[Skybird]

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung:
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The world is burning more coal than ever before

Eight billion tons - never before has mankind burned so much coal in one year. Now, for the first time, it will exceed this threshold, experts at the International Energy Agency (IEA) predict. This would break the previous consumption record set in 2013. The new IEA annual report on the coal market casts considerable doubt on whether the current crisis on the electricity and gas markets will actually become that "historic and definitive turning point" in global energy supply, as the agency had promised in October in the run-up to the World Climate Conference.

One thing is already certain, at least: This year, the turning point has failed to materialize. According to the agency's estimates, overall coal consumption will increase by 1.2 percent within the year. Although the USA probably consumed slightly less coal this year, China and, above all, India and the member countries of the European Union used this raw material much more extensively. Strong demand for coal, a particularly climate-damaging energy source, continues to fuel global warming.

Developments in China, by far the largest coal consumer (53 percent) and, together with India, also the largest coal producer, are particularly striking. In the Middle Kingdom, economic output grew at a slower rate this year than in the past due to the zero-carbon policy, which actually did not lead us to expect a sharp rise in energy demand.

However, droughts and heat waves in China had driven up electricity consumption by air-conditioning systems and hampered production by hydroelectric power plants. That fueled coal burning, IEA experts explain. In August alone, they say, coal-fired power generation in China increased by about 15 percent over the year to more than 500 terawatt-hours. "This monthly generation level is higher than the total annual coal-fired generation in all other countries except India and the United States," the energy agency points out.

In other regions, such as Europe, it was primarily the sharp rise in natural gas prices following Russia's invasion of Ukraine that spurred the switch to cheaper coal, according to the IEA. The production of hydroelectric power plants, which was also curtailed here due to the drought, and the technical problems at French nuclear power plants reinforced this trend, which efforts to improve energy efficiency and expand renewable energy sources such as wind and solar plants were at best able to slow down.

In this context, Germany occupies a thoroughly inglorious special role in the ranks of those countries that have ramped up coal-fired power plants again in the face of impending gas shortages and concerns about security of supply on the electricity market. "Only in Germany" is this reactivation taking place on a significant scale, with around 10 gigawatts of capacity, the energy agency determined.

The estimates in the IEA report on how coal consumption will continue to develop leave room for interpretation. For the EU countries, the agency assumes that increased electricity generation will remain at the elevated level "for some time," but will return to a "downward path" from 2024 due to higher energy efficiency and more expanded renewables. Global coal demand will also "stabilize by 2025" - at the eight billion ton level - according to the Paris-based experts.

But they trail off with what is a key condition for this: "A lot depends on developments in China." It cannot be ruled out, they say, that the current energy crisis with all its imponderables will fuel coal consumption even further. In addition to changes in the global economy, the weather, fuel prices and political decisions by individual governments, there are many other possible "variables".
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