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Visualizing China’s Evolving Energy Mix

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Visualizing China’s Energy Transition in 5 Charts

Visualizing China’s Energy Transition in 5 Charts

In September 2020, China’s President Xi Jinping announced the steps his nation would take to reach carbon neutrality by 2060 via videolink before the United Nations Assembly in New York.

This infographic takes a look at what this ambitious plan for China’s energy would look like and what efforts are underway towards this goal.

China’s Ambitious Plan

A carbon-neutral China requires changing the entire economy over the next 40 years, a change the IEA compares to the ambition of the reforms that industrialized the country’s economy in the first place.

China is the world’s largest consumer of electricity, well ahead of the second place consumer, the United States. Currently, 80% of China’s energy comes from fossil fuels, but this plan envisions only 14% coming from coal, oil, and natural gas in 2060.

Energy Source20252060% Change
Coal52%3%-94%
Oil18%8%-56%
Natural Gas10%3%-70%
Wind4%24%+500%
Nuclear3%19%+533%
Biomass2%5%+150%
Solar3%23%+667%
Hydro8%15%+88%

Source: Tsinghua University Institute of Energy, Environment and Economy; U.S. EIA

According to the Carbon Brief, China’s 14th five-year plan appears to enshrine Xi’s goal. This plan outlines a general and non specific list of projects for a new energy system. It includes the construction of eight large-scale clean energy centers, coastal nuclear power, electricity transmission routes, power system flexibility, oil-and-gas transportation, and storage capacity.

Progress Towards Renewables?

While the goal seems far off in the future, China is on a trajectory towards reducing the carbon emissions of its electricity grid with declining coal usage, increased nuclear, and increased solar power capacity.

According to ChinaPower, coal fueled the rise of China with the country using 144 million tonnes of oil equivalent “Mtoe” in 1965, peaking at 1,969 Mtoe in 2013. However, its share as part of the country’s total energy mix has been declining since the 1990s from ~77% to just under ~60%.

Another trend in China’s energy transition will be the greater consumption of energy as electricity. As China urbanized, its cities expanded creating greater demand for electricity in homes, businesses, and everyday life. This trend is set to continue and approach 40% of total energy consumed by 2030 up from ~5% in 1990.

Under the new plan, by 2060, China is set to have 42% of its energy coming from solar and nuclear while in 2025 it is only expected to be 6%. China has been adding nuclear and solar capacity and expects to add the equivalent of 20 new reactors by 2025 and enough solar power for 33 million homes (110GW).

Changing the energy mix away from fossil fuels, while ushering in a new economic model is no small task.

Up to the Task?

China is the world’s factory and has relatively young industrial infrastructure with fleets of coal plants, steel mills, and cement factories with plenty of life left.

However, China also is the biggest investor in low-carbon energy sources, has access to massive technological talent, and holds a strong central government to guide the transition.

The direction China takes will have the greatest impact on the health of the planet and provide guidance for other countries looking to change their energy mixes, for better or for worse.

The world is watching…even if it’s by videolink.

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Electrification

How EV Adoption Will Impact Oil Consumption (2015-2025P)

How much oil is saved by adding electric vehicles into the mix? We look at data from 2015 to 2025P for different types of EVs.

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The EV Impact on Oil Consumption

As the world moves towards the electrification of the transportation sector, demand for oil will be replaced by demand for electricity.

To highlight the EV impact on oil consumption, the above infographic shows how much oil has been and will be saved every day between 2015 and 2025 by various types of electric vehicles, according to BloombergNEF.

How Much Oil Do Electric Vehicles Save?

A standard combustion engine passenger vehicle in the U.S. uses about 10 barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) per year. A motorcycle uses 1, a Class 8 truck about 244, and a bus uses more than 276 BOEs per year.

When these vehicles become electrified, the oil their combustion engine counterparts would have used is no longer needed, displacing oil demand with electricity.

Since 2015, two and three-wheeled vehicles, such as mopeds, scooters, and motorcycles, have accounted for most of the oil saved from EVs on a global scale. With a wide adoption in Asia specifically, these vehicles displaced the demand for almost 675,000 barrels of oil per day in 2015. By 2021, this number had quickly grown to 1 million barrels per day.

Let’s take a look at the daily displacement of oil demand by EV segment.

Number of barrels saved per day, 2015Number of barrels saved per day, 2025P
Electric Passenger Vehicles8,600 886,700
Electric Commercial Vehicles0145,000
Electric Buses 43,100333,800
Electric Two & Three-Wheelers674,3001,100,000
Total Oil Barrels Per Day726,0002,465,500

Today, while work is being done in the commercial vehicle segment, very few large trucks on the road are electric—however, this is expected to change by 2025.

Meanwile, electric passenger vehicles have shown the biggest growth in adoption since 2015.

In 2022, the electric car market experienced exponential growth, with sales exceeding 10 million cars. The market is expected to continue its strong growth throughout 2023 and beyond, eventually coming to save a predicted 886,700 barrels of oil per day in 2025.

From Gas to Electric

While the world shifts from fossil fuels to electricity, BloombergNEF predicts that the decline in oil demand does not necessarily equate to a drop in oil prices.

In the event that investments in new supply capacity decrease more rapidly than demand, oil prices could still remain unstable and high.

The shift toward electrification, however, will likely have other implications.

While most of us associate electric vehicles with lower emissions, it’s good to consider that they are only as sustainable as the electricity used to charge them. The shift toward electrification, then, presents an incredible opportunity to meet the growing demand for electricity with clean energy sources, such as wind, solar and nuclear power.

The shift away from fossil fuels in road transport will also require expanded infrastructure. EV charging stations, expanded transmission capacity, and battery storage will likely all be key to supporting the wide-scale transition from gas to electricity.

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Electrification

Graphite: An Essential Material in the Battery Supply Chain

Graphite represents almost 50% of the materials needed for batteries by weight, no matter the chemistry.

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Graphite: An Essential Material in the Battery Supply Chain

The demand for lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries has skyrocketed in recent years due to the increasing popularity of electric vehicles (EVs) and renewable energy storage systems.

What many people don’t realize, however, is that the key component of these batteries is not just lithium, but also graphite.

Graphite represents almost 50% of the materials needed for batteries by weight, regardless of the chemistry. In Li-ion batteries specifically, graphite makes up the anode, which is the negative electrode responsible for storing and releasing electrons during the charging and discharging process.

To explore just how essential graphite is in the battery supply chain, this infographic sponsored by Northern Graphite dives into how the anode of a Li-ion battery is made.

What is Graphite?

Graphite is a naturally occurring form of carbon that is used in a wide range of industrial applications, including in synthetic diamonds, EV Li-ion batteries, pencils, lubricants, and semiconductor substrates.

It is stable, high-performing, and reusable. While it comes in many different grades and forms, battery-grade graphite falls into one of two classes: natural or synthetic.

Natural graphite is produced by mining naturally occurring mineral deposits. This method produces only one to two kilograms of CO2 emissions per kilogram of graphite.

Synthetic graphite, on the other hand, is produced by the treatment of petroleum coke and coal tar, producing nearly 5 kg of CO2 per kilogram of graphite along with other harmful emissions such as sulfur oxide and nitrogen oxide.

A Closer Look: How Graphite Turns into a Li-ion Battery Anode

The battery anode production process is composed of four overarching steps. These are:

  1. Mining
  2. Shaping
  3. Purifying
  4. Coating

Each of these stages results in various forms of graphite with different end-uses.

For instance, the micronized graphite that results from the shaping process can be used in plastic additives. On the other hand, only coated spherical purified graphite that went through all four of the above stages can be used in EV Li-ion batteries.

The Graphite Supply Chain

Despite its growing use in the energy transition all around the world, around 70% of the world’s graphite currently comes from China.

With scarce alternatives to be used in batteries, however, achieving supply security in North America is crucial, and it is using more environmentally friendly approaches to graphite processing.

With a lower environmental footprint and lower production costs, natural graphite serves as the anode material for a greener future.

Click here to learn more about how Northern Graphite plans to build the largest Battery Anode Material (BAM) plant in North America.

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