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htx80nerdtoday at 4:48 PM2 repliesview on HN

ChatGPT : "tell me about China use of coal energy"

"China is by far the largest consumer and producer of coal in the world. Coal has historically been the backbone of China’s rapid industrialization and still plays a dominant role in its energy system."

- ~55–60% of China’s electricity comes from coal (varies slightly year to year).

- China consumes more coal than the rest of the world combined.

- Annual consumption: roughly 4–4.5 billion tons per year.

- China produces about 50% of global coal output

The west suffers while China does whatever it wants, at a Grand Scale.


Replies

otherme123today at 5:04 PM

Yes, China consumes a lot of coal. But they are trying to consume less. You cannot ask a developing country to go back on its merging into the first world by consuming less energy or investing in more expensive sources only. We westerners are here because we grew on cheap and dirty energy, what moral ground do we have to ask them to stop growing?

Coal was almost 100% of China energy consumption only 15 years ago, with a bit of hydro. Today they are very aggressively shifting towards anything but coal, as you found in ChatGPT, to less than 60% of coal in the mix. For comparison, the US is almost at the same point today than 15 years ago, only significantly replaced coal with more gas. A country that is consuming about the same amount of energy since 2000, while China consumes 5x.

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Liotoday at 4:56 PM

Can't blame GPT I guess it wasn't trained that recently but China is now taking steps to rectify that.

https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/china-...