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China To Boost Non-Fossil Fuel Use To 20 Percent By 2030 (reuters.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: China aims for non-fossil fuels to account for about 20 percent of total energy consumption by 2030, increasing to more than half of demand by 2050, its state planner said on Tuesday, as Beijing continues its years-long shift away from coal power. In a policy document, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions will peak by 2030 and total energy demand will be capped at 6 billion tons of standard coal equivalent by 2030, up from 4.4 billion tons targeted for this year.
Note the phrase "coal equivalent".
At the moment China burns about 3 billion tonnes of coal a year, mostly to generate electricity. They don't burn a lot of gas right now compared to other nations. They're planning a big increase in their total generating capacity up to about 2TW and a lot of that increase is going to be fuelled by gas as they cut back on coal but they're going to emit more CO2 in total in the process because of the increase.
Right now China burns about 2 tonnes of coal per capita each year. America burns about 3 tonnes of coal per capita annually but it also burns a lot more gas and oil per capita to power their first-world economy and infrastructure, military, road and air travel etc. China wants that sort of economy and infrastructure too.
Read the Bloomberg article at the link, rather than this silly summary. It describes a nuclear program that is already producing so much additional power ("overcapacity") that it will reduce the number of coal stations faster than originally planned. The "mounting safety requirements" part was a two-year hold to make post-Fukushima updates to the program. China currently plans 176 reactors, far more than any other nation.