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Sunsetting coal power in China

Reducing CO(2) emissions from coal-fired electricity generation in China is critical to limit global warming. Long-term projections of China's electricity supply tend to assume that coal generation will be a mainstay of China's electricity system through 2050, due to limitations in the sca...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Kahrl, Fredrich, Lin, Jiang, Liu, Xu, Hu, Junfeng
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8379489/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34458696
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2021.102939
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author Kahrl, Fredrich
Lin, Jiang
Liu, Xu
Hu, Junfeng
author_facet Kahrl, Fredrich
Lin, Jiang
Liu, Xu
Hu, Junfeng
author_sort Kahrl, Fredrich
collection PubMed
description Reducing CO(2) emissions from coal-fired electricity generation in China is critical to limit global warming. Long-term projections of China's electricity supply tend to assume that coal generation will be a mainstay of China's electricity system through 2050, due to limitations in the scalability of hydropower, nuclear, and natural gas generation and the commercial availability of carbon capture and storage. This paper examines the resource, economic, and institutional implications of reducing and replacing coal generation in China with mostly renewable energy and energy storage by 2040. We find that the scale of solar, wind, and storage resources needed to do so is on the order of 100–150 GW/year of solar and wind capacity and 15 GW/year of energy storage from 2020 to 2025, growing to 250 GW/year and 90 GW/year, respectively, from 2025 to 2040. We then also evaluate the sensitivities if coal plants are retired by 2050.
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spelling pubmed-83794892021-08-27 Sunsetting coal power in China Kahrl, Fredrich Lin, Jiang Liu, Xu Hu, Junfeng iScience Article Reducing CO(2) emissions from coal-fired electricity generation in China is critical to limit global warming. Long-term projections of China's electricity supply tend to assume that coal generation will be a mainstay of China's electricity system through 2050, due to limitations in the scalability of hydropower, nuclear, and natural gas generation and the commercial availability of carbon capture and storage. This paper examines the resource, economic, and institutional implications of reducing and replacing coal generation in China with mostly renewable energy and energy storage by 2040. We find that the scale of solar, wind, and storage resources needed to do so is on the order of 100–150 GW/year of solar and wind capacity and 15 GW/year of energy storage from 2020 to 2025, growing to 250 GW/year and 90 GW/year, respectively, from 2025 to 2040. We then also evaluate the sensitivities if coal plants are retired by 2050. Elsevier 2021-07-31 /pmc/articles/PMC8379489/ /pubmed/34458696 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2021.102939 Text en © 2021 The Authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Kahrl, Fredrich
Lin, Jiang
Liu, Xu
Hu, Junfeng
Sunsetting coal power in China
title Sunsetting coal power in China
title_full Sunsetting coal power in China
title_fullStr Sunsetting coal power in China
title_full_unstemmed Sunsetting coal power in China
title_short Sunsetting coal power in China
title_sort sunsetting coal power in china
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8379489/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34458696
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2021.102939
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