From the NoTricksZone
By P Gosselin on 23. January 2022
According to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Coal 2021 report, coal-fired electrical energy era reached an all-time excessive in 2021, growing a whopping 9% in 2021.
Chart supply: IEA
The enhance was pushed by the speedy financial restoration. Globally, a complete of 10,350 terawatt-hours of electrical energy was generated from coal.
Even worse by way of the local weather safety perspective, the IEA report says that world coal demand might nicely attain a brand new all-time excessive within the subsequent two years and would seemingly keep close to these ranges for the subsequent few years.
More than 600 new coal-fired energy vegetation are deliberate in Asia.
The IEA says China and India now account for two-thirds of worldwide coal consumption, regardless of their efforts to broaden renewables and different low-carbon vitality sources.
“Without strong and immediate action by governments to tackle coal emissions – in a way that is fair, affordable and safe for those affected – we will have little, if any, chance of limiting global warming to 1.5 °C,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol mentioned.
The IEA report comes simply over a month after the tip of the COP 26 local weather summit in Glasgow, Scotland. The settlement reached at COP 26 aimed to construct on the Paris Agreement and stop the worst impacts of local weather change.
The IEA forecast for the longer term:
At the identical time, nations comparable to Viet Nam, the Philippines and Bangladesh, the place very sturdy progress in coal demand had been anticipated just a few years in the past, at the moment are set to indicate extra modest will increase as they shift extra in direction of sources of electrical energy which are much less carbon intensive. However, world coal tendencies will likely be formed largely by China and India, who account for two-thirds of worldwide coal consumption, regardless of their efforts to extend renewables and different low-carbon vitality sources. In China, coal demand progress is predicted to common lower than 1% per 12 months between 2022 and 2024. In India, stronger financial progress and growing electrification are forecast to drive coal demand progress of 4% per 12 months. India’s rising urge for food for coal is ready so as to add 130 million tonnes (Mt) to coal demand between 2021 and 2024. For most industrial functions the place coal is used, comparable to iron and metal manufacturing, there aren't many applied sciences that may substitute it within the brief time period. Based on present tendencies, world coal demand is ready to rise to eight 025 Mt in 2022, the best stage ever seen, and to stay there by means of 2024.”
