Peak coal could be considered similar to that of mythical folklore – a story widely told but never experienced in reality.
Indeed, 2024 was yet another record in terms of demand and production of black slag, the first reaching a new summit of 8.77 billion tonnes (BT),, According to the International Energy Agency (IEA) COAL 2024 Perspectives. Although this does not represent growth of only 1%, a considerable slowdown compared to previous post-country years, this shows that coal continues to remain relevant.
New heights have also been affected for the production of coal electricity (10,700 terawatt hours) and extraction (9BT). China, where 55% of the electricity production of coal resides, continues to dominate the image, as it has done for more than two decades.
- Advertisement -
According to the IEA analyst and the report coordinator, Carlos Fernández Alvarez. The most important was the volume of imports in China, which jumped by 14.4% and was unexpected given the high national production of the country, which represents half of the world and increased by 1% last year.
“The first half-year of production was a bit low due to the safety inspections in Shanxi, but even after a resumption of the second half, imports remained solid,” explains Alvarez.
Coal imports are channeled in the most populous country in the world AustraliaRussia and the United States – although the newly announced reciprocal prices are likely to end this arrangement – and in Indonesia. This is in response to the increase in transport costs in the country, explains Dorothy Mei, project manager at the Coal mine global tracker by Global Energy Monitor (GEM).
Chinese coal resources are mainly found in the western provinces, while its coal centers are in the eastern and very populated southern coast.
“China is trying to import more coal from other countries, because it is cheaper than transport between the two,” she said, adding that Indonesia, which produces high coal volumes but does not consume much at the national level, and Russia and Mongolia could increase supply to meet the increased demand from China.
In addition, to increase reserves to ensure energy security after several provinces experienced Panus failures in 2022, China will continue to extend its interior coal operations, explains Mei.
Since 2021, the demand for electricity in China has increased at a faster rate on average than the gross domestic product due to the electrification of the services previously provided by other fuels, such as mobility and industrial heat, and emerging industries such as data centers and AI.
By building an interior production reserve system by 2027, the single state hopes to stabilize prices and guarantee supplies to power plants, the construction of which has increased for four consecutive years – despite the commitment of President Xi Jinping in 2021 to “strictly control” coal projects.
Predict that the future demand for coal in the country becomes more difficult, explains Alvarez, due to significant fluctuations in bad weather and the impact that this has on the production of renewable energy, which China quickly unrolled. Such variations could see the demand for coal up to 140 million tonnes (MT) greater or lower than forecasts by 2027 – volumes that can move the market, explains Alvarez.
“The highest and lowest potential renewable energy production is greater than the change in the global coal trend,” he explains. “What does that mean? If next year, someone asks, the request for coal in China will be higher or lower? The answer is: it depends on the weather.”
Alvarez also expected that the demand for coal in the United States decreases more than it did. In its latest briefing, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) increased its coal energy consumption forecasts to 386 million short tonnes in 2025, 4% more than 2024, due to the cold and the prices of natural gas above average.
Last year, coal provided 16% of American electricity and EIA expects this to continue in the short term.
Overall, we think data centers And electrification could slightly delay coal retreat in the United States. The sector is also temporarily optimistic that the new president Donald Trump will give a boost by reducing certain regulations, but so far, there has been no concrete plan. Even if there were, experts do not believe that this can change the dial considerably, as he did not do during his last mandate.
In addition, the EIA expects the electricity consumption of coal energy to decrease just over 20 Mt next year due to an increase in pensions from the coal power plant. Electricity consumption represents much more than 90% of the total use of coal in the United States, although a certain diversification can occur due to new innovative projects potentially online.
Examples include projects to produce graphite and hydrogen coal in Virginia-Western, a new power station using the Wyoming Supercritical Co₂ Supercritical and a modular liquid coal project. However, the AIE notes that the long -term potential of these technologies is uncertain and they should not have an impact before 2027.
Elsewhere, coal production and demand are grouped in Asia, India remaining the second largest user. The second most populated country in the world, which has a large production that is consumed at the national level, should be one of the many countries where coal demand increases – to just over 100mt until 2027, predicts the IAI – while it seeks to feed its economic expansion.
Other countries with growing coal demand include Indonesia and Vietnam. Collectively, China, India, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Laos, Turkey, Russia, Pakistan and Vietnam represent 95% of the global pre-construction capacity, according to a gem report. In the short term, increases in demand in these countries are expected to compensate for the drop in demand in Japan, Korea, Canada, the EU and the United Kingdom, which symbolically closed its last coal center last year.
Meanwhile, Australia, the fifth largest coal producer, the second largest exporter and which houses the third largest coal reserves in the world, is still resolutely engaged in coal. The AIE predicted Australia will become the fourth producer by 2027, exceeding the United States and Russia, where producers are struggling in the midst of international sanctions, low profitability and bottlenecks of infrastructure.
“Australia has another 263 Mt under various development stages, so Australian coal will remain under the spotlight,” explains Mei.
Just as peak coal remains elusive, the same goes for sustainable coal. The deployment of technologies such as the use and storage of carbon capture (CCU) is slow and the notes of the IAI that carbon dioxide emissions should not have decreased in 2024.
Alvarez thinks that if the technology should take off, it would be the China that launches it.
“China has dependence, so they have a good reason, and they also have the resources,” he said.
The CEO of Global Coal Trade Body Futurecoal, Michelle Manook, said that several nations, including India, China, Japan and North America, are “increasingly committed to the sustainable innovation of coal”. It highlights several efficiency gains and technological deployments in the pipeline, including a CCUS installation in a Chinese energy investment group site which could sequester 500,000 tonnes of CO₂ per year when it is operational.
Mei thinks that the generalized adoption of CCUs in China or elsewhere does not occur without incentive, but political frameworks like the EU carbon adjustment mechanismWho is still in its infancy, could have an impact.
She adds that currently, there is not much data on methane emissions in coal -fired power plants in China or elsewhere, without data at the level of the reported country. “Without the data, it is difficult to know the extent of the emissions,” she says.
Coal demand should start a sharp drop by 2030. Credit: CBPIX via Shutterstock.
Overall, Alvarez claims that the AIE expects the annual production of global coal of almost 9bt until 2027. However, despite the dependence of China on charcoal, including its attempted storage of the black lace, Alvarez insists that the writing is on the wall and the coal will enter a steep decline by 2030, drawn by China, as indicated in the wall The IEA World Energy Outlook 2024.
“If you remove the magnifying glass and look at the whole trajectory until 2050, as long as the coal power plants are closed and all the diversification comes into play, you have the decline of the coal,” he said.
Mei is not so optimistic. It stresses that this will also depend on the upgrading of grid infrastructure because the deployment of renewable energies is a major technical challenge for China.
“Right now, it’s [China’s] The grid system simply cannot accommodate the capacity of wind and solar energy without enormous improvement over the next five years so that the energy can be transmitted to the provinces-it is at this point that we would see a sharp drop in coal by 2030, but it takes time, “she said.
The retirement plans for coal -fired power plants certainly slowed down: at the beginning of 2022, the National Energy Chinese Energy Administration 14th five -year plan For a modern energy system, said 30 GW of coal power would be withdrawn by 2025, but less than 9 GW of power plants have been closed in the past three years.
In addition, Mei points out that China still has a 1bt of current mining capacity, projects that can last up to 100 years.
“I am not optimistic that China will reach advanced coal as expected, in particular given its recent accent on the development of coal,” she concludes.
“Peak Coal: Sitting us at the last Hourra de Coal?” Was originally created and published by Operating technologyA brand belonging to GlobalData.
Information on this site was included in good faith for general information only. It is not intended to constitute advice on which you should count, and we do not give any representation, guarantee or guarantee, whether express or implicit as to its precision or its exhaustiveness. You must obtain professional or specialized advice before taking or abstaining from any action on the basis of the content of our site.
