycle to more cars and SUVs.
China needs to stop providing parking spots for non-electric cars in high demand areas, and use those spots for bicycles.
Re:The problem is not the ratio but the total carb (Score:5, Insightful)
While it is true that China is rolling out more all-electric cars SUVs and trucks than North America, the problem is not the ratio of electric vehicles but the shift from 80 percent bicycle to more cars and SUVs.
China needs to stop providing parking spots for non-electric cars in high demand areas, and use those spots for bicycles.
Why China? Why not everywhere else. Seems a bit unfair to expect China to stay on bicycles and not adopt ICE and only allow electric if other countries are not willing to do the same. Indeed, whilst the POTUS is promoting Coal as the fuel of the future, China has been promoting renewables. (it sucks that they have all the pollution and disregard for the environment from all the factories).
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Because China is the oil industry's favorite whipping boy these days.
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Why China? Why not everywhere else. Seems a bit unfair to expect China to stay on bicycles and not adopt ICE and only allow electric if other countries are not willing to do the same. Indeed, whilst the POTUS is promoting Coal as the fuel of the future, China has been promoting renewables. (it sucks that they have all the pollution and disregard for the environment from all the factories).
Because only China is doing this in large part. They have the top emissions worldwide. The US & Canada are both dropping.
it's 2017, not 1997. wake up.
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Well, technically, they did steal a lot of wind and solar tech to do that, but given the end result, I'm ok with it.
What's a 20 foot increase in sea levels compared to some corporate theft by a nation state?
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Because only China is doing this in large part. They have the top emissions worldwide. The US & Canada are both dropping.
it's 2017, not 1997. wake up.
China, despite having a lower GDP than the US has outspent the US in spending on renewables for every year this decade. China is already doing more than the US to break from fossil fuels. China has a lot of problems with how they treat the environment, but they're beating us on renewables.
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Technically, the only reason China is beating the US and Canada on renewables is the inaction of Red states and provinces. If you actually look at the 13 states and 6 provinces investing in renewables, we're also investing just as much. But, being Communists, China can force everyone to actually do stuff, so they win.
And I do mean win. It cuts their costs dramatically. It's why Blue cities grow faster. The few Red cities that invest in renewables and transit are growing a lot (part of why Texas does so well
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Except in every metric other than country total output, China looks much better than the USA. Better per capita, better per GDP, better spending direction, better policies.
But yeah I know. There's lots of them so they don't deserve to use electricity. Now excuse me while I turn up the A/C because it's slightly uncomfortable in here.
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Not just China, but China has a good opportunity to do it here.
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Oh, I wish people had fewer cars here as well.
well at least the moon and the stars... (Score:1)
oh wait, maybe they can [wordpress.com]
Or is this part of the AI suppression pogram?
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The missing piece of this article is that China is dumping a lot of money into developing thorium nuclear power. In comparison, Uranium is expensive, hard to dispose of, way too radioactive, and terribly inefficient.
You mean the one that the US Dept of Energy** is helping them build [fortune.com] because they can't convince the US government to fund it?
In the meantime, overcapacity, cost overruns due to mounting safety requirements*** have delayed China's near term nuclear efforts [bloomberg.com]. Maybe their future Thorium nuclear endeavors will go more smoothly...
It's good to have optimism about new things, but sometimes thorium cheerleaders seem to have unwarranted optimism given the issues surrounding nuclear projects in the short history of n
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Read the Bloomberg article at the link, rather than this silly summary. It describes a nuclear program that is already producing so much additional power ("overcapacity") that it will reduce the number of coal stations faster than originally planned. The "mounting safety requirements" part was a two-year hold to make post-Fukushima updates to the program. China currently plans 176 reactors, far more than any other nation.
You are fooling yourself... (Score:2)
If you think China is going to reduce their fossil fuel use overall, you are a fool. They may be diversifying, but you can bet they will be utilizing the most cost effective means of power production they can find to build all that stuff you buy that they build.
Guarantee they won't reduce C02 production any time soon. Oh they may CLAIM to have done so and make a big show out of "green" projects to appease their customers, but as long as coal is cheap, they will burn it, and they have plenty of coal...
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Trump can do it! Behold this documentary on his impending success!
http://www.cracked.com/video_2... [cracked.com]
Upstart costs (Score:2)
This makes a lot of sense for China. If you're building out new infrastructure, build with the one that will be most cost effective in the future. You can take a solar panel to a remote village, and use a few hundred yards of copper to give lighting to all the houses....or, you can build a centralized coal plant and run hundreds of miles of copper to give lighting to all the houses. The renewable solar wins on a cost basis, even if you ignore the renewable.
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You're right. It's always that simple:
"Vote for me! My party will fix everything."
Sorry. You're just a political hack.
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Increase oil and gas (Score:2)
TFA says Chine wants to
increase oil and underground natural gas storage facilities
How does that reduce fossil fuel usage? It seems there is something from with article title.