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China added 39 gigawatts of new coal power capacity in 2014. They issued permits for at least 150 new coal plants in 2015. They're building a new coal power plant every week, and issuing a new permit every two days. Just the new permits issued for 2015 alone would be equal to 40%+ of all US coal power plant output. While we're at it, let's remember to throw in the recent 14% revision upward in their coal use.

Their coal use clearly hasn't even remotely peaked. All the plans on their table right now call for building a lot more coal power plants.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/11/12/world/asia/china-coal-p...




Not everyone agrees. Greenpeace's analysis suggests that the new coal capability isn't being used (yet), which has lead to a 4% drop in actual coal consumption this year:

http://energydesk.greenpeace.org/2015/11/09/2015-the-year-gl...

Their analysts are working on the ground in China, whereas many other Western agencies just look at official numbers... So the truth may be somewhere in between, but Greenpeace's analysis can't be summarily discounted.




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