Wind Farms, Solar Panels And Killer Smog: Coal Still Reigns In China's Schizophrenic Energy Revolution

JIUQUAN, China - By almost any measure, China's Hexi Corridor seems an unlikely place to show off the country's environmentally friendly, renewable energy. A narrow, windy, 600-mile-long passage running along the southern border of the Gobi Desert in China's northwestern Gansu province, the corridor is rife with heavy industry and coal-fired power plants that rise like monoliths from the arid, dusty steppe. Howling winds from the desert carry heavy loads of smog from smokestacks that blur the ed...