Peak Coal
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“Won’t writing a book about coal be irrelevant when we’re reaching peak coal by end of this decade,” mused a friend over coffee. Indeed, IEA thinks last year was coal’s peak, for electricity at least.
It may be more professionally useful to write a book on new energy technologies, or other fossil fuels like oil, which are likely to outlive coal. But despite the excitement around peak coal, which has echoes of the debate around peak oil, we have reached new heights of coal hunger in the past three years. Each of 2021, 2022 and 2023 set new records for coal consumption globally. Coal is going to be with us for decades to come.
35% of electricity is still made from coal. 2.1 Terawatts of coal plants are operational, and a further 197 Gigawatts (GW) are in construction. Even if a meaningful carbon price is introduced, its decline and replacement seems likely to take decades, especially outside of Europe and the US (where the majority of decommissioning has happened to date). While promoting ambitious renewable energy strategies, India and China are still building new coal plants (53 GW worth in 2023). Countries like Indonesia, Vietnam and South Korea have added 30 GW, 22 GW and 18 GW to their grids respectively in the past 10 years.
Only 30% of global coal consumption is in countries which say they want to phase it out and even fewer have created a plan. Notably, China and India (69% of coal electricity production) are not on this list, nor could I find phaseout plans in the IEA’s policy database for Australia, the US or South Africa (9% of total).
Despite this, coal use may indeed decline in 2024 as carbon prices rise and climate commitments bite. However, we still seem to find it useful to keep coal around in emergencies. Rich countries like Germany and the US delayed coal decommissioning to deal with gas supplies cut off by the Ukraine War, or unexpected demand from data centres. An Australian state government has also delayed the closure of a coal plant, citing reliability concerns.
I am excited to dive into the dynamics that keep the coal industry so central to the world economy, even in the face of its looming demise. We are going to be using it for several decades to come, putting our planet at risk from the intensity of carbon emissions it will release. It would be helpful if we all understood why we continue to keep it in reserve for emergencies as we (slowly) shut it off in the West, and why its use is growing in some parts of the world, even as renewable technology gets cheaper.
PS: I’ve crossed the 50-post mark of my daily writing challenge as of yesterday! If you have any thoughts on what has worked well and what hasn’t, or any pieces you particularly liked and why, I would love to hear them.