US President Donald Trump’s latest round of executive orders aims to bolster coal, kneecap climate-conscious state lawmakers, and “make showers great again.”
The coal orders end a moratorium on coal mine leasing, roll back power plant pollution regulations enacted by Biden, and instruct the Justice Department to “vigorously pursue and investigate” the “unconstitutional” policies of “radically leftist states” that “discriminate against coal,” among other measures. Coal’s share of US power has fallen sharply in the last decade, down to about 16% from almost half in 2010. And between competition from cheaper sources like gas and renewables, and the enormous costs entailed in keeping plants running, analysts said the orders are little more than symbolic.
china is going to be electricity carbon neutral long before the EU and US. and that while we had such a headstart
Ah, it’s, “beautiful, clean coal.”
Highly misleading – this misses all other CO2 emissions from other energy sources. Looks like an exercise in “selective data”.
The reason china is so coal dependent, at least from the youtube video I’ve seen which makes me an expert, is due to the fact that the Chinese quality of life is rising faster than infrastructure for green tech can be built. China is a much hotter country than most realize, so due to everyone using AC it puts a huge strain on their power grid. With climate change, the strain only increases so they’re forced to use more and more coal as they cannot fill the need with renewables.
So population boom, got it.
China makes stuff for other nations. If you count the emissions where the item is eventually used it looks like this:
China is more dependant on coal as they don’t have much oil or gas, that’s one if the reasons they’re ahead on renewables, hydro and nuclear (and EVs).
Most of the US shift is gas, which is cleaner burning than coal but has similar greenhouse gas emissions if you leak it at the well or pipeline stage.
So, it’s complicated, but coal is generally on its way out with most observers suggesting it’s peaked in China, and therefore globally.
It’s incredible that this is the case, considering China is also the leader in constructing green energy infrastructure at a rate multiple times any other country — and almost more than every other country combined. That combined with the coal and other conventional energy consumption tells you how quickly the country is growing.
Now do methane (“natural gas”).
The Chinese keep revising their population downwards. If it turns out there are actually far fewer people in China than assumed, these numbers will be exacerbated.
No surprise there. China’s per capita consumption of everything is going up.
the ol switcheroo, glad its all going into their planet and not ours!
12 comments
From the [Semafor Net Zero](https://www.semafor.com/newsletter/04/10/2025/china-can-win-an-energy-trade-war-with-the-us?utm_campaign=semaforreddit) newsletter:
US President Donald Trump’s latest round of executive orders aims to bolster coal, kneecap climate-conscious state lawmakers, and “make showers great again.”
The coal orders end a moratorium on coal mine leasing, roll back power plant pollution regulations enacted by Biden, and instruct the Justice Department to “vigorously pursue and investigate” the “unconstitutional” policies of “radically leftist states” that “discriminate against coal,” among other measures. Coal’s share of US power has fallen sharply in the last decade, down to about 16% from almost half in 2010. And between competition from cheaper sources like gas and renewables, and the enormous costs entailed in keeping plants running, analysts said the orders are little more than symbolic.
[Read more here](https://www.semafor.com/newsletter/04/10/2025/china-can-win-an-energy-trade-war-with-the-us?utm_campaign=semaforreddit)
Source: Energy Institute via OWID
Tool: Datawrapper
china is going to be electricity carbon neutral long before the EU and US. and that while we had such a headstart
Ah, it’s, “beautiful, clean coal.”
Highly misleading – this misses all other CO2 emissions from other energy sources. Looks like an exercise in “selective data”.
The reason china is so coal dependent, at least from the youtube video I’ve seen which makes me an expert, is due to the fact that the Chinese quality of life is rising faster than infrastructure for green tech can be built. China is a much hotter country than most realize, so due to everyone using AC it puts a huge strain on their power grid. With climate change, the strain only increases so they’re forced to use more and more coal as they cannot fill the need with renewables.
So population boom, got it.
China makes stuff for other nations. If you count the emissions where the item is eventually used it looks like this:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-co2-per-capita?tab=chart&country=USA~OWID_EU27~CHN
China is more dependant on coal as they don’t have much oil or gas, that’s one if the reasons they’re ahead on renewables, hydro and nuclear (and EVs).
Most of the US shift is gas, which is cleaner burning than coal but has similar greenhouse gas emissions if you leak it at the well or pipeline stage.
So, it’s complicated, but coal is generally on its way out with most observers suggesting it’s peaked in China, and therefore globally.
It’s incredible that this is the case, considering China is also the leader in constructing green energy infrastructure at a rate multiple times any other country — and almost more than every other country combined. That combined with the coal and other conventional energy consumption tells you how quickly the country is growing.
Now do methane (“natural gas”).
The Chinese keep revising their population downwards. If it turns out there are actually far fewer people in China than assumed, these numbers will be exacerbated.
No surprise there. China’s per capita consumption of everything is going up.
the ol switcheroo, glad its all going into their planet and not ours!
Comments are closed.