IEA: Global Coal Power Generation to Reach a New High in 2022
19 hours ago
By Andy May
It’s official, the IEA believes that coal-powered electricity generation will rise 9% in 2021 to an all-time high, once the final numbers are in. For the details see their new report here. It is not paywalled.
The rise is driven by China and India, these countries account for two-thirds of global coal consumption. The IEA expects coal use in China and India to grow dramatically in 2022 driving global consumption to a new record of 8,025 million tonnes. They also expect coal production to plateau after 2022, but they always predict that. The problem is renewable energy growth cannot keep pace with global electricity demand growth. Possibly, natural gas production and nuclear could, but will it happen?
In 2021, coal production worldwide failed to keep pace with exploding demand due to financing and regulatory restrictions, causing Newcastle coal futures to rise from less than $100/tonne in January 2021 to over $250/tonne in October 2021. Currently they are $203/tonne. Rising prices should stimulate more coal production, we’ll see. The pressure on governments to limit coal mining and the pressure on banks to limit lending to coal companies is high.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/01/10/iea-global-coal-power-generation-to-reach-a-new-high-in-2021/
