China added 194 million tonnes of coal mining capacity in 2018, data from the energy bureau showed on Tuesday, despite vows to eliminate excess capacity in the sector and to reduce fossil fuel consumption.
Total coal mining capacity in the country was at 3.53 billion tonnes per year by the end of 2018, according to a statement from the National Energy Administration (NEA). That compares to 3.34 billion tonnes at the end of 2017.
The NEA said that excludes 1.03 billion tonnes per year of approved coal capacity currently under construction and 370 million tonnes per year under trial operation.
Additionally, the NEA has approved another seven coal mining projects with a combined capacity of 22.5 million tonnes per year since the beginning of 2019.
However, the total amount of coal mines in China declined to 3,373 in 2018 from 3,907 in 2017, the NEA said in the statement, as Beijing has been phasing out small and ineffective coal mines in eastern regions and expanding capacity in the west.
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The increasing coal capacity has stirred concerns it will undermine efforts to cut the share of coal in total energy use, and that China will be unable to keep its commitment of capping climate-warming carbon emissions by around 2030.
China produced 3.55 billion tonnes of coal in 2018, up 5.2 percent from a year ago, while generating 4.979 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity from coal-fired power plants, up 6 percent from the 2017 level, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed.
Read more at Reuters
So just when are t hose idiots from Greenpeace going to go over to China and occupy the coal mines until China agrees to stop using coal where are the jerks from the Keep it in the Ground groups carrying their stupid signs with the stupid finger pointing at the ground? going over to China, China was suppost to be the role model on how America should be in some liberal written Eco-Wacko books
Coal produces the most carbon dioxide per unit of energy than any other fossil fuel. The expansion of coal mining rather than another fossil fuel really show that China is not concerned about anthropological climate change. This is consistent with an article I read about ten years ago. A woman who was said to have close ties to the highest level of Chinese leadership claimed that China knows that climate change is a fraud. They are only going along with the movement for political reasons.