The use of this highly polluting fuel should, at best, stabilize by 2027.
«Coal is often considered a fuel of the past. Yet its global consumption has doubled over the past three decades», recalls the latest report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) devoted to this very polluting and long-lasting fuel. Despite all the efforts and speeches, the global consumption curve is still not reversing. In 2024, a new consumption record has been reached again, with the use of 7.8 billion tonnes, calculates the IEA. The level should stabilize in the coming years, at least until 2027, thanks to the rise of renewable energies. Without, however, backing down.
The weight of China
As always, it is China which weighs despite the increase in other sources of energy, nuclear, solar or wind installed on its territory. One in three tonnes of coal mined worldwide fuels a Chinese power plant. Beijing, the world’s largest consumer and largest producer, also saw its production reach record levels, at 14 million tonnes per day, in November. And it plans to continue at these levels to avoid any risk of shortage.
The use of coal continues because, in many countries, the demand for electricity is surging for transport, heating, air conditioning or computer data centers. Climate fluctuations also weigh. In China, very hot summers or cold winters could modify consumption, more or less, by 140 million tonnes by 2027, points out the IEA, whose Coal 2024 report limits its forecasts to three years.
In most advanced economies, the use of coal “has already reached its maximum and is expected to continue to decline until 2027», notes the study. Progress will be based on new regulations, particularly in Europe, or on increased use of cheap natural gas in the United States or Canada, predicts the IEA.
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Always more in emerging countries
Conversely, the use of coal continues to increase in emerging countries such as Indonesia, Vietnam and India, “where demand for electricity jumps with economic and demographic growth“. As for trade, which takes place mainly in Asia between China, India, Japan, Korea and Vietnam on the buyers’ side and Indonesia and Australia on the exporters’ side, it only represents 20%. of consumption. But it also reached a record level this year.
Coal revenues are so plentiful that it is difficult to consider reducing them. At around 129 euros per tonne, prices are far from the peaks of 2023 but they remain high, almost 50% more than before the Covid crisis. Countries like Australia, the fifth largest producer in the world, are therefore not seeking to reduce their exports, while developing renewable energies internally.
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Others, like Indonesia, another major exporter, want to act more quickly in the face of climate change. President Prabowo Subianto announced at the G20 summit in Brazil a plan to end all electricity generation from fossil fuels within 15 years by building 75 gigawatts of renewable energy, thanks in particular to the country’s rich geothermal resources. country. But this strategy is undoubtedly too ambitious. Prabowo Subianto’s special envoy for energy and the environment, who is also his younger brother, very quickly reframed the outlook by explaining that the idea of closing all coal-fired power stations by 2040 was “unachievable» and it turned out “an industrial and political suicide“. Many of the plants supply Chinese-owned nickel smelters, feeding the global supply chain for electric vehicle batteries.
In the United States, coal is, on the other hand, weakened by the rise of natural gas and renewables, which make coal-based electricity less and less competitive. American coal-fired power plants now collectively burn only one million tonnes per day, half as much as in 2015. And electricity producers found themselves at the end of November with a stock of 138 million tonnes, according to the Energy Information Administration. Enough to dissuade them from continuing to extract it in large quantities. Especially since the energy transition continues despite everything across the Atlantic. In 2025, an additional 13 gigawatts (GW) of the remaining 173 GW of coal-fired capacity are expected to either be retired or converted to gas.
