China Emerges as a Leader in Cleaner Coal Technology

Rachel Polster

China poses a big threat to climate change because it uses more coal than the United States, Europe, and Japan combined, which makes it the largest emitter of gases that are warming on the planet. However, recently China has become the world's leading builder of more efficient and less polluting coal power plants. They have improved the technology and lowered the cost. The United States continues to debate on whether to build a more efficient kind of coal-fired power plant, while China has built such plants at a pace of one every month. While building these new plants, China now requires power companies to retire older more polluting power plants for each new plant built. However, only half of the plants in the country have the emissions control equipment to remove the sulfur compounds that cause acid rain and even among newly built plants, not all are modern. China has also doubled its total wind energy capacity in the past four years and will soon pass the US as the world's largest market for wind power equipment.