If no one else wants to burn coal, coal will be cheap. It's not that expensive to dig it out of the ground and transport, and most of China's coal is mined in China.
replyAny solution that doesn't involve everyone agreeing to care about the externalities of coal (air pollution and greenhouse gases) will result in someone continuing to burn a lot of coal.
That's assuming the main cost of burning coal is the cost of coal mining rights, which it isn't. Less demand doesn't make it any cheaper to mine it or transport it instead of leaving it in the ground (which are actually significant costs), and doesn't make it any cheaper to build or staff the power plant relative to alternatives.
replyThey are using coal for the things they cannot yet replace with renewables for the same reason the US is using natural gas: it is the most abundant, secure, and economical non-renewable source they have.
replyThe US is using natural gas because of politics, and even that is significantly better than coal. This also doesn't explain why China (at ~5%) hasn't managed the same percentage of nuclear as the US (~18%).
replyOr why they need that amount of coal when they have even more hydro than the US, which is much better at load-following than coal and should have been used to displace coal rather than nuclear.
> This also doesn't explain why China (at ~5%) hasn't managed the same percentage of nuclear as the US (~18%)
replyThey started way later.
What makes you think hydro displaced nuclear in China?
They have more hydro and less nuclear. Hydro can displace anything when you have the geography suitable to actually build it. Which means the thing it displaced is the thing they have less of. They built new coal instead of new nuclear.
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