Antinuclear

According to a statement from the National Energy Administration (NEA), 28 of China’s 31 mainland provinces do not currently have the right financial or environmental conditions to build new coal capacity.

This represents an update to the government’s ‘traffic light’ system, designed to tackle the country’s coal overcapacity crisis — that we reported on last year.

What is China’s coal ‘traffic light’ policy?

Last year the National Energy Administration kicked off a new scheme to determine whether provinces should build new coal- fired power stations.

The system, created so that the country would stop adding to its overcapacity crisis, assigns each province a colour to signify the viability of its coal pipeline — based on profitability, existing capacity and ‘resource constraints’ such as air pollution and water.

Red means no new coal projects should be permitted. Orange indicates local governments and coal companies should tread carefully. And green says that there is plenty space for new coal power.

24 provinces were issued red lights, 4 earned the orange light (which recommends not adding coal in much stronger language than last year) while only two were given the green light……..

We reported earlier this year that the permits for new coal plants in 2016 have declined 85% compared to 2015, but that the new permits are concentrated in areas of high water stress.

Data from the last two quarters (the end of 2016 and beginning of 2017) show this trend continues.

Over 70% of the projects in the permitting pipeline are in extremely water stressed areas, so-called overwithdrawal zones, where the water withdrawn from a basin exceeds its capability to renew. http://energydesk.greenpeace.org/2017/05/16/china-coal-overcapacity-policy-hits-provinces/