Indonesia banned coal exports in January over concerns that low supplies at domestic power plants could lead to widespread power outages, a senior energy ministry official said Saturday.

The country of Southeast Asia is the world's largest thermal coal exporter, exporting about 400 million tonnes in 2020. Its largest consumers are China, India, Japan and South Korea.

Indonesia has a so-called Domestic Market Commitment (DMO) policy, which requires coal miners to supply 25% of their annual production to the state-owned Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN) at a maximum price of $ 70 per tonne, well below current market prices.

“Why is everyone banned from exporting? This is outside our limits and it is temporary. If the ban is not respected, almost 20 power plants with a capacity of 10,850 megawatts will be shut down, ”said Ridvan Jamaludin, general director for minerals and coal. The Ministry of Energy said in a statement.

The global energy crunch forced a German electricity producer to halt a power plant after it ran out of coal.

Steag GmbH closed its Bergkamen-A plant in the western part of the country this week due to shortages of hard coal, it said by email. The closure is the first sign that Europe may need to count on mild and windy weather to keep the lights on as the continent faces shortages of natural gas and coal is unlikely to come to rescue.

Energy prices are soaring from the U.S. to Europe and Asia as economies rebound from a pandemic-induced lull and people return to the office.

And now we can see it all.

and it 2000 it was

Without moving production to China it had been real disaster in EU and US.

Real problem of EU and US is that their services do not cost as much as they though. Actually most of them are commodity now and others are only exist because huge developers salaries that are in turn protected by huge armies.

Several cities in at least three provinces in central and southern China are experiencing a power crunch, with some local governments beginning to ration power use during peak times, according to multiple domestic media reports. Entire provinces are taking the surprise step of limiting industrial power and even cutting heating in government offices, expected to take effect Dec.11

Similar rules have been implemented in the neighboring Jiangxi province, with authorities warning of the possibility of power interruptions during morning and late-afternoon peak periods. Meanwhile, the central Hunan province rolled out a series of power restrictions for businesses and factories on Dec. 8, urging them to consume less power. And Hubei, another central province, has expressed concerns over power usage due to tight coal supplies.

Reports of regional energy shortfalls come as China is aiming to curb its production of coal — a high-polluting fossil fuel that’s used to heat homes and power thermal plants — in order to meet its ambitious climate goal to become carbon-neutral by 2060.

At same time Chinese bureaucrats started coal war with Australia who was their biggest supplier.

While Xi is making grandiose pronouncements about a 'green revolution' - the backdrop is that in the first half of 2020, China approved 23 gigawatts-worth of new coal power projects, which is more than the previous two years combined according to the report, citing San Francisco-based environmental NGO, Global Energy Monitor (GEM).

"A new fleet of coal plants is in direct contradiction with China's pledge to peak emissions before 2030," said Lauri Myllyvirta, China analyst at Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.

Well, normal people realized that without coal it is zero advantage as green energy is very low quality thing and very expensive.

China is forced to turn back, even as they don't have enough domestic coal already

Across the country, 148 gigawatts of coal-fired plants are either being built or are about to begin construction, according to a report from Global Energy Monitor, a non-profit group that monitors coal stations. The current capacity of the entire EU coal fleet is 149 GW.

Last year, China's net additions to its coal fleet were 25.5 GW, while the rest of the world saw a net decline of 2.8 GW as more coal plants were closed than were built.

While the rest of the world has been largely reducing coal-powered capacity over the past two years, China is building so much new coal power that it more than offsets the decline elsewhere.

And it is good reason for it- energy costs are much lower.

But the amount of generation added each year drops.

China kicked off its annual parliamentary meeting, the National People’s Congress, on Tuesday where Premier Li Keqiang said the country must be prepared for a “tough struggle” as it faces a “grave and more complicated environment.”

Official economic growth target this year, he said, will be 6.0 to 6.5 percent, lower than the growth of 6.6 percent in 2018, the slowest pace since 1990.

And consequences follow. This is only small part, more going on during this year.

And suddenly...

China is stepping up its push into clean power with a revised renewable energy target. The nation is now aiming for renewables to account for at least 35 percent of energy consumption by 2030, whereas its previous target only stipulated "non-fossil fuels" making up 20 percent of energy use within the same time frame.

The new plan, called the Renewable Portfolio Standard, aims to tackle the country's soaring pollution levels by reducing its reliance on coal.

Poor journalist do not understand that you can reach 35% not only rising renewable energy, but by dropping other energy consumption, and this is that is happening fast.

U.S. fossil fuel production fell 7% from 2015 to 2016. Most of this decline was from coal production, which decreased 18% and fell to its lowest level since 1978. Relatively low natural gas prices, especially in the first half of 2016, and relatively flat electricity demand contributed to the decline in coal production. Petroleum and natural gas production also declined, falling 5% and 2%, respectively, as prices for both fuels were below their respective 2015 levels.

After declining slightly in 2015, U.S. renewable energy production increased 7% in 2016. Wind energy made up almost half the increase in renewable production, while solar energy accounted for nearly a quarter. Both fuels saw substantial electricity generating capacity additions in 2015 and 2016.

I mention debt because the first two charts you posted were about debt - and they look so terrible because debt shot up in that period not because of rising costs to extract coal.

Yes, there are debt problems in China. Also low transparency in reporting, which is why I used US figures with better reporting. Coal is a transportable material and there are lots of ships going back to China from the US with empty holds, so if China really were running out of coal, they could always buy from the US. (Currently, they buy a good quantity of the coal used for smelting steel, not much of the coal used to produce energy.)

Where does the lowering demand for coal come from? I believe it is: 1) lower cost petroleum, 2) low cost of steel and other products requiring coal for production due to high stockpiles, 3) environmental regulations/restrictions on coal burning for energy.

I don't think we're reading the shale oil and gas charts the same. To me they show a pretty regular pattern of new wells peaking within a year or so but then generating a fairly predictable tail pattern. Output was higher in 2011-14 most likely due to more wells being drilled while oil prices were quite high. With lower prices in 2015-16, fewer new wells were drilled--companies couldn't afford it in the US where most need >$45/barrel to break even. 2017-18 will probably look more like 2011-12 if the price of oil continues to increase.

My point here is, "Peak coal" refers to a peak in the demand for coal, not the supply.