The report involved dozens of managers at 85 power plants across 14
Chinese provinces, and found that while most new plants were built to
very high technical standards, there were problems in the way that the
energy infrastructure was being operated and the types of coals being
burned.
New market pressures encouraged plant managers to buy the cheapest,
lowest quality and most polluting coal, the report said. At the same
time, expensive-to-operate smokestack scrubbers or other cleanup
technologies lay idle.
The researchers said the situation is more amenable to change than
people may assume. "With expanding regulatory capacity and
increasingly sophisticated efforts to regulate through market-friendly
pricing mechanisms, reformers could achieve change relatively
quickly", report co-author and associate professor at MIT, Edward
Steinfeld, said.
See full story