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Last Updated: 21 August 2025, 03:11 AM
In the first six months of 2025, China’s coal consumption decreased by about 2.6 %, while in 2024, the demand for electricity increased by about 5 % compared to the same period. This means that China increased the solar and air capacity very quickly to meet and then to meet something. US coal -fired electricity jumped 14 % in the same period. It came to light when natural gas prices increased by more than 60 %, and utility for reuse coal was emphasized because it was cheap. In many areas, the coal -fired generation has reached the highest level since 2022.
Natural gas prices increased drastically in early 2025 as US supply was being drawn at the pace of record in global markets. Strict demands in Europe and Asia kept the natural gas cargo out of US ports, which combines domestic prices more firmly than more international standards than ever before. It exposed US consumers with the same price shock. At the same time, Trump’s policies removed exports and obstacles to weak rules, which could save more domestic use. By preferring sales abroad, the administration increased the pressure on the local markets, increasing the costs for the power generators at home and making the coal -cheaper option to maintain the lights.
China’s clean energy construction is higher than a panel and wind turbine. This includes new transmission lines, storage, grid upgrade and planning that prevents waste. This type of infrastructure shapes because once it is built, it guides investing and operations. When you wire HVDC lines in wider provinces, you force your economy to solar, wind and hydro. If you tie this clean energy into storage and smart grid in your room for coal shrinking.
China’s record deployment of renewable sources in 2025 is only increasing capacity, they are actively displaced the geometric generation and its contamination. The total solar capacity of the 92 GW solar installed in May alone was extended to 1 Two, not close to this level. This scale means that the new demand for electricity can be met without firing extra coal plants, and in many cases the current fossil units are run less often or completely shut down. Every gigweatt of the clean breed that burns the grid coal, reduces sulfur dioxide and particle emissions, and cuts the Co₂ output. The result is a significant reduction in air pollution in major industrial regions and a significant reduction in national emissions, which shows how infrastructure choices directly give new shapes to both climate results and public health.
The opposite is happening in the United States. Coal plants that should retire are living online. Companies that can run on coal or gas are choosing coal because gas is expensive. This reinforces the case to keep coal plants alive and prevent the old system. Once you keep this plant alive, you delays the cost signals that lead to renewable sources. Every hour you burn coal that you should not burn a little lock on this route.
Policy choices are important. China is emphasizing change in the power sector through central planning. It can build a clean infrastructure quickly. The United States is withdrawing with executive orders that extends the life of aging coal plants, raises obstacles to coal mining, and gives regulatory breaks to coal operators. It opens a political door to take care of coal instead of investing in clean alternatives.
There are economics and ideologies behind policies. Solar and wind have reduced the cost for years. Batteries are cheap. In China, this means that cheap renewable means can compete and win. Political elections in the United States bow down to coal even if markets say otherwise. This tension between economic reality and political priority explains more energy selection in 2025.
The price of coal has never disappeared completely. When gas prices average approximately $ 3.53 per million BTU, last year’s utilities returned to $ 2.15. This shift sacked coal production up to 14 % and fossil fuel production by 1 % in total. Clean energy production increased by 34 % thanks to a 34 % more solar breed. But the development of coal was eliminated for years of development.
There are long -term implications for all of this. The emissions of the US power sector increased rapidly in the early 2025, and the global emissions advanced until China cut them. China offered about 60 million tonnes of emissions, while the United States increased the million tonnes in the first quarter alone. This space tells the story of two systems.
The speed of China’s infrastructure means that it will bend the emission path, even if it continues to produce a slight coal capacity for backup. The system that is building is a default choice of clean power. The United States is setting up infrastructure locks for the production of foam fuel, which contains coal -fired electricity. The weight of this choice is on long -term emissions as the infrastructure policy survives longer than the cycle.
Coal speed health and environmental consequences are tough in China and the United States. Since China reduces the use of coal, it reduces fine particle pollution that operates respiratory disease, reduces sulfur dioxide emissions causing acid rains, and fuel climate change. The reforms appear in premature deaths associated with air pollution in the sky and measuring drops. In the United States, the recovery of coal changes these benefits, in which more mercury, particles and greenhouse gases are released in the air. This choice burdens the public health, increases medical costs, and deepens climate impressions, which shows how infrastructure decisions resonate more than the power sector.
At some point the grids make their own logic. You have the ability and operators use it. They fix it. They send more power through it. They bond with it. The more clean grid you put into the ground as you draw the system into a clean choice. The more you keep the old coal plants alive, the more you preserve the use of coal when problems arise.
Energy transfer is made of selected routes and infrastructure. You can say that infrastructure is the architecture. Make a kind and you find a kind of future. Make the second and get you a different. Today, China is making a low carbon energy system architect. The United States is investing in the version of the fuel fuel. This choice is the difference not only next year but for the next decade. When the grid asks what fuel you have made, you will respond better with the future plan, not for the past.
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