Spare the Air: Beijing to Drastically Reduce Coal Use

Beijing promises "extraordinary" measures to reduce pollution in the infamously smoggy city.

1 minute read

February 6, 2017, 1:00 PM PST

By James Brasuell @CasualBrasuell


The Forbidden City

testing / Shutterstock

David Stanway reports on Beijing's recently announced plan to reduce coal consumption by an additional 30 percent in 2017.

The latest reductions would put the city's coal consumption at 7 millions tons a year—down from 22 million tons in 2013. Details about how the city will achieve these ambitious goals are scant, but controversy has dogged the city in recent iterations of the coal reduction plan—critics say by importing power from neighboring provinces, Beijing is merely shifting the pollution burden away from the city. 

Monday, February 6, 2017 in Scientific American

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