Tuesday, October 19, 2021
To avoid power outages
China is increasing its coal production again
In the past few weeks, there have been repeated blackouts in China, and many companies have had to shut down or even stop their production. Because of the high demand, many are working on the stop. In order to meet the high demand for electricity, the country is increasing coal production.
China is currently expanding coal production again due to the high demand for electricity from industry. The country is in the process of increasing funding by almost six percent, said the National Development and Reform Commission. Recently, a new production record was even achieved in one day.
The planning authority has approved the commissioning of 153 previously decommissioned coal mines since the beginning of August. They would increase the production capacity by 220 million tons per year, said the authority. Measured against the total production of the previous year of 3.84 billion tons, this is an increase of 5.7 percent.
The country recently set a new production record with 11.5 million tons of coal a day. The increased funding should ensure the supply of coal during the winter and the coming spring, said the authority.
Around 60 percent of the electricity in China is produced with coal. In the past few weeks there had been repeated blackouts; Companies have to shut down or even stop their production. The economic growth in the third quarter was therefore only 4.9 percent, as the statistics agency announced on Monday. The companies in China are working hard because of the high global demand after the Corona crisis and need a lot of electricity – at the same time there are supply problems with coal from abroad.
In mid-July, an emissions trading system was launched for an initial 2162 energy companies in China to encourage them to reduce emissions. China is the largest producer of greenhouse gases.
Beijing has announced that it will become climate neutral by 2060. The coal-fired power generation is not to be reduced until after 2026. The Carbon Tracker expert group recently reported that China is planning 368 new power plants.