2,100 New Coal Plants Planned Worldwide - 557 Under Construction - And You Can Forget About 2C

[hatrack]

Earlier this week, I wrote about the global coal renaissance — arguably the most important climate-change story in the world right now. Since 2000, developing countries like China, India, Vietnam, and Indonesia have been building coal-fired power plants at a rapid pace.

On the upside, this boom has helped these countries lift themselves out of poverty. But the growth in coal has also meant a surge in global carbon-dioxide emissions — and if coal continues to be the world's energy source of choice, we'll have little hope avoiding drastic global warming. So that brings us to the next question: How long will this global coal boom continue?

For that, I'd recommend this March 2015 report from two environmental groups, CoalSwarm and the Sierra Club. The authors have documented, in painstaking detail, all the new coal plants that have either been proposed, permitted, or are currently being built around the world.

The bottom line? There's a large amount of coal capacity being planned worldwide, some 2,177 plants in all. Not all of these coal plants will actually get finished — many are getting sunk by local opposition or economic headwinds. But if even one-third of these planned plants get built, we run a high risk of busting through the 2°C global warming threshold. And right now, we're on track to do just that.

EDIT

http://www.vox.com/2015/7/9/8922901/coal-renaissance-numbers

[Sunlei]

1. There doesn't seem to be a way to stop coal mines and refinaries that make kerosene, selling...

to these countries who use these fuels for everything, even cooking.

[daleanime]

2. kick, kick, kick.....

[GliderGuider]

3. Here's a look at the increase in coal use since 2000

The data is from the BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2015.

There has been almost 3 times as much new coal power consumed since Y2K as hydro and renewables put together. Altogether, fossil fuel use has increased almost 6 times as fast as low-carbon energy use.

Fossil fuels have pulled further and further ahead in the energy sweepstakes. Our only hope to avoid a broiled planet is for some large coal-dependent economies (like China, USA and India) to crater.

[GliderGuider]

4. Fossil fuel vs low carbon energy since 2000

Last year, the increases in fossil fuel energy and low carbon energy were about equal, at 60 MTOE.
However, the world still uses over 6 times as much FF as low carbon energy (9388 MTOE more FF than low carbon to be exact).

That widely-touted exponential curve for renewables had better start ramping up fast, or there won't be a planet left to exploit.