“China’s renewable power is growing faster than its coal fired power because China has basically maxed out the rate at which it can extract coal from the ground.”

Where is your supporting statistic for this conclusion? Please show us something, a report, a news item, a twit, whatever, anything that says China has maxed out its coal extraction capabilities.

It is surely better suited to be included among Thermal sources. In fact nuclear plantas are really Thermonuclear plants where fission is used to heat water and generate steam.

Anyway no new “Thermonuclear” plants are expected to go online in China during 2010.

Fossil fuels are a finite resources all over the world.

Whole world has maxed out the rate at which any country can extract coal.

I am not sure why he says that renewable power would do more environmental damage via extraction of what other resources?

Renewable energy plants are based on Air, wind or Sun

Extraction of these resources does not do any harm to any one.

Finally, China’s renewable power is growing faster because they can afford the infra structure needed. Unlike western world they are not debt ridden country.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Gorges_Dam

When talking to/about China, be mindful of their two pit bulls, DPRK and Myranmar.

Maybe it’s bad to choose sides and be absolute, but there is this American effort to prevent a nuclear arms race in the middle east. We can count on China to help out in this regard.

http://www.irantracker.org/foreign-relations/china-iran-foreign-relations

Your statistics are correct, but your conclusion is not.

China’s renewable power is growing faster than its coal fired power because China has basically maxed out the rate at which it can extract coal from the ground. This is the same reason why they placed restrictions on provinces turning coal into liquid fuels.

China is going all out on renewable energy because fossil fuels are a finite resource. I’m sure that if they had more coal — cheap, effective coal — they’d burn still more of it.

In this way, it’s entirely possible that China’s renewable power resources will simply enable the country to sustain its current growth and ultimately do even more environmental damage (via extraction of other resources) not to mention burning evey last chunk of coal they have access to.