From Bloomie:
Beijing, where pollution averaged more than twice China’s national standard last year, will close the last of its four major coal-fired power plants next year.
The capital city will shutter China Huaneng Group Corp.’s 845-megawatt power plant in 2016, after last week closing plants owned by Guohua Electric Power Corp. and Beijing Energy Investment Holding Co., according to a statement Monday on the website of the city’s economic planning agency. A fourth major power plant, owned by China Datang Corp., was shut last year.
The facilities will be replaced by four gas-fired stations with capacity to supply 2.6 times more electricity than the coal plants.
The closures are part of a broader trend in China, which is the world’s biggest carbon emitter. Facing pressure at home and abroad, policy makers are racing to address the environmental damage seen as a byproduct of breakneck economic growth. Beijing plans to cut annual coal consumption by 13 million metric tons by 2017 from the 2012 level in a bid to slash the concentration of pollutants.
One must keep this in perspective. 13 million tonnes of coal is not a lot in China which consumes roughly 4 billion tonnes per annum:
It is roughly one third of one percent. Still, the symbolism is important in reinforcing peak coal usage last year.
