Nearly $1 trillion is being invested in building and planning coal-fired power plants that are not needed worldwide, according to a report published Wednesday by the Sierra Club. That encompasses 338 gigawatts of new coal capacity being built and 1,086 gigawatts in planning, “the equivalent of 1,500 coal plants,” the environmental organization said.
“The world has too many coal-fired power plants, yet the power industry continues to build more. While the amount of electricity generated from coal has declined for two years in a row, the industry has ignored this trend and continues to build new coal-fired generating plants at a rapid pace, creating an increasingly severe capacity bubble,” the report says.
The report looks closely at China, where new plants are being built at an alarming rate while the use of existing coal plants is dropping off. “Plant utilization rates have fallen in all major regions, including a 49.4 percent utilization rate in China, the lowest level since 1969. The Chinese government projects that the utilization rate for thermal power will drop to 45.7 percent in 2016,” the report says.
The large amount of capital being invested in expanding coal infrastructure would be better spent elsewhere, the report concludes. “The global coal plant pipeline represents a vast misplacement of resources that would be better redirected toward the twin goals of accelerating the pace of global decarbonization and providing electricity to the 1.2 billion people who currently lack it,” the Sierra Club said.
