Forget About Peak Oil - We Aren’t Close To Peak Coal Yet

While the International Energy Agency continues to argue with OPEC on the topic of when the world will reach peak demand for crude oil, the question of when, if ever, the global community will achieve peak coal demand continues to plague efforts to reach the goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, or frankly by any other date.

The world’s two most populated nations, China and India, remain the main stumbling blocks for the central planners of this heavily subsidized energy transition. While western nations like Germany and Britain feverishly work to decarbonize and deindustrialize their economies, destroying economic growth in the process, China, and to a lesser extent, India, continue using rising amounts of coal to power the growth of their own economic engines.

In its annual global survey of coal usage published this month, the Global Energy Monitor finds that worldwide operating capacity for coal rose by 2% last year, led by China’s domestic growth. China accounted for fully 2/3rds of the 69.5 gigawatts (GW) of global coal-fired power generation capacity growth during 2023. And, despite its pledges to focus on reducing its carbon emissions, the Xi Jinping government appears set to exceed the 48.4 GW expansion during 2023 over the course of 2024.

For its own part, India added 5.5 GW of new coal-fired power plants during 2023, despite continuing pledges from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to meet his country’s own stated emissions targets. The Economic Times of India reports that, despite the massive investments India has made in adding new wind and solar fleets to its generating capacity, the power sector has been unable to keep up with the country’s rapid economic growth and the energy demands it requires. India’s consumption of energy rose at a faster pace than any other nation during 2023.