China’s environmental protection ministry has blacklisted eight cities for using outdated sulphur-removal processes at municipal sewage treatment plants and five power plants for fabricating smoke-gas monitoring data, Xinhua reported.
Scientists question whether the railway across the unstable soil of the Tibetan Plateau will survive as it is or require major reconstruction, Scientific American said. The Tibetan region is among the fastest warming – and fastest melting – areas in the world.
China has launched an unprecedented and long-awaited plan to offer subsidies for solar-power projects, Reuters reported. Efforts to boost the sector could draw more than US$10 billion in private funding.
Shenhua, one of China’s largest coal producers, has acquired six farms in the Australian state of New South Wales. It is generally accepted that the mining group is looking for new and easily accessible sources of coal, according to National Business Daily.
Dust clouds generated in China’s north-western Taklimakan Desert in 2007 made more than one full circle around the globe in just 13 days, a Japanese study using a NASA satellite found, Reuters reported.
Farmers are beginning to benefit from the government’s initiative to develop biogas projects in rural China. The goal is to combat pollution and improve living conditions, China Daily said.
Many Chinese wind farms are running well below expected capacity, according to a report released by the State Electricity Regulatory Commission, according to the Economic Observer Online.
A new report on China’s master plan for recycling of product packaging has been published, paving the way for the government to introduce strict new legislation for the industry, said Recycling Portal.
Local residents and environmental activists say some village cancer rates are higher than three decades ago in the Huai River basin in east-central China, heavily polluted by industrial effluent, according to Radio Free Asia.
Chinese companies have expressed interest in buying into Canadian potash projects in Africa, said the BNW News Wire.