As I've explained in another comment, adding power stations and capacity doesn't mean running 100% all year. China is using coal as peakers much like other countries use gas for this purpose. Given that China is also installing the most energy storage, it's not long (at current growth, less than 10 years) before these plants are only used in emergency situations.
You explained wrong. literally no one uses coal as peaker ever, and they are building more coal plants than the rest of the world combined (the country is not even the most populous)
I can point to the data. Do you have anything to back yourself? Reputable sources? What are your convictions based on?
> literally no one uses coal as peaker ever
While these plants might be strained by having to adjust their output, they don’t need to have a long lifespan. On the current growth curve, 10 years max and batteries have taken over.
As for China building things that are redundant, look at the ghost cities. Their local governments are incentivized to hit quotas, and it ends up with useless crap being built
You claimed "they are peaking plants". This is obviously wrong (how many peaking coal power plants are anywhere in the world, I'd be surprised if there's even one) and you have not provided any sources.
A plant doesn't have to be expressly a 'peaking' plant to drop it's capacity or increase it. All coal plants have this capability. Certainly it takes longer for coal plants to do this vs a dedicated gas peaker plant.
At any rate, the data plainly shows that the percentage share of renewable electricity in China is going up. I've never denied that coal plants are being built in China, but the data shows that China is using renewables in preference to other sources of energy, with a very clear and sustained growth rate.
It's not about coal plants being built, it's about how many are being built and long term planning behind it. This interview with Hannah shows how difficult it is to make China look good (it looks like she tries hard though, for some reason) https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/30/podcasts/transcript-ezra-....
They ban coal burning in houses and they move plants out of big cities where tourists go but they still build more and more plants. "oh but they'll use them less surely and burn less coal" would be great but sounds rosy
> using renewables in preference to other sources of energy, with a very clear and sustained growth rate.
Note that it's for electricity. How is it calculated? If it's used to power their pump based water energy storage then does it count? If it's used to heat then does it count? Does it rely on CCP provided metrics here while pollution, coal plants and fossil burning can be measured independently (just look at satellite based pollution map)
As I've explained in another comment, adding power stations and capacity doesn't mean running 100% all year. China is using coal as peakers much like other countries use gas for this purpose. Given that China is also installing the most energy storage, it's not long (at current growth, less than 10 years) before these plants are only used in emergency situations.