Every night an old coal train chugs into central Beijing to deliver its load to the Guohua power plant, one of the city’s oldest power stations now surrounded by glitzy malls and towering apartment blocks.
Soon, the trains will no longer be running. In a multibillion-dollar effort to reduce air pollution, Beijing is shutting down its coal-fired plants and replacing them with natural gas-fuelled power stations by the end of next year.
“It’s going to be so much cleaner,” says a middle-aged woman who has lived next to the power station for more than a decade. A friend chimes in: “When I wipe my windowsills every day they are covered with coal dust.”