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The US isn't expanding fossil fuel extraction, its quite the opposite. They're funding the modernization of existing plants in order to take older plants offlin

The US isn't expanding fossil fuel extraction, its quite the opposite. They're funding the modernization of existing plants in order to take older plants offline: June 2026: New coal-fired plants in Anchorage, Alaska, and Mt. Storm, West Virginia, would total 2.85 GW. They would be the first new U.S. coal plants to come online since 2013. https://www.utilitydive.com/news/doe-announces-850m-modernize-coal-capacity-build-new-plants/822109/ https://www.utilitydive.com/news/doe-announces-850m-moderniz... Meanwhile in China (from 2023): China permitted more coal power plants last year than any time in the last seven years, according to a new report released this week. It's the equivalent of about two new coal power plants per week. The report by energy data organizations Global Energy Monitor and the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air finds the country quadrupled the amount of new coal power approvals in 2022 compared to 2021. "Everybody else is moving away from coal and China seems to be stepping on the gas," she says. "We saw that China has six times as much plants starting construction as the rest of the world combined." https://www.npr.org/2023/03/02/1160441919/china-is-building-six-times-more-new-coal-plants-than-other-countries-report-fin https://www.npr.org/2023/03/02/1160441919/china-is-building-... Meanwhile in India (2026): India plans to increase its coal production by nearly 100m tonnes to 1.15bn tonnes in the 2025-26 fiscal year to help meet the country’s rising demand for electricity to support economic growth and contend with heatwaves, which have become more severe and more frequent because of the climate crisis. The planned increases come despite signs that the world is beginning to turn its back on coal in favour of renewable electricity, Global Energy Monitor said. The US could switch every ICE vehicle to EV's and install solar and wind turbines in every inch of the country and it won't combat what's going on in China, India and other developing countries that rely on coal for cheap energy.

abrezas 23d ago
You are looking at the acceleration but without looking at the initial state. A more fair metric would be Co2 emissions/person and I’m getting USA 14.3 t, China 8.8 t, EU 5.5 t, India 2.2 t
- deleted 23d ago
  [deleted]
- TacticalCoder 23d ago
  > A more fair metric would be Co2 emissions/person and I’m getting We don't care about that notion of "fair": the cold hart truth is that China has 1.4 billon people. Another way to put it: China has one billion more people than there are in the US. Or another way to put it: 4.1x more people. Which means China is emitting nearly 3x more Co2 than the US. Our only hope is that China is using coal and fossil fuels only has a mean to sustain its insane growth while they transition to solar and nuclear (which they also do, at an amazing speed). Hillbillies and redneck with their gigantic pick-up trucks in the US are really the least of worries.
  - mitthrowaway2 23d ago
    Solution to save the environment: China should separate out Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia as separate independent countries. Hong Kong and Macao too. And then split north-south so that Shanghai and Beijing become their own capitals. Continue this process and eventually the population and emissions of each individual country will be low enough that they can be ignored, thus solving the problem once and for all.
    - edflsafoiewq 23d ago
      That is the opposite of what GP said. The point is only the total emissions matter, the climate does not care about "fair" allocations over either people or nation-states.
      - tzs 23d ago
        That's a pointless point, because any system to actually control emissions requires allocating them to nation-states, because it is nation-states that actually enforce things on people.
      - onraglanroad 23d ago
lern_too_spel 23d ago
You said "modernization of existing plants" but quoted "New coal-fired plants." China's 2025 five year plan targets peak coal before 2030 and might have already reached it in 2026. https://energyandcleanair.org/china-energy-and-emissions-trends-july-2026-snapshot/ https://energyandcleanair.org/china-energy-and-emissions-tre...
bryanlarsen 23d ago
You can't compare capacity without comparing capacity factors too.
jimbokun 23d ago
Could China and India get more electricity by investing the same amount in new solar production instead of coal?
- testing22321 23d ago
  China installed more solar capacity in 6 months than the US has installed in its entire existence [1] To say they’re winning the race implies there even is a race. It’s a super car vs a snail. [1] https://etangonam.com/?p=805 https://etangonam.com/?p=805
  - strictnein 23d ago
    The US has the second most and has 1/4th the population. We're barely behind them in solar watt per capita. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_by_country#Global_use_figures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_by_country#Global_... Many countries on that list dwarf China in a solar watts per capita, so are they winning this hypothetical race then? But sure, them adding that alongside all of their new coal plants is nice. Also, they waste the most solar energy of any country. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/china-leads-wave-clean-power-wastage-grids-globally-hit-limits-2026-08-17/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/china-leads-wave-cle...
    - foota 23d ago
      China is at a higher installed capacity by 6x from overall and 30% by per capita capacity. They're growing installed capacity from your source at 45% y/y as compared to 20% in the US. Sure, there might be more transmission constraints or whatever, but those will certainly be solved in time (transmission capacity is more distributed so I'm not surprised it's lagging capacity).
  - jimbokun 23d ago
    I know. I just don’t understand why they are diversifying between solar and coal, instead of just putting all new investment into solar or other renewables.
thinkcontext 23d ago
> The US isn't expanding fossil fuel extraction, its quite the opposite. Not according to the federal government's data. BTUs from fossil fuel production set a record last year and is on a faster pace this year. Your bringing up a few coal plants is only tangentially relevant. https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec1_3.pdf https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec1_3.pdf > The US could switch every ICE vehicle to EV's and install solar and wind turbines in every inch of the country and it won't combat what's going on in China, India and other developing countries that rely on coal for cheap energy. Are you familiar with the concept of necessary but not sufficient? In any event the war with Iran is speeding up the future that was coming anyway. China's EV and solar exports are surging throughout the world. Both China and India have said for many years that their emissions would rise and then fall.
netsharc 23d ago
> The US could switch every ICE vehicle to EV's and install solar and wind turbines in every inch of the country and it won't combat what's going on in China, India and other developing countries that rely on coal for cheap energy. "Today the US government announced CO2 tariffs against polluting nations - products sold in the USA need to be produced in carbon-neutral manner or face punishing taxes.". Pipe dream, of course, because the populace will vote for the guy offering cheap instead of sustainable...
- Muromec 23d ago
  Time to prise unelected Ursula and carbon border adjustment I guess
  - netsharc 23d ago
    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/26/eu-rollback-on-environmental-policy-deregulation-european-green-deal https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/26/eu-rollb...
foota 23d ago
The quote you pulled for China is conveniently 3 years old and missing the global context that it was in response to supply issues with other fossil fuels, not a reflection in meeting demand. These charts address your points: https://ourworldindata.org/profile/energy/china https://ourworldindata.org/profile/energy/china https://ourworldindata.org/profile/energy/united-states https://ourworldindata.org/profile/energy/united-states https://ourworldindata.org/profile/energy/india https://ourworldindata.org/profile/energy/india India is a bit more concerning for a number of reasons (lower per capita income means they are lower on per-capita emissions currently and hence have more room to grow, and they don't have the resources that China does to build out renewables) but criticizing China from a renewables perspective (there are a whole lot of other valid reasons to criticize them) is insane.
Hikikomori 23d ago
China installed more solar in 2025 than the IS has in total.
- ColdStream 23d ago
  Yep, they are growing generation by any means possible.
tzs 23d ago
There are several problems with this. First, you are ignoring gas. The US stopped building coal plants because of the fracking boom. That gave the US huge sources of natural gas which was cheaper than coal. China has little natural gas but abundant coal, so when they need fossil fuel for something they cannot yet do with renewables they use coal whereas the US uses gas. Second, you are looking at number of plants, but not looking at capacity factor (which is a measure of how much they are actually used). The new Chinese coal plants have lower capacity factors. They are being built as backups and peakers rather than baseload, designed (or retrofitted in the case of existing plants being upgraded) to be able to cycle up and down to balance wind and solar. Many are idle so much that their owners have financial difficulty keeping them open, and the government has had to start paying them for their idle time so they won't go under. Many are also built to replace existing plants that cannot not yet be replaced with renewables, so are at worst neutral on coal usage and are usually actually more efficient than the old plants so there is a reduction. Their use will continue to decline because China is massively deploying renewables. They also are adding massive amounts of grid battery storage and UHV transmission lines (60000 km so far spanning the country with another 12000 km under construction or permitted--the US is a bit behind that at 0 km), which means the can move electricity from where renewables are strongest to places with high needs but fewer renewables much easier that most other countries can which is further going to reduce the amount of time those new coal plants run. Third, for India, even if we compare by country rather than by the correct per capita measure (see other comments below for explanation of why per capita is the correct measure when comparing energy policies of different countries), India's current emissions are only 68% of US emissions even though the have 4.3x as many people. That 10% increase you cite that they plan for coal in 2025-2026 still leaves them doing WAY better than the US. India is also expanding renewables rapidly. They have around 10 nuclear reactors under construction, and are adding lots of solar and wind. They are currently up to 136 GW of solar capacity (64% of US and 11% of China), and last year added around 38 GW (the US added 34 GW). They added 6.3 GW of wind compared to 6.2 GW in the US. They are almost certainly not going to get anywhere close to the US total emissions. (And per capita where they emit 1/6th what the US does they are definitely not going to even remotely near the US).
- valeg 23d ago
  It is incorrect, PRC has abundant shale natural gas deposits and there is some work being done to tap them: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/china-taps-ultra-deep-sichuan-shale-push-boost-gas-output-2026-06-16/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/china-taps-ultra-dee...

abrezas 23d ago

You are looking at the acceleration but without looking at the initial state. A more fair metric would be Co2 emissions/person and I’m getting USA 14.3 t, China 8.8 t, EU 5.5 t, India 2.2 t

deleted 23d ago
[deleted]
TacticalCoder 23d ago
> A more fair metric would be Co2 emissions/person and I’m getting We don't care about that notion of "fair": the cold hart truth is that China has 1.4 billon people. Another way to put it: China has one billion more people than there are in the US. Or another way to put it: 4.1x more people. Which means China is emitting nearly 3x more Co2 than the US. Our only hope is that China is using coal and fossil fuels only has a mean to sustain its insane growth while they transition to solar and nuclear (which they also do, at an amazing speed). Hillbillies and redneck with their gigantic pick-up trucks in the US are really the least of worries.
- mitthrowaway2 23d ago
  Solution to save the environment: China should separate out Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia as separate independent countries. Hong Kong and Macao too. And then split north-south so that Shanghai and Beijing become their own capitals. Continue this process and eventually the population and emissions of each individual country will be low enough that they can be ignored, thus solving the problem once and for all.
  - edflsafoiewq 23d ago
    That is the opposite of what GP said. The point is only the total emissions matter, the climate does not care about "fair" allocations over either people or nation-states.
    - tzs 23d ago
      That's a pointless point, because any system to actually control emissions requires allocating them to nation-states, because it is nation-states that actually enforce things on people.
    - onraglanroad 23d ago

lern_too_spel 23d ago

You said "modernization of existing plants" but quoted "New coal-fired plants." China's 2025 five year plan targets peak coal before 2030 and might have already reached it in 2026. https://energyandcleanair.org/china-energy-and-emissions-trends-july-2026-snapshot/ https://energyandcleanair.org/china-energy-and-emissions-tre...

bryanlarsen 23d ago

You can't compare capacity without comparing capacity factors too.

jimbokun 23d ago

Could China and India get more electricity by investing the same amount in new solar production instead of coal?

testing22321 23d ago
China installed more solar capacity in 6 months than the US has installed in its entire existence [1] To say they’re winning the race implies there even is a race. It’s a super car vs a snail. [1] https://etangonam.com/?p=805 https://etangonam.com/?p=805
- strictnein 23d ago
  The US has the second most and has 1/4th the population. We're barely behind them in solar watt per capita. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_by_country#Global_use_figures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_by_country#Global_... Many countries on that list dwarf China in a solar watts per capita, so are they winning this hypothetical race then? But sure, them adding that alongside all of their new coal plants is nice. Also, they waste the most solar energy of any country. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/china-leads-wave-clean-power-wastage-grids-globally-hit-limits-2026-08-17/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/china-leads-wave-cle...
  - foota 23d ago
    China is at a higher installed capacity by 6x from overall and 30% by per capita capacity. They're growing installed capacity from your source at 45% y/y as compared to 20% in the US. Sure, there might be more transmission constraints or whatever, but those will certainly be solved in time (transmission capacity is more distributed so I'm not surprised it's lagging capacity).
- jimbokun 23d ago
  I know. I just don’t understand why they are diversifying between solar and coal, instead of just putting all new investment into solar or other renewables.

thinkcontext 23d ago

> The US isn't expanding fossil fuel extraction, its quite the opposite. Not according to the federal government's data. BTUs from fossil fuel production set a record last year and is on a faster pace this year. Your bringing up a few coal plants is only tangentially relevant. https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec1_3.pdf https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec1_3.pdf > The US could switch every ICE vehicle to EV's and install solar and wind turbines in every inch of the country and it won't combat what's going on in China, India and other developing countries that rely on coal for cheap energy. Are you familiar with the concept of necessary but not sufficient? In any event the war with Iran is speeding up the future that was coming anyway. China's EV and solar exports are surging throughout the world. Both China and India have said for many years that their emissions would rise and then fall.

netsharc 23d ago

> The US could switch every ICE vehicle to EV's and install solar and wind turbines in every inch of the country and it won't combat what's going on in China, India and other developing countries that rely on coal for cheap energy. "Today the US government announced CO2 tariffs against polluting nations - products sold in the USA need to be produced in carbon-neutral manner or face punishing taxes.". Pipe dream, of course, because the populace will vote for the guy offering cheap instead of sustainable...

Muromec 23d ago
Time to prise unelected Ursula and carbon border adjustment I guess
- netsharc 23d ago
  https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/26/eu-rollback-on-environmental-policy-deregulation-european-green-deal https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/26/eu-rollb...

foota 23d ago

The quote you pulled for China is conveniently 3 years old and missing the global context that it was in response to supply issues with other fossil fuels, not a reflection in meeting demand. These charts address your points: https://ourworldindata.org/profile/energy/china https://ourworldindata.org/profile/energy/china https://ourworldindata.org/profile/energy/united-states https://ourworldindata.org/profile/energy/united-states https://ourworldindata.org/profile/energy/india https://ourworldindata.org/profile/energy/india India is a bit more concerning for a number of reasons (lower per capita income means they are lower on per-capita emissions currently and hence have more room to grow, and they don't have the resources that China does to build out renewables) but criticizing China from a renewables perspective (there are a whole lot of other valid reasons to criticize them) is insane.

Hikikomori 23d ago

China installed more solar in 2025 than the IS has in total.

ColdStream 23d ago
Yep, they are growing generation by any means possible.

tzs 23d ago

There are several problems with this. First, you are ignoring gas. The US stopped building coal plants because of the fracking boom. That gave the US huge sources of natural gas which was cheaper than coal. China has little natural gas but abundant coal, so when they need fossil fuel for something they cannot yet do with renewables they use coal whereas the US uses gas. Second, you are looking at number of plants, but not looking at capacity factor (which is a measure of how much they are actually used). The new Chinese coal plants have lower capacity factors. They are being built as backups and peakers rather than baseload, designed (or retrofitted in the case of existing plants being upgraded) to be able to cycle up and down to balance wind and solar. Many are idle so much that their owners have financial difficulty keeping them open, and the government has had to start paying them for their idle time so they won't go under. Many are also built to replace existing plants that cannot not yet be replaced with renewables, so are at worst neutral on coal usage and are usually actually more efficient than the old plants so there is a reduction. Their use will continue to decline because China is massively deploying renewables. They also are adding massive amounts of grid battery storage and UHV transmission lines (60000 km so far spanning the country with another 12000 km under construction or permitted--the US is a bit behind that at 0 km), which means the can move electricity from where renewables are strongest to places with high needs but fewer renewables much easier that most other countries can which is further going to reduce the amount of time those new coal plants run. Third, for India, even if we compare by country rather than by the correct per capita measure (see other comments below for explanation of why per capita is the correct measure when comparing energy policies of different countries), India's current emissions are only 68% of US emissions even though the have 4.3x as many people. That 10% increase you cite that they plan for coal in 2025-2026 still leaves them doing WAY better than the US. India is also expanding renewables rapidly. They have around 10 nuclear reactors under construction, and are adding lots of solar and wind. They are currently up to 136 GW of solar capacity (64% of US and 11% of China), and last year added around 38 GW (the US added 34 GW). They added 6.3 GW of wind compared to 6.2 GW in the US. They are almost certainly not going to get anywhere close to the US total emissions. (And per capita where they emit 1/6th what the US does they are definitely not going to even remotely near the US).

valeg 23d ago
It is incorrect, PRC has abundant shale natural gas deposits and there is some work being done to tap them: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/china-taps-ultra-deep-sichuan-shale-push-boost-gas-output-2026-06-16/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/china-taps-ultra-dee...