Boom and Bust 2016 TRACKING THE GLOBAL COAL PLANT PIPELINE Christine Shearer, Nicole Ghio, Lauri Myllyvirta, Aiqun Yu, and Ted Nace BOOM AND BUST ABOUT COALSWARM and Gregor Allensworth of GreenInfo Network, with support from Tim Sinnott of GreenInfo Network. CoalSwarm is a global network of researchers seeking to develop collaborative informational resources on coal impacts and alternatives. AUTHORS Current projects include identifying and This report was prepared by Christine Shearer, Nicole mapping proposed and existing coal projects worldwide, Ghio, Lauri Myllyvirta, Aiqun Yu, and Ted Nace. Christine including plants, mines, and infrastructure. Shearer is the Senior Researcher of CoalSwarm. Nicole Ghio is a Senior Campaign Representative for Sierra Club’s ABOUT THE SIERRA CLUB International Climate Program. Lauri Myllyvirta is Senior Global Campaigner, Coal and Air Pollution, at Greenpeace. The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most Aiqun Yu is an independent journalist and a researcher for influential grassroots environmental organiza- CoalSwarm. Ted Nace is Director of CoalSwarm. tion, with more than 2.4 million members and supporters. In addition to helping people from all backgrounds explore nature and our outdoor heritage, ACKNOWLEDGMENTS the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the The authors wish to thank Bob Burton (CoalSwarm), Tim health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve Buckley (IEEFA), Ashish Fernandes (Greenpeace), Elif our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, pub- Gündüzyeli (CAN Europe), Sherri Liang (Sierra Club), Vrinda lic education, lobbying, and legal action. Manglik (Sierra Club), and Neha Mathew (Sierra Club) for research assistance and editorial review. ABOUT GREENPEACE The report was designed by Charlene Will. Greenpeace uses peaceful protest Page layout was by David Van Ness. and creative communication to expose global environmental problems and to promote solutions that are essential to a COVER green and peaceful future. With over 40 associated offices The photograph on the cover shows the smokestack at located throughout the world, Greenpeace works to protect Eggborough Power Station, a 1,960-megawatt coal-fired our oceans and ancient forests, and to end toxic pollution, power station in North Yorkshire, UK. The plant was built in global warming, nuclear threats, and genetic engineering. 1966. In September 2015 plant owner Eggborough Power Ltd Since 1971, Greenpeace has been the leading voice of the announced that the plant might cease operating in March environmental movement by taking a stand against pow- 2016 due to the combined effects of deteriorating economics, erful political and corporate interests whose policies put carbon taxes, and environmental permitting issues. Accord- the planet at risk. Greenpeace furthers its mission through ing to subsequent reports, the National Grid offered the research, advocacy, public education, lobbying, and litiga- owner a contract for the plant to provide emergency power tion with a staff that includes scientists, lawyers, campaign- to the grid during the winter of 2016/17. ers, policy experts, and communications specialists. Cover photo © Steve Morgan / Greenpeace ABOUT THE GLOBAL COAL PLANT TRACKER The Global Coal Plant Tracker is an online database that PERMISSIONS/COPYRIGHT identifies, maps, describes, and categorizes every known This publication may be reproduced in whole or in part coal-fired generating unit proposed since January 1, 2010. and in any form for educational or non-profit purposes Developed by CoalSwarm, the tracker uses public sources without special permission from the copyright holders, to document each plant and is designed to support longi- provided that acknowledgement of the source is made. tudinal monitoring. The following people participated in No use of this publication may be made for resale or other plant-by-plant research: Elena Bixel and Elif Gündüzyeli of commercial purpose without the written permission of the CAN Europe, and Bob Burton, Gregor Clark, Joshua Frank, copyright holders. Ted Nace, Christine Shearer, Adrian Wilson, and Aiqun Yu of Copyright © March 2016 CoalSwarm. The tracker architect and project manager was by CoalSwarm, Greenpeace, and Sierra Club Ted Nace. Web/GIS programming was done by Tom Allnutt COALSWARM / SIERRA CLUB / GREENPEACE REPORT | MARCH 2016 | 2 Boom and Bust 2016 TRACKING THE GLOBAL COAL PLANT PIPELINE Christine Shearer, Nicole Ghio, Lauri Myllyvirta, Aiqun Yu, and Ted Nace ■■ Despite the decline in power generation from coal, EXECUTIVE SUMMARY the global power sector added at least 84 gigawatts The world has too many coal-fired power plants, yet (GW) of new coal power capacity in 2015, a 25 per- the power industry continues to build more. While the cent jump over 2014. Since 2010, 473 GW of coal amount of electricity generated from coal has declined power capacity has been built globally, of which for two years in a row, the industry has ignored this over 90 percent is in Asia, led by China and India. trend and continues to build new coal-fired generating ■■ Due to falling use of existing coal plants combined plants at a rapid pace, creating an increasingly severe with aggressive building of new ones, plant utiliza- capacity bubble. The problem of overbuilding is espe- tion rates have fallen in all major regions, includ- cially severe in China, where the average coal plant is ing a 49.4 percent utilization rate in China, the now run less than half the time and the government lowest level since 1969. The Chinese government recently announced plans to halt new coal plant projects that the utilization rate for thermal power approvals. Worldwide, 338 GW of new coal capacity will drop to 45.7 percent in 2016. is in construction and 1,086 GW is in various stages of planning—the equivalent of 1,500 coal plants. The ■■ In China, a shift in permitting from central author- amount of capital potentially wasted on these plants ities to provincial authorities led to a tripling of amounts to US$981 billion, or close to one trillion dol- plant approvals in the past year. The Chinese lars. Meanwhile, as clean, renewable energy becomes government has clearly recognized the problem more affordable and more accessible, the amount of and is reportedly moving to order 13 provinces capital wasted on these unneeded plants will be one and regions to suspend approvals for new coal and a half times the amount the International Energy plants through 2017, and to order 15 provinces Agency estimates could provide electricity to the and regions to halt the initiation of new construc- 1.2 billion people who need it worldwide. tion. The large amount of capacity already under construction across the country, or under devel- This report provides the results of the survey com- opment in provinces and regions not covered by pleted in January 2016 by the Global Coal Plant the new restrictions, means that without further Tracker. The report provides the following highlights: intervention China’s coal power overcapacity will ■■ In 2015, actual consumption of coal to generate continue ballooning. electricity declined worldwide, led by a drop of ■■ Captive coal-fired power plants serving industrial 3.6 percent in China. facilities and built largely outside the official per- COALSWARM / SIERRA CLUB / GREENPEACE REPORT | MARCH 2016 | 3 BOOM AND BUST mitting process emerged as a major issue in China. ■■ Air pollution from coal currently causes an esti- One company in Shandong Province, Shandong mated 800,000 premature deaths annually, and Weiqiao group, accounts for 23 GW of such proj- planned coal plants would increase such deaths by ects, as much as all the coal plants built or under 130,000 people per year. construction in the EU since 2010. ■■ The capital expenditure represented by the pro- ■■ In India, 11GW of thermal capacity is lying idle. posed coal plant pipeline could be applied toward 2015 saw India’s first drop in annual installations other goals. Currently the power industry is on after continuous growth since 2006, and the drop track to spend US$981 billion on new coal plants. in 2016 is expected to be even more pronounced. That level of investment could fully fund the sce- With solar power now cheaper than new coal nario from the International Energy Agency (IEA) plants, a significant uptick in new coal plant con- to provide electricity for the 1.2 billion people struction starts appears unlikely. currently lacking access, as well as increase the amount of solar photovoltaic (PV) and wind power ■■ Global coal plant retirements are growing, led by installed worldwide by 39 percent. retirements in Europe and the United States, but not fast enough to balance out the over-building: ■■ Much of today’s overbuilding is defended on the worldwide levels of plant retirements are only a claims that newer plants are more efficient than fifth the size of new plant building. Europe and the older ones. However, even adding so-called effi- U.S. continue to produce far more carbon dioxide cient plants is counterproductive because it locks per capita than the global average. in large, long-lived carbon emitters, interfering with the need to fully decarbonize the power sec- ■■ Even with no further building of coal plants, tor by 2040 in order to limit warming to 2°C. emissions from current coal plants will still be 150 percent higher than what is consistent with scenarios limiting warming to 2°C—meaning that most operating and new coal-fired plants will have to be phased out well