Coal-Powered Thermal Generation Declines In China & India, But Surges In US

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There is good news from Carbon Brief this week. It reports that the use of coal to generate electricity fell in both China and India in 2025 — the first time that has happened simultaneously in both countries in more than fifty years. It says electricity generation from coal in India fell by 3% year-on-year (57 TWh) and in China by 1.6% (58TWh).

The decrease in coal-powered thermal generation coincides with an increase in renewable energy last year. That increase was more than enough to meet rising demand for electricity in both countries. “Both countries now have the preconditions in place for peaking coal fired power, if China is able to sustain clean energy growth and India meets its renewable energy targets,” Carbon Brief says.

“These shifts have international implications, as the power sectors of these two countries drove 93 percent of the rise in global carbon dioxide emissions from 2015 to 2024. Challenges remain, but the decline in coal power output in both countries “marks an historic moment, which could help lead to a peak in global emissions,” according to Carbon Brief.

Maybe. The energy mix in any country is the result of a number of factors. Hydropower goes up when reservoirs are full but declines when water levels decline. Weather is a major factor, as colder temperatures increase the need to heat buildings, while hotter temperatures drive up the demand for cooling.

In China, demand for electricity increased by 5% in 2025, but it was more than offset by the increase in renewables, particularly solar. But there are recent policy changes in China that could impact its ability to supply the super cheap solar panels that have transformed how electricity is used in much of Africa and in Pakistan.

Policy Changes

According to The Energy Mix, last year China removed a policy that gave solar panel manufacturers a guaranteed rate of return. Export incentives have also been reduced or eliminated. Those regulatory changes have caused many observers, including the International Energy Agency, to predict there will be less solar power to be installed in 2026, even if the decrease is modest. But once the industry adapts to the new regulatory environment, the IEA expects solar installations to tick upwards again in 2027.

While an increase in the availability of  renewable energy in China and India has suppressed the demand for coal power, locking in future declines in coal generation will depend on meeting a series of challenges. First, power grids will need to be operated more flexibly to accommodate the increasing amount of renewable energy available. That means updating old power market structures that were built to serve coal-fired generating stations in China and India.

Both countries have continued to add new coal-fired power capacity. If the number of coal-powered generating stations under construction and permitted are completed, they would increase coal power capacity by 28% in China and 23% in India.

The necessary result of bringing more coal power online will be a decrease in the utilization rates of those facilities, which will drive up the cost of operating them and lead to higher costs for grid supplied electricity. In the longer term, new coal capacity would have to be slowed substantially while retirements are accelerated in order to make space for further expansion of clean energy in the power systems of the two countries.

Carbon Brief says power generation in China and India were responsible for more than 90% of the increase in global CO2 emissions from all sources between 2015 and 2024, with 78% attributable to China and 16% to India. Therefore, reducing emissions from their electricity generating sectors is the key to lowering global emissions.

US Emissions Rise

In marked contrasts to the good news from China and India, the latest report from the Rhodium Group claims that greenhouse gas emissions in the US rose 2.4% last year. “The increase in emissions was driven primarily by the buildings and power sectors. Colder winter temperatures drove higher space heating demand in buildings, pushing up direct emissions from fuel use in buildings by 6.8 percent. Higher natural gas prices and growing power demand boosted coal electricity generation, resulting in a 3.8 percent rise in power sector emissions,” the report said.

“The increase in 2025 emissions was driven by increases of 6.8 percent in the buildings sector and 3.8 percent in the power sector. Transportation remained the highest-emitting sector, though emissions rose only slightly by 0.1 percent from 2024 levels. Emissions rose more modestly in the industrial and oil & gas sectors.”

Data centers, cryptocurrency mining operations, and other large load customers drove electricity demand up by 2.4%, with most of the increase occurring in Texas, the Mid-Atlantic, and the Ohio Valley regions. Electricity to charge battery-powered vehicles was also a factor in the increased demand.

The main driver of higher coal use, the Rhodium Group says, was higher natural gas prices, which were up 58% at Henry Hub in 2025 compared to the very low prices recorded in 2024. An increase in the export of liquefied natural gas drove up methane prices substantially, as the current administration’s all out attempt to make the US great again leaves more and more people in America worse off financially.

Simple Economics

A first year business school student would know that when supplies go down, prices go up, but apparently the Moron of Mar-A-Loco was absent that week — or that year, as the case may be. Because of the wrong-headed policies of the US administration, fewer coal-fired generating stations were retired last year than in 2024. Through November, only 2.5 GW of conventional steam coal capacity was retired, compared with 4.5 GW in 2024 and an average of nearly 9 GW a year since 2020.

The fastest growing power generation source in 2025 was solar, which surged by 34%, the report said. That is the highest growth rate since 2017 and pushed the grid share of zero-emitting sources up by one percentage point to 42%, despite only a modest increase in wind and flat nuclear and hydroelectric generation. Natural gas remained the single largest source of electricity, though it fell by nearly three percentage points to 40% of the grid mix.

The US Emissions Picture Has Changed

In this year’s report, the Rhodium Group has lowered its projections for future decreases in US emissions since 2005 from 38 to 56% by 2035 to 26 to 35%. “This slowdown is largely due to changes to energy tax credits made by the 119th Congress in the 2025 budget reconciliation bill and the repeal of climate regulations by the Trump administration,” it said in its latest report.

“Apart from some modest contributions to increased coal generation from Department of Energy orders to keep a few plants running, we aren’t yet seeing the direct effects of these policy changes in US emissions. That could change in the coming year or two, particularly if data center electricity demand continues to surge and the grid responds with more output from existing fossil generators instead of new, clean resources. The growth in electric vehicles, which has in part helped keep a lid on transportation sector emissions, may also stall in the absence of federal tax credits and regulatory policies.”

Bury The Data

“Beyond policy changes that will result in higher emissions, the Trump administration has also moved to stop collecting and reporting a multitude of data on GHG emissions and climate change. Two of these data products in particular — the EPA’s annual GHG inventory and its Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program for major emitting facilities — are integral inputs to our work,” the Rhodium report says.

“Typically, we would expect EPA to give the US its final GHG report card for 2025 in spring 2027. However, EPA only released the 2023 inventory earlier this year when compelled by a Freedom of Information Act request, and most of the work had already been completed under the Biden administration. Given the Trump administration’s hostility to collecting and reporting data related to climate change, we may not receive any further inventories under this administration.” [Emphasis added.]

“The loss of this data means we are heading into murkier waters when it comes to understanding the second-largest emitter of GHGs in the world. While US emissions rose, 2025 was the second or third hottest year on record across the globe. Because emissions and their impacts persist even when the government does not count them, we will continue to adapt to this new landscape in order to inform critical US energy and climate policy debates.”

Translation: This assemblage of sycophants who have all pledged allegiance to a known liar, fraudster, pussy grabber, admirer of underage girls, and convicted sexual abuser are working full time to reward campaign donors while telling Americans to breathe dirtier air, drink dirtier water, drive dirtier cars, pay more for health insurance, and struggle to make ends meet. Yet over 70 million mostly white Americans who style themselves as devoted Christians voted to put this fat buffoon in office.

Making America Irrelevant

Whether America will ever be great again will depend on people coming to the senses. Based on the observable evidence, that is not likely to happen anytime soon. People in positions of power delight in pushing others down because they view equality as a form of punishment.

Until we fix that misconception, America will never be more than an afterthought, an historical anomaly like Carthage or Rome — entities that enjoyed a period in the sun and then became irrelevant. The blather and bluster emanating from the White Man’s House today is reminiscent of this soliloquy from the Shakespeare play Macbeth.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Does that last part remind you of anyone you know?