Why China’s mega coal-fired power plants thrive amid green energy boom

Why China’s mega coal-fired power plants thrive amid green energy boom

Over the Hexi Corridor, a ribbon of fertile land on the edge of the Gobi Desert blessed by the Yellow River in western China, a gleaming forest of wind turbines and solar farms stretches to the horizon. This is Gansu, China’s renewables frontier, a major source of wind and solar energy. And yet, just beyond the dunes, another giant stirs. At the Changle Power Plant, turbines roar to life as another 1-gigawatt coal unit comes online – six reactor…