China has actually been leading the charge in terms of green energy lately, at least in terms of making solar power equipment more accessible by way of driving down cost.

I have no idea however if they're just exporting this to other countries or if they're also pushing renewable energy domestically.

From what little I've read on this topic in recent years though they seem to realize that all of that smog is coming from somewhere and are taking meaningful action to remedy it, which is in stark contrast to what we're doing in the states these days with stifling clean energy and promoting coal.

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_heimdall a day ago | parent [-]

China has continued to rapidly increase their use of coal for power generation. Just a few days ago there was an article about them hitting an 18-year high of new coal power installations [1]

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/katharinabuchholz/2026/02/27/ch...

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myrmidon a day ago | parent | next [-]

It is deceptive to compare coal % of power generation, because China specifically substitutes coal for gas because they have none of that (and no reliable source). This also means those coal plants run at lower/decreasing utilization because a big part of their role is to provide dispatchability. So for China you have 55% coal and 3% gas while the US uses 16% coal and 40% gas for electrical power.

If you compare numbers, you will also find that lower per-capita consumption more than compensates for currently still higher CO2 intensity of chinese electricity (3000kWh/person * 0.5kgCo2/kWh for China vs 5500kWh/person * 0.35kgCo2/kWh, i.e. 1.5 vs 1.9 tons of Co2/year/person from electricity for China vs the US).

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AnthonyMouse 15 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> It is deceptive to compare coal % of power generation

It isn't, because coal emits significantly more CO2 per unit electricity than natural gas, since it's pure carbon instead of a hydrocarbon, and therefore should be getting discontinued by everyone rather than installed by anyone.

The "it's a developing country" arguments seem like a dodge when the real reason is that they'd rather emit 80% more CO2 so they can burn coal instead of buying oil or building enough nuclear and renewables to not do either one.

> This also means those coal plants run at lower/decreasing utilization because a big part of their role is to provide dispatchability.

Those percentages are for power actually generated and already take into account capacity factor.

> you will also find that lower per-capita consumption more than compensates for currently still higher CO2 intensity of chinese electricity

What excuse is that for burning coal? Should Germany and the UK be justified in burning more coal too, since they have lower electricity consumption per capita than China?

	▲	myrmidon 18 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		My point isnt that gas is just as bad as coal. My point is that coal (in China) fills the same role that gas has for electricity in other countries. Saying "China is >50% coal while the US is only 15%" misses half the picture, because the combined gas + coal percentage is actually almost the same, and the US only really gets to enjoy that cleaner gas in its energy mix because it has so much of it (while China has none). Blaming China for using coal instead of gas just feels like blaming non-Norway countries for not using enough hydro power to me. In my view, you only have a solid position to throw shade at China if your countries economical position is somewhat comparable (i.e. not rich as fuck) and you did manage to "resist" the temptation of big fossil reserves. You could make an argument that Spain was a bit of a poster child in this regard in the 1990s, but even in that comparison they were much wealthier (both absolutely and comparatively to China now). I could turn the argument around, and ask "why is the US still using >50% fossil fuels in its energy mix, despite being super rich"? What makes gas power acceptable and coal not? And the obvious answer is just that fossil fuels are a really attractive as dispatchable power. If the more-than-twice-as-rich US can not resist the temptation of gas power, why would you expect much poorer China to resist the twice-as-bad coal? [1]: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-worldbank-...

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_heimdall 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

While power consumption per capita is sometimes useful, I don't think it fits here. They continue to invest heavily in coal, that isn't leading in green energy.

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triceratops a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

New coal power installations != increased use of coal for power generation. You have to stop this lie by omission.

Their new coal plants either replace older ones. Or they are left idle. Close to 90% of all their generation growth comes from solar and wind.

They use coal because they have coal. Just like the US uses natural gas and then pats itself on the back for "reducing emissions" by switching from coal to gas. But their current trajectory will see them going to burning very little coal. It's a national security issue for them.

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_heimdall 15 hours ago | parent [-]

They have also increased total coal use as well. I don't have the stats handy which is why I didn't include an unsourced link, but I will add that here if I have time to find a solid source for that before this thread goes stale.

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triceratops 12 hours ago | parent [-]

https://www.theenergymix.com/u-s-emissions-rise-chinas-fall-... Their emissions fell in the first half of 2025.

	▲	_heimdall 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That's a different stat though, you switched from coal used to emissions output.

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giwook a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'd guess that this is in large part due to the sheer amount of datacenters they plan to bring online in the coming years and the fact that they can't scale up green energy quickly enough to meet the expected demand.

In an ideal world I think they'd prefer to be powered by 100% clean energy but not at the cost of losing the AI race.

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wat10000 a day ago | parent | prev [-]

China's coal consumption has been pretty much flat for the past decade. That's certainly not ideal, but it's not a rapid increase.

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_heimdall 12 hours ago | parent [-]

Where are you seeing their coal use as flat? Even the related wikipedia page[1] shows a pretty steady increase over time.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_in_China

	▲	wat10000 11 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Where do you see a steady increase on that page? There’s one fairly unreadable graph at the top. Clicking through to the source for that graph, we can see that consumption was 22.8TWh in 2014 and 25.6TWh in 2024, a pretty modest increase.