"SHANGHAI - China started building 33 gigawatts of new coal-fired power generation capacity last year, the most since 2016, research published on Thursday showed, a sign the country is falling back on fossil fuels as economic worries mount.

The newly added capacity under construction was three times more than the rest of the world combined, said Helsinki-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) and U.S. think tank Global Energy Monitor (GEM).

While new permits were suspended in 2021, they resumed in 2022, with five projects with a total capacity of 7.3 GW approved for construction in the first six weeks of the year, the research showed.

China also approved 74 million tonnes of replacement coal-based steel production capacity last year, more than the whole of the rest of the world."

David Stanway reports for Reuters February 23, 2022. [2]