China now has half of the worlds coal power fleet

The global economy has been sucker punched by a world wide pandemic, but ABC propaganda writers don’t miss the chance to push their ultimate fantasy, that coal has turned a magical point in a terminal decline. Global coal fired capacity fell by an awesome 0.14 percent for the “First Time On Record”. Hyperbole knows no bounds.

How excited can someone get over a decline of one sixth of one percent? This much:

The world is now shutting down coal plants faster than it’s opening them

by James Purtill, ABC

The world’s combined coal power capacity has fallen for the first time on record as the closure of generators outstripped stations being commissioned. That’s good news for global emissions.

Note the numbers:

Coal power capacity fell by 2.9 gigawatt in the first half of 2020 — a small though significant drop of about 0.14 per cent, according to US research group Global Energy Monitor, which monitors fossil fuel developments.

By comparison, the global coal fleet had grown by an average of 25GW every six months over the previous two decades, from 2000-2019.

In a nutshell, or just a nut, coal power grew by 50GW […]