A shrinking coal plant pipeline

The amount of coal power capacity under development worldwide saw a dramatic drop in the first half of 2016, mainly due to shifting policies in Asia, according to a survey by CoalSwarm’s Global Coal Plant Tracker. Overall, the “coal plant pipeline”—the total amount of coal-fired generating capacity in pre-construction planning—dropped from 1,090 gigawatts (GW) at the beginning of 2016 to 932 GW in July. The total reduction, 158 GW, or 14% of the previous total, is nearly equal to the entire coal-fired generating capacity of the European Union (162 GW).