THE new generation of coal-fired power stations being planned and built in China is effectively ruling out future measures to mitigate the country’s carbon dioxide emissions.
China has signed up to the Kyoto protocol, but its rapidly growing economy is heavily reliant on coal, the worst fuel in terms of CO2 emissions. It plans to almost treble the capacity of its coal-fired stations by 2020.
With such high coal use, the best bet for curbing greenhouse emissions is likely to be carbon sequestration – locking the gas away by pumping it underground. But even this option is being ruled…
