China’s power transformation may drastically change employment patterns in the power sector and its upstream supply chains

Zhou, Sili; Chen, Bin; Wei, Wendong; Liu, Zhaohui; Song, Song; Feng, Kuishuang; Li, Jiashuo

doi:10.1088/1748-9326/ac5769

Cited by 17 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 32 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Our results for wind and solar installed capacities are similar to studies that assumed recent cost projections for these technologies [26], but they are greater than others that imposed limitations on the growth of manufacturing capacities [32]. Compared to the employment effects in our study, the estimate from Zhang et al [7] is 40% lower than ours due to the omission of the indirect employment impacts from a life-cycle perspective (table S10), and the estimate from Zhou et al [9] is 60% lower than ours due to the omission of the private sector employment (table S11). Similarly, our estimates of premature deaths in 2020 under the Reference scenario are lower than those of other studies because of higher shares of clean energy in 2020 and our assumption that the emission standards have perfect compliance (table S17) [3].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 80%

Regional disparities in health and employment outcomes of China’s transition to a low-carbon electricity system

Yang,

Luo,

et al. 2024

Environ. Res.: Energy

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Understanding the costs and the spatial distribution of health and employment outcomes of low-carbon electricity pathways is critical to enable an equitable transition. We integrate an electricity system planning model (GridPath), a health impact model (InMAP), and a multiregional input-output model to quantify China’s provincial-level impacts of electricity system decarbonization on costs, health outcomes, employment, and labor compensation. We find that even without specific CO2 constraints, declining renewable energy and storage costs enable a 26% decline in CO2 emissions in 2040 compared to 2020 under the Reference scenario. Compared to the Reference scenario, pursuing 2ºC and 1.5ºC compatible carbon emission targets (85% and 99% decrease in 2040 CO2 emissions relative to 2020 levels, respectively) reduces air pollution-related premature deaths from electricity generation over 2020-2040 by 51% and 63%, but substantially increases annual average costs per unit of electricity demand in 2040 (21% and 39%, respectively). While the 2ºC pathway leads to a 3% increase in electricity sector-related net labor compensation, the 1.5ºC pathway results in a 19% increase in labor compensation driven by greater renewable energy deployment. Although disparities in health impacts across provinces narrow as fossil fuels phase out, disparities in labor compensation widen with wealthier East Coast provinces gaining the most in labor compensation because of materials and equipment manufacturing, and offshore wind deployment.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 80%

Regional disparities in health and employment outcomes of China’s transition to a low-carbon electricity system

Yang,

Luo,

et al. 2024

Environ. Res.: Energy

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This highlights the importance of adequate measures to compensate for economic and socioeconomic effects of coal mine closures. Renewable energy and other energy transition related industries could offer alternative employment and economic development opportunities [69,70]. National and international funds to provide structural change assistance to affected regions, as well as stakeholder integration in policy processes can furthermore contribute to increase stakeholder consent to phasing out coal production [71,72].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stranded assets and early closures in global coal mining under 1.5^∘C

Hauenstein

2023

Environ. Res. Lett.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

With the Glasgow Climate Pact 2021, the global community has committed explicitly to phasing down coal consumption. Yet the coal supply sector continues to develop new capacities, despite the risk of asset stranding. This article presents the first assessment of the implications of 1.5°C mitigation pathways for the coal mining industry. Based on open coal mine data and a new version of the open coal sector model COALMOD-World, the prospects for individual coal mining regions and their risk of early mine closures and asset stranding are analyzed. Results show that global cumulative production capacity from operating thermal coal mines exceed the remaining consumption values for 2020 through 2050 by more than 50 %. This supply-consumption discrepancy would hit Russia and the USA especially hard, causing the stranding of around 80 % of operating capacities in each case. But the early closure of operating coal mines would affect all of the world's major thermal coal producing regions, with most regions seeing more than three-fourths of their mine capacity closing early by 2030. Stranded assets from operating coal mines would total some USD2015 120 to 150 billion until 2050, with an additional USD2015 100 billion should currently proposed new coal mining projects be realized. If demand declines in accordance with 1.5°C pathways, new coal mines or mine extensions would be redundant in all coal regions. Although the stranded asset value of mines is relatively small compared to that of the coal power plant sector, early closures would especially affect workers and local communities. Thus, efforts are urgently needed to ensure a just transition in coal mining regions and to address excess operating and proposed coal supply capacities that continue to fuel global warming.

show abstract

“…Photovoltaic power generation, one of the new energy sources, can boost employment in upstream manufacturing, PV plant operation, and maintenance, creating 45,000 jobs for every 1 TWh increase in solar PV power generation in China ( 54 ). PV will provide more than twice as many jobs as thermal plants in the 2°C scenario, and this ratio will increase to about six times in the 1.5°C scenario ( 55 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Toward carbon neutrality: Projecting a desert-based photovoltaic power network circumnavigating the globe

Zhou

Liu

et al. 2023

PNAS Nexus

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Carbon, the human’s most reliable fuel type in the past, must be neutralized in this century towards the Paris Agreement temperature goals. Solar power is widely believed a key fossil fuel substitute, but suffers from the needs of large space occupation and huge energy storage for peak shaving. Here we propose a solar network circumnavigating the globe to connecting large-scale desert photovoltaics among continents. By evaluating the generation potential of desert photovoltaic plants on each continent (taking dust accumulation into account) and the hourly maximum transmission potential that each inhabited continent can receive (taking transmission loss into account), we find that the current total annual human demand for electricity will be more than met by this solar network. The local imbalanced diurnal generation of photovoltaic energy can be made up by transcontinental power transmission from other power stations in the network to meet the hourly electricity demand. We also find that laying solar panels over a large space may darken the earth’s surface, but this albedo warming effect is orders of magnitude lower than that of CO2 released from thermal power plants. From practical needs and ecological effects, this powerful and stable power network with lower climate perturbability could potentially help to phase out global carbon emissions in the 21st century.

show abstract

China’s power transformation may drastically change employment patterns in the power sector and its upstream supply chains

Cited by 17 publications

References 32 publications

Regional disparities in health and employment outcomes of China’s transition to a low-carbon electricity system

Regional disparities in health and employment outcomes of China’s transition to a low-carbon electricity system

Stranded assets and early closures in global coal mining under 1.5^∘C

Toward carbon neutrality: Projecting a desert-based photovoltaic power network circumnavigating the globe

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

China’s power transformation may drastically change employment patterns in the power sector and its upstream supply chains

Cited by 17 publications

References 32 publications

Regional disparities in health and employment outcomes of China’s transition to a low-carbon electricity system

Regional disparities in health and employment outcomes of China’s transition to a low-carbon electricity system

Stranded assets and early closures in global coal mining under 1.5∘C

Toward carbon neutrality: Projecting a desert-based photovoltaic power network circumnavigating the globe

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

Stranded assets and early closures in global coal mining under 1.5^∘C