Joe Rogan on china: what the evidence says · JRE #2143
SUBJECT: CHINA
Not a true/false call. Every claim is logged with its sources; read the exhibits below.
and meanwhile China is opening hundreds of new coal power plants. They're doubling down on coal
What the evidence says 01 / RECORD
Around the time this episode aired, China was in the middle of a large coal buildout. Global Energy Monitor and CREA reported China permitted roughly two new coal power plants per week in 2022 and 2023, with construction starting on about 70.2 GW of new coal capacity in 2023, nearly 20 times the rest of the world's 3.7 GW. NPR, citing the same tracking data, noted China had about six times as much coal capacity starting construction as the rest of the world combined, and CNBC reported China accounted for roughly two-thirds of new global coal plant capacity added in 2023. Given tens of gigawatts of construction each year (each large plant is on the order of 1 GW) and a pipeline of hundreds of plants, the description of hundreds of new plants and doubling down on coal is accurate, though China was simultaneously the world's largest builder of new solar and wind.