Connect with us

Energy

Where is Peak Coal in China?

Published

on

Where is Peak Coal in China?

Where is Peak Coal in China?

With supply remaining abundant and demand staying weak, the debate continues on when Peak Coal will occur in China. However, as Wood Mackenzie notes in today’s infographic, it is perhaps more a question of “where” rather than “when”.

China’s a big and diverse place. The country not only has world’s largest population, but it is second biggest in land mass as well. It’s really a question of the provinces in China, and their respective trends in growth and electricity generation.

Coastal demand for coal is already peaking in China, and this is partially because it is those areas along the coast that were first opened up to free market activity via China’s Special Economic Zones (SEZs). They have already had their boom and that growth is now tapering. In the Chinese mainland however, many provinces are recording growth rates of upwards of 7% as China implements its Go West policy.

Lastly, the infographic points out the energy mix in 2030 in both coastal and inland China. On the coast, energy from nuclear and natural gas are almost equally important as coal for future energy needs. However, inland it is all coal, where over 3,000 TWh of coal capacity will be created between 2015 and 2030. This is more than all solar, biomass, nuclear, gas, wind, and hydro combined!

The country is also building an Energy Superhighway that will transmit 825TWh of coal-fired power eastwards towards the coast by 2030.

Original graphic from: Wood Mackenzie

Click for Comments

Energy

How Much Does the U.S. Depend on Russian Uranium?

Currently, Russia is the largest foreign supplier of nuclear power fuel to the U.S.

Published

on

Voronoi graphic visualizing U.S. reliance on Russian uranium

How Much Does the U.S. Depend on Russian Uranium?

This was originally posted on Elements. Sign up to the free mailing list to get beautiful visualizations on natural resource megatrends in your email.

The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a ban on imports of Russian uranium. The bill must pass the Senate before becoming law.

In this graphic, we visualize how much the U.S. relies on Russian uranium, based on data from the United States Energy Information Administration (EIA).

U.S. Suppliers of Enriched Uranium

After Russia invaded Ukraine, the U.S. imposed sanctions on Russian-produced oil and gas—yet Russian-enriched uranium is still being imported.

Currently, Russia is the largest foreign supplier of nuclear power fuel to the United States. In 2022, Russia supplied almost a quarter of the enriched uranium used to fuel America’s fleet of more than 90 commercial reactors.

Country of enrichment serviceSWU%
🇺🇸 United States3,87627.34%
🇷🇺 Russia3,40924.04%
🇩🇪 Germany1,76312.40%
🇬🇧 United Kingdom1,59311.23%
🇳🇱 Netherlands1,3039.20%
Other2,23215.79%
Total14,176100%

SWU stands for “Separative Work Unit” in the uranium industry. It is a measure of the amount of work required to separate isotopes of uranium during the enrichment process. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration

Most of the remaining uranium is imported from European countries, while another portion is produced by a British-Dutch-German consortium operating in the United States called Urenco.

Similarly, nearly a dozen countries around the world depend on Russia for more than half of their enriched uranium—and many of them are NATO-allied members and allies of Ukraine.

In 2023 alone, the U.S. nuclear industry paid over $800 million to Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy corporation, Rosatom, and its fuel subsidiaries.

It is important to note that 19% of electricity in the U.S. is powered by nuclear plants.

The dependency on Russian fuels dates back to the 1990s when the United States turned away from its own enrichment capabilities in favor of using down-blended stocks of Soviet-era weapons-grade uranium.

As part of the new uranium-ban bill, the Biden administration plans to allocate $2.2 billion for the expansion of uranium enrichment facilities in the United States.

Continue Reading

Subscribe

Popular