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Green Globe: Chinese coal consumption rises after 3-year decline

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China has made national and international commitments to cut emissions from coal plants and other polluters, as well as mitigate the effects from global warming.
Source: Associated Press

Even though the central government has been pushing to cut pollution and fight climate change with low carbon energy sources, coal use in China has increased for the first time since 2013.

Coal consumption increased by 0.4% in 2017, according to the country's national statistics bureau. Coal accounted for 60.4% of China's total energy consumption. Low carbon sources such as natural gas, nuclear and renewables accounted for 20.8% of the country's energy consumption.

China has sent mixed signals on how it wants to reduce carbon emissions as part of its five-year plan through 2020 and its effort to meet its Paris Agreement goals. The country added 360 GW of renewable energy capacity in 2016, more than any other country. It also brought online almost half of the 74 GW in added solar PV capacity across the globe. In October 2017 Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi province, China’s largest coal-producing region, banned selling, transporting and using most of its coal.

At the same time, state-owned energy companies are investing nearly $1 billion in a coal and electricity trading joint venture. Toward the end of 2017, residents in rural areas suffered from a major heating crisis due to the cutback in coal production.

Canada-based minerals buyer Cobalt 27 Capital Corp. has agreed to buy a royalty on all future nickel and cobalt production at RNC Minerals' Durmont project in Quebec in a deal worth $70 million.

Cobalt 27 purchased a 1.75% net smelter return—the portion of the Durmont project's net income that Cobalt 27 will receive—on the project's production, the company announced Feb. 22. The Durmont project is the world's second-largest nickel reserve and biggest underdeveloped cobalt reserve. The royalty purchase positions the company to profit off of rising cobalt prices as demand for one of the most important components for batteries in electric vehicles and energy storage continues to grow.

"There's really only so much cobalt you can own," Cobalt 27 Chairman Anthony Milewski said in an interview. "There is potential for material growth for assets like this where you're adding $100 million in value to the company."

The deal also emphasizes a growing desire on the part of automakers and battery producers to obtain cobalt and nickel from more politically stable regions. The Democratic Republic of the Congo — where 65% of global cobalt production is located — has had violent political turmoil since the country's December 2016 presidential election has been postponed until the end of 2018. Much of the country's cobalt comes from so-called artisanal mines, where thousands of children work in dangerous conditions, according to a 2016 Amnesty International report.

The country's instability, combined with the possibility of huge royalties and taxes on mining companies, has shaken up the worldwide battery supply chain.

National Grid plc is having trouble accurately tracking Britain's peak electricity demand without access to data from smaller power facilities, including renewable energy projects.

According to The Financial Times, the transmission network operator does not get information on power generation from smaller assets like wind farms and solar panels, which connect through local distribution networks rather than the central grid.

With more low-carbon energy sources being added to the U.K.'s energy mix, National Grid's job to balance supply and demand and avoid blackouts is becoming more difficult. In 2017, more than half of the U.K.'s electricity came from low carbon energy sources for the first time, according to Carbon Brief.

Elsewhere

* Diesel cars could soon be banned from Germany to cut pollution thanks to a recent court decision, The Telegraph reports.

* The United States' Energy Secretary Rick Perry will travel to London on March 2 to discuss nuclear energy with Saudi Arabia. According to Bloomberg, sources said it is part of the Trump Administration's plan to build reactors in the kingdom.

* Canada-based renewables developer Boralex Inc. has secured €136 million in financing for wind projects in France.

* Pattern Energy Group Inc. has acquired a 206-MW portfolio of renewable energy assets in Japan.

* France installed 875 MW of new PV capacity in 2017, up 49% from installations in 2016, pv magazine reports.

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