UPDATE: Is China doubling down on its coal power bubble?

In January-December 2015, China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection and provincial Environmental Protection Bureaus gave at least one positive permitting decision to a total of 210 coal-fired power plants with a total capacity of 169 gigawatts – four power plants per week. This surge of approvals seems to have resulted from China’s decision to decentralize authority to approve coal-fired power plant projects Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) to the province level from March 2015.