By Aaron Clark, Annie Lee and Kevin Varley (Bloomberg)
After loading up with coal the DZ Weihai slipped into the turquoise waters off the coast of Australia this month and began a 14-day voyage to the southern Chinese port of Yangpu. How long the ship waits to discharge its cargo upon arrival is anyone’s guess.
Despite a Chinese ban on coal imports from Australia that’s left about 70 ships, 1,400 seafarers and 6.4 million tons of the fuel in offshore limbo, some vessels continue to make the voyage. While the stranded cargoes and crew are trapped between authorities who won’t let them unload and buyers who won’t let them leave, perhaps most curious of all is what is driving additional shipments.
The data come with important caveats. Many projects may have been rushed through at the end of 2020 to qualify for a subsidy scheme which ended in 2020, suggesting this level of growth may not be sustained into 2021. The numbers for 2020 are unusually high, and are likely to need further verification.
“By the end of Q3 2020, China reported 13.8GW of new wind for the year. This is such a crazy number that I’d like to see this verified with follow up reporting”, wrote the China Energy Portal Twitter account. They also point out that much of these installations were in the final month of the year, suggesting a rush to formalise projects. Another factor may have been the loosening of restrictions in certain regions such as Inner Mongolia,
Ten renewable energy trends to watch in 2021 By Brian Eckhouse, Will Mathis and Dan Murtaugh on 1/6/2021
LOS ANGELES (Bloomberg) Even after Covid-19 has wreaked havoc on almost everything else, the new year begins with surging growth for renewable energy. â2020 was the year of positive surprises for the environment in a way that very few saw coming,â says Jeff McDermott, head of Nomura Greentech. âIt was the breakout year in sustainability and infrastructure.â
Growth will likely continue into 2021, fueled in part by last yearâs major turning points. China has now committed to reaching carbon neutrality by 2060, putting the worldâs biggest market for solar and wind power on the path to ramp up installations as it begins its next five-year plan. Some analysts have started predicting that the U.S. power sector is approaching peak natural gas. That would leave room for solar-panel installations to build on the ongoing boo
China’s coal industry fights for survival in a greener world
The dirtiest fossil fuel dominates
the economy, but
it is at odds with Beijing’s goal to be carbon neutral
by 2060
By Dan Murtaugh and Karoline Kan / Bloomberg
The future of coal looks like an ice cream truck parked half a kilometer down a mine shaft in China’s Shanxi Province. The yellow-and-white vehicle is equipped with a 5G router from Huawei Technologies to gather data for the mine’s control center, where technicians monitor high-definition feeds on a screen the size of a two-story house.
They are tracking temperature and methane concentrations, while keeping watch over the black lumps zipping along conveyor belts on the way up to waiting trucks.