China's dirty energy takes its toll

[lovuian]

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/redir.php?jid=145ebb85e418b33a&cat=c08dd24cec417021

China's dirty energy takes its toll
China's breakneck economic growth and soaring energy demand are becoming key factors in global energy use. Louisa Lim explores the human impact of the country's dependence on coal products, as part of the BBC's Planet Under Pressure series.


By Louisa Lim
BBC News in China





In pictures: Fighting pollution
With his thick smudged glasses and faltering gait, 77-year-old Liu Hongkui makes an unlikely protest leader.
But he has become the catalyst for action among the retired workers who live in his community in the industrial city of Tangshan, 150km east of Beijing.

Just behind their compound is a coke plant, which belches out noxious fumes day and night.
more...

Chineese people are awakening??? If they are going to die then they want a choice!!! The Chineese government sounds like Republicans!!!!!!!

[megatherium]

1. China has a huge and growing need for electricity

which they are trying to address in part by building nuclear plants. US companies are bidding for the next plants to be built. China has nine operating plants generating about 6 gigawatts of power; two more are under construction and a couple of dozen more are planned for the next 15 years.

Nuclear energy has its problems but there are good environmental reasons to give it serious consideration. (Solar is too expensive; wind too diffuse and intermittent, natural gas too scarce; and coal -- the real competitor of nuclear -- is extremely dirty, both in its mining and and in greenhouse emissions and other air pollution.) Careful engineering can mitigate the safety issues; fuel cycles can be designed to resist nuclear proliferation and to limit the waste produced while creating more fuel.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf63.htm

[lovuian]

2. Ya this coke plant is killing all the people who surround it!!!

Sometimes environmental laws are good!!! for everybody!!!