Word: coal
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That leaves no way around a heavy dependence on coal. The best China can hope for, say experts, is to cut coal's portion of the energy mix from 75% to 60% by 2010. The imperative, then, is to find cleaner, more efficient ways to burn the plentiful fossil fuel, reducing emissions of carbon dioxide, sulfur compounds and the incompletely combusted particles that form soot...
...begin with, the Chinese have mounted a successful campaign to equip major coal-burning factories and power plants with devices that wash the fuel. That has reduced the soot pouring out of the largest smokestacks but has hardly begun to clear the air. Reason: the main sources of pollution are millions of small factory boilers and household stoves burning unwashed coal. While the government hopes that as much as half the urban population can eventually be supplied with clean natural gas for cooking, rising prices and short supplies may undercut that effort...
...most costly -- and crucial -- steps in cleaning up coal boilers is curbing sulfur emissions. They combine with water in the atmosphere to create sulfuric acid and thus produce acid rain. Yet only one Chinese power plant boasts desulfurization equipment. China Huaneng Group, the market- oriented Chinese company that built the plant, was able to cover the cost of installing the antipollution devices only because the government agreed to raise electricity rates to users, according to Huaneng president Wang Chuanjian...
...Even if coal is burned cleanly and efficiently, it produces large amounts of carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas. To help ease the threat of global warming, China might use new technology to convert a portion of its coal reserves to natural gas, which delivers much more energy for the amount of CO2 released. The process, though, is expensive. The U.S. Department of Energy asked Congress this year for a $50 million grant that would be earmarked to help China build a demonstration coal-gasification power plant, but the appropriation has not been approved. By contrast, Japan is underwriting...
While foreigners may be justifiably reluctant to help finance a project as audacious and controversial as Three Gorges, many indisputably worthy ventures, from coal gasification to experiments with solar power, are also begging for funds. Governments and investors naturally wonder if they can afford to gamble on China. But as the most populous nation threatens to pollute the entire planet, can the rest of the world afford to turn its back...