Taming the River Wild

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Nuclear plants are another clean power source, at least in terms of air pollution, but splitting the atom won't solve China's energy problems either. The government's controls on electricity prices and its failure to adopt international nuclear-safety standards have discouraged foreign investors from helping China build commercial reactors. Only two nuclear plants are in operation, and one of those was built to supply electricity mainly to Hong Kong at rates five times as high as what can be charged in China. Jiang Xinxiong, president of the China Nuclear Industry Corp., predicts that 20 more atom plants will be on line by 2020, but even so, nuclear power would meet less than 10% of China's energy needs.

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.

To 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.

One of the 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 an environmental center in Beijing as a showcase for antipollution technology.

Clearly, China needs a great deal more financial help to develop clean energy sources. Mou Guangfeng, a deputy director in the National Environmental Protection Bureau, estimates that the country needs $300 billion just for antipollution equipment. Yet the usual sources of aid, foreign governments and international lending agencies, are running dry; the World Bank alone has poured $20 billion into all sorts of China projects and can't do much more.