Coal is King of Asia

March 20, 2012

Asia Lives in the Reign of King Coal

Asia has accounted for about two-thirds of the increase in global energy demand in the last two decades, and almost half of the entire global increase has been sustained by coal energy.

Wind and solar electrical generation are not offering Asia affordable electricity on a big enough scale to compete with coal energy expansion while global giants like China and India show continuous growth and expansion.

China mines over 3 billion tons of coal a year, leading the world.  America falls into second place with around 1 billion tons per year, followed closely in third by India.

China continues to expand on hydroelectric production, and could lead the world in new nuclear-power plant production as other countries have slowed nuclear development since the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear-power plant in Japan.  However, without faster developing technologies and reduced prices on other renewable energies, China will probably remain very coal dependent for decades.

India is following a similar path, in projections of increase in energy supply over the next several years, India falls second to China.  India has the world’s fifth biggest coal reserve and is expected to have similar increase in future coal demand to China, with India already getting some 70% of its electricity from coal.

What this means for Global Warming

From both the mining and burning process, coal is one of the worst causes of air pollution in the world today, emitting billions of tons of carbon emissions into the atmosphere every year.

The future will probably hold serious debates about the rates and regulations of increasing coal energy production as the percentage of people who believe and understand the impact of global warming are continuing to increase.