alt Hacker NewsChina is still installing much more new coal power capacity then is decommissioning old coal power capacity.
Also the average age of Chinese coal power plants is much lower then the average age of US coal power plants. These new Chinese coal power plants could be used for decades.
Last available data from 2025.
https://www.statista.com/chart/36007/power-capacity-of-new-d...
https://globalenergymonitor.org/projects/global-coal-plant-t...
What you said does not technically contradict what I said. We have to decide what it is that we wish to measure.
I do not pay attention to the "decommissioning" statistic, because a binary on/off switch is an arbitrary threshold.
Example -- China reduces the output of every coal plant to 1%, they would be "decommissioning" nothing, yet it would be fair to say they've abandoned coal.
That's why it's a better metric to look at change in net coal usage (which is flat or going down in China last year), which factors in non-binary underutilization of old coal plants, as new coal and renewables come online.
From ZeroGravitas in the parallel thread: https://ember-energy.org/data/electricity-data-explorer/?ent...