China To Add Even More Coal-Generated Electricity -- Country Appears Unable To Keep Up With Demand -- July 19, 2019

What is the fastest way to meet new electricity demand? China knows.

• nuclear energy? Ha! In the west, it would take 20 - 30 years to bring a greenfield nuclear reactor on line
• renewable energy? Ha! Can come online quickly if projects are unfettered, if transmission lines are in place, but can't come close to meeting demand; and in some places in the world (like Japan) will never see a renewable energy sector
• fossil fuel (oil, natural gas, coal): and of the three, for China, the fastest and only way to meet demand -- coal

From a post on July 14, 2019:

This is pretty cool. For the past couple of days I've been doing a short series on coal (see this link).  Today I noted that oilprice posted a story yesterday (July 13, 2019) on the very same subject with the very same them.

All of a sudden, it seems, there has a been a flurry of articles from multiple sources on the increasing energy demand by China and India and how fossil fuel (crude oil and coal) will be meeting that need.

My interest was piqued when it was reported a few days ago that Germany was ready to shut down its last coal plants. See this link.

At this website, these data points:

• since 2000, the world has doubled its coal-fired power capacity to around 2,000 gigawatts (GW) after explosive growth in China and India. 
• a further 236GW is being built and 336GW is planned. 

And now today, this story from Reuters:

• China Energy Group, the country’s biggest power generator, will add more than 6 gigawatts (GW) of new ultra-low emission coal-fired capacity this year as it bids to meet growing electricity demand
• The company also expected to build another 5 GW of low-emission capacity next year, (2020) Xiao Jianying, the head of the state-run firm’s coal-fired power department

I have no idea whether this 11 GW of expansion by one Chinese company is part of the "336 GW that was already being planned."

Again, this tells me:

• 21st century: America's century
• 22nd century: China's century
• The baton -- from America to China: will be passed 2051. To be more specific, Tuesday, June 6, 2051

It appears that Germany has 50 GW of coal-generated electricity and has announced it will phase out all coal-generated electricity by 2038. Whoo-hoo. 50 GW over 20 years = 2.5 GW / year.

One company in China will add 6 GW this year, and another 5 GW next year (2020) on top of an already ambitious coal-plant building program.

Germany, by eliminating 50 GW of coal-geneated electricity over the next 20 years will have no effect on global CO2 emissions, FWIW.

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The Golf Page

As I posted yesterday, Tiger Woods would miss the cut at The Open. He did.

• inconsistent, cards a 70, second round, +6 for the two days
• I just want to go home
• is this his last year on the PGA tour?
• at +8, Phil Mickelson missed the cut also
• as predicted, the cut line, +2
• David Duval, +27, as of the 13th hole, round 2; my hunch: he, too, will miss the cut  

Television revenue? With only American on the leaderboard (top seven spots) and the loss of Woods / Mickelson, this does bode well for American viewership (and throw in the six-to-nine hour time difference).

Right now the only exciting thing about the tournament is to see who else will miss the cut.  McIlroy on the cusp, at +3 on the fourteenth, has just made another blunder, but he will save par on the 14th.

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The Book Page

The two books for this next week:

• The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606, James Shapiro, c. 2015
• The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle for James Joyce's 'Ulysses', Kevin Birmingham, c. 2014
• It's possible I have read portions of the second book, I cannot remember, and may have even posted notes on one my blogs regarding same.

Coming in the mail today from Amazon:

• The Weil Conjectures: On Math and the Pursuit of the Unknown, Karen Olsson, c. 2019; released July 16, 2019