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Beijing to Shut All Major Coal Power Plants to Cut Pollution

249 points by vincvinc 12y ago

brc 12y ago
Catching up to London in the 1930s...or was it 1950s? Burning lots of coal in dated power stations next to a city is a bad idea for the residents health.
- pjc50 12y ago
  Until 1983: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battersea_Power_Station http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battersea_Power_Station Edit: I don't understand the downvotes; my point is that the last coal-fired powerstation in London was closed a lot more recently than people might think.
  - mikeash 12y ago
    Or Washington, DC until 2012: http://www.prgsonline.org/ http://www.prgsonline.org/ Not that it's even remotely comparable. DC's air quality in 2012 was still unimaginably better than Beijing's. (I say this having experienced both.) But still, these things can move slowly.
  - arethuza 12y ago
    That was a pretty interesting link - I had no idea of the explanation as to why Battersea power station was that shape! There was a quite large coal fired power station operating close to Edinburgh until very recently (2013): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockenzie_power_station http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockenzie_power_station
    - pjc50 12y ago
      Yup, although that's not nearly as "in" the city as Battersea. Every time someone mentions wind turbines "spoiling the view", I show them a photo taken looking along Portobello beach. In the far distance a few white single-pixel turbines are visible. In the medium distance is Cockenzie, which is on the seaside and visible from miles around.
- illumen 12y ago
  The coal in China was killing around 300,000 people per year directly. The deadly particles in London are now mostly invisible. If you live in London you'll die 20 years earlier. Great city, but I'm glad I'm not there any more. I used to hate having a nose full of black coming out of the northern line. London is rated as having the worst air pollution in Europe. They say about 50,000 people die per year in the UK because of bad air quality. There's still some coal stations near cities in the UK though... even one near London. http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Existing_UK_coal-fired_power_stations http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Existing_UK_coal-fired_...
  - teach-me 12y ago
    How polluted are the rest of the big cities in England, e.g. Manchester? 20 years seems way too much, I doubt people in a clean country get to die e.g. in the their 90s on average, while Londoners perish in their 70s. I saw an EU study a few months ago claiming the most polluted monitored place in the 28 EU states is the town of Pernik in Bulgaria and Sofia is the most polluted capital ( it's in Bulgaria as well).
FreakyT 12y ago
Excellent news, though I wonder if the hydroelectric/wind/solar replacements they mentioned will be sufficient to meet the demand.
- ukdm 12y ago
  from the article "The facilities will be replaced by four gas-fired stations with capacity to supply 2.6 times more electricity than the coal plants."
Florin_Andrei 12y ago
Oh, just the city of Beijing. For a moment there, I thought it's the whole country. That would have been... very consequential.
- borgia 12y ago
  Imagine the effect that would have on Australia.
  - jdmichal 12y ago
    That comparison seems slightly disingenuous, only for the fact that Australia's size vs population is very disparate. The majority of the area isn't even populated at all -- as in, not even rural sustenance farmers live there. [0] Localized air particulate pollution is very much a matter of local energy generation density, which is going to be closely related to local population density. [0] http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/1270.0.55.007Main%20Features12011?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=1270.0.55.007&issue=2011 http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/1270....
    - vacri 12y ago
      I think borgia is referring to our coal exports to China being lucrative, and their removal would hurt. We have a lot of coal. Here in Victoria, we have a ridiculous amount of low-grade coal that's not good for exporting. One power company CEO once said in a radio interview that if you want to convince him of a new technique to use less coal for whatever reason, don't frame your argument around fuel price - the coal is effectively free.
- relet 12y ago
  Not just the country. All major coal power plants, period.
- barkingcat 12y ago
  Well, the city itself is pretty significant on its own. Approx 20 million, ranked as 3rd largest in the world (of course depending on how you enumerate the area/region/or suburbs, subregions, etc.) It's still pretty significant. I think the poster below who points to Australia might be referring to the idea that the City of Beijing has approx the same population as the entire country of Australia.
nakedrobot2 12y ago
While China's pollution is among the worst you can get, the country does have the advantage of being run like a corporation, and when they decide to clean it up, they will do it very quickly. I guess, I hope, that within 30 years, many parts of China that are currently "horribly polluted" will be as clean, or cleaner, than cities in "the already developed places" such as Europe or N. America which themselves had horrible pollution at one time.
- illumen 12y ago
  It's run like a meritocracy, not like a popularity contest. The corporations are not in control there, the people are.
  - pjc50 12y ago
    Good morning, China state propaganda commentator! It's a country that does not have free elections or free media. The "people" are not in control. The self-appointed people's representatives are, exercising power through state-owned businesses as well as direct legislation.
    - illumen 12y ago
      Good afternoon NSA plant (yes, this is just as ridiculous as your assertion). Does the USA have free elections, and free media? I thought most people didn't vote and they only had two choices. Lawyer man number one who went to Harvard, or lawyer man number two who went to Harvard. I thought the corporations owned most of the media in the USA? The USA ranks very low on freedom of the press rankings. Correct me if I'm wrong. I'd be very interested if you knew how their society worked, or if you had visited the country? If you don't then you are ignorant. But, I'd love to hear your opinion anyway (assuming you aren't locked up without a fair trial), since that is the American way. A country with 45% illiterate people sure does have a lot of loud opinions. Sure - it's a society with many(many) issues, but it does have elections. With more people voting in them than in the USA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_the_People%27s_Re...
kcorbitt 12y ago
I really wish that articles like this would give more context for all the numbers that inevitably get thrown around. > China Huaneng Group Corp.’s 845-megawatt power plant What percent of the city's electricity is that? > Beijing plans to cut annual coal consumption by 13 million metric tons How much less soot will actually be in the air? Will the city feel noticeably cleaner? > China planned to close more than 2,000 smaller coal mines from 2013 to the end of this year How many coal mines does China have? > The level of PM2.5, the small particles that pose the greatest risk to human health, averaged 85.9 micrograms per cubic meter last year in the capital, compared with the national standard of 35. What is considered a safe level? What is considered acceptable in Europe/the US? I know that researching all that would take longer than just throwing up the facts from the press release. But without that context, it's hard to know whether this is really a big deal or just a normal retirement of older power plants for newer, cleaner alternatives.
- comex 12y ago
  To answer one of your questions, the US EPA's standard is 12 ug/m^3 averaged annually, and at most 35 in any 24-hour period[1]; the EU's is 25 annually.[2] [1] http://www.epa.gov/pm/2012/decfsimp.pdf http://www.epa.gov/pm/2012/decfsimp.pdf [2] http://ec.europa.eu/environment/air/quality/standards.htm http://ec.europa.eu/environment/air/quality/standards.htm
  - mikeash 12y ago
    The US embassy in Beijing runs their own particulate pollution monitor, as the Chinese government's are somewhat suspect. A few years ago, the level became so high that it ran off the end of the scale. The programmer had put in a descriptor of "Crazy Bad" for that level as a joke, and that ended up being posted to the official Twitter feed. http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2010/11/25/shanghai%E2%80%99s-air-bad-but-crazy-bad/ http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2010/11/25/shanghai%E2%80...
- cwyers 12y ago
  > it's hard to know whether this is really a big deal or just a normal retirement of older power plants for newer, cleaner alternatives. Why isn't retirement of older power plants for newer, cleaner alternatives a big deal? If it's a lot of power plants and they're a lot cleaner, that's an impact.
tootie 12y ago
+1 for cutting coal burning, -1 for DDoS attack on GitHub. China is at par today.
- dmd 12y ago
  Right. Those are totally equivalent.
  - illumen 12y ago
    At least they didn't fly in heavily armed police to shut it down like the USA did to Mega.
    - transfire 12y ago
      Link?
    - ceejayoz 12y ago
      The raid on Kim Dotcom was performed by NZ police, not American police. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaupload#Arrests_in_New_Zealand http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaupload#Arrests_in_New_Zeala...
      - bduerst 12y ago
        It's hyperbole to say the U.S. flew in people for the arrest, but it's also splitting hairs to say it was just the NZ who arrested Mega.
nayuki 12y ago
There was an interesting data synthesis piece of music this week: https://vimeo.com/122603843 https://vimeo.com/122603843 "Air Play - Smog Music Created With Beijing Air Quality Data"
PublicEnemy111 12y ago
This seems very uncharacteristic of China. The residents of Beijing have been told by the government for years that if you don't absolutely need to be outside, then don't go outside. This is the first I've heard of China putting anything before growth. Unrelated, but this gives me hope that they might crack down on counterfeiting soon.
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  Every year they also tell us how they are getting rid of coal, or how they got rid of it already wishing the city. Every single year, it is the same story, actually. Who cares about counterfeiting, I just want clean air.
- ceejayoz 12y ago
  Growth requires citizens not dying of air pollution. I don't really see this as putting something before growth.
  - teach-me 12y ago
    Weak citizens dying of air pollution quickly and being replaced by healthy strong new recruits from the hundreds of millions living in the China villages. Very similar the recipe for big cities in Europe before the industrial revolution. There was no canalization, food had to be brought on horse cars without refrigerators from vast areas, making it decay. A dozen people per room, resulting in fast spreading of viruses and bacteria.
- jagger27 12y ago
  Perhaps the costs of China's new power alternatives are outweighing the costs of coal and pollution control?
lispm 12y ago
The article mixes a few things. CO2 emissions are climate change relevant, but for pollution in Beijing there are other emissions from these coal power plants responsible. Modern coal power plant have much lower emissions in general, but not for CO2. Probably the coal power plants are so old, that it is not effective to modernize them with modern filtering systems, higher efficiency, etc.
- khepin 12y ago
  Many of those plants are decades old, and poorly managed. But they're also ran by state owned companies which means there's no market incentive towards efficiency and a huge amount of politics regarding what you do. I worked almost 10 years ago for a European company doing district heating in China. In a smaller city in the north of China, they were able to replace the 19 existing coal plants with a single one.
peter303 12y ago
China probably has more shale-gas than the USA, but has been slow to develop it. Cheap shale gas in the US has cut US coal pollution in half. Shale gas development is extremely expensive. This one area where China's hybrid state-private enterprise system is not as nimble as the United States.
LiweiZ 12y ago
The biggest challenge China is facing is its management structure. It's a "一刀切" (decisions and executions are basically boolean-value-like things). The lack of effective and elastic delegate mechanism makes the organization look like an elephant that can not dance. It's easy to find examples from the time zone management (all regions in China are using the same time zone) to recent campaign of youth soccer. I know what I said here is off topic, but it might add some context for this topic.
- jdmichal 12y ago
  For others curious like me, Google translates "一刀切" as "one size fits all".
dejawu 12y ago
If any country has a chance at implementing nuclear power on a widespread scale, I think it's China. In America, the primary reason we don't use nuclear power is driven primarily by the negative perception and fear of the word "nuclear" (with a bit of help from the fossil fuel lobbies). One of the advantages of the one-party state is if the party wants something done, that thing will get done, no ifs, ands, or buts. China's rail network is an excellent example of this (and that's another thing we've failed to implement stateside due to political gridlock). Should China decide that nuclear is the way to go, then it will be done.
- not_that_noob 12y ago
  Yes, we all saw how well this worked at Chernobyl. Single party rule - no ifs, ands, buts or coconuts. There's no subsitute for democracy and people holding their governments accountable.
  - venomsnake 12y ago
    And chernobil is not a big deal. We could have one per year and the damage to planet will be less than current fossil fuels.
  - steve-howard 12y ago
    We've learned a lot from and since Chernobyl. Chernobyl came about because the people running the plant made a string of willfully stupid decisions to try out a safety feature for the plant. This isn't to say that democracy isn't superior to single-party rule, but that no one would invest in building a modern nuclear reactor and play fast and loose with safety procedures.
    - guscost 12y ago
      Arguably the people who built Chernobyl also made a willfully stupid decision to leave out passive safety features: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_nuclear_safety http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_nuclear_safety
- 12y ago
auganov 12y ago
Is it in response to that viral video [1] on air pollution that got banned a couple of weeks ago? Nice move. [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6X2uwlQGQM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6X2uwlQGQM
roccaturi 12y ago
Someone has been learning something from playing Cites: Skylines.

249 points by vincvinc 12y ago

brc 12y ago

Catching up to London in the 1930s...or was it 1950s? Burning lots of coal in dated power stations next to a city is a bad idea for the residents health.

pjc50 12y ago
Until 1983: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battersea_Power_Station http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battersea_Power_Station Edit: I don't understand the downvotes; my point is that the last coal-fired powerstation in London was closed a lot more recently than people might think.
- mikeash 12y ago
  Or Washington, DC until 2012: http://www.prgsonline.org/ http://www.prgsonline.org/ Not that it's even remotely comparable. DC's air quality in 2012 was still unimaginably better than Beijing's. (I say this having experienced both.) But still, these things can move slowly.
- arethuza 12y ago
  That was a pretty interesting link - I had no idea of the explanation as to why Battersea power station was that shape! There was a quite large coal fired power station operating close to Edinburgh until very recently (2013): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockenzie_power_station http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockenzie_power_station
  - pjc50 12y ago
    Yup, although that's not nearly as "in" the city as Battersea. Every time someone mentions wind turbines "spoiling the view", I show them a photo taken looking along Portobello beach. In the far distance a few white single-pixel turbines are visible. In the medium distance is Cockenzie, which is on the seaside and visible from miles around.
illumen 12y ago
The coal in China was killing around 300,000 people per year directly. The deadly particles in London are now mostly invisible. If you live in London you'll die 20 years earlier. Great city, but I'm glad I'm not there any more. I used to hate having a nose full of black coming out of the northern line. London is rated as having the worst air pollution in Europe. They say about 50,000 people die per year in the UK because of bad air quality. There's still some coal stations near cities in the UK though... even one near London. http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Existing_UK_coal-fired_power_stations http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Existing_UK_coal-fired_...
- teach-me 12y ago
  How polluted are the rest of the big cities in England, e.g. Manchester? 20 years seems way too much, I doubt people in a clean country get to die e.g. in the their 90s on average, while Londoners perish in their 70s. I saw an EU study a few months ago claiming the most polluted monitored place in the 28 EU states is the town of Pernik in Bulgaria and Sofia is the most polluted capital ( it's in Bulgaria as well).

FreakyT 12y ago

Excellent news, though I wonder if the hydroelectric/wind/solar replacements they mentioned will be sufficient to meet the demand.

ukdm 12y ago
from the article "The facilities will be replaced by four gas-fired stations with capacity to supply 2.6 times more electricity than the coal plants."

Florin_Andrei 12y ago

Oh, just the city of Beijing. For a moment there, I thought it's the whole country. That would have been... very consequential.

borgia 12y ago
Imagine the effect that would have on Australia.
- jdmichal 12y ago
  That comparison seems slightly disingenuous, only for the fact that Australia's size vs population is very disparate. The majority of the area isn't even populated at all -- as in, not even rural sustenance farmers live there. [0] Localized air particulate pollution is very much a matter of local energy generation density, which is going to be closely related to local population density. [0] http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/1270.0.55.007Main%20Features12011?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=1270.0.55.007&issue=2011 http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/1270....
  - vacri 12y ago
    I think borgia is referring to our coal exports to China being lucrative, and their removal would hurt. We have a lot of coal. Here in Victoria, we have a ridiculous amount of low-grade coal that's not good for exporting. One power company CEO once said in a radio interview that if you want to convince him of a new technique to use less coal for whatever reason, don't frame your argument around fuel price - the coal is effectively free.
relet 12y ago
Not just the country. All major coal power plants, period.
barkingcat 12y ago
Well, the city itself is pretty significant on its own. Approx 20 million, ranked as 3rd largest in the world (of course depending on how you enumerate the area/region/or suburbs, subregions, etc.) It's still pretty significant. I think the poster below who points to Australia might be referring to the idea that the City of Beijing has approx the same population as the entire country of Australia.

nakedrobot2 12y ago

While China's pollution is among the worst you can get, the country does have the advantage of being run like a corporation, and when they decide to clean it up, they will do it very quickly. I guess, I hope, that within 30 years, many parts of China that are currently "horribly polluted" will be as clean, or cleaner, than cities in "the already developed places" such as Europe or N. America which themselves had horrible pollution at one time.

illumen 12y ago
It's run like a meritocracy, not like a popularity contest. The corporations are not in control there, the people are.
- pjc50 12y ago
  Good morning, China state propaganda commentator! It's a country that does not have free elections or free media. The "people" are not in control. The self-appointed people's representatives are, exercising power through state-owned businesses as well as direct legislation.
  - illumen 12y ago
    Good afternoon NSA plant (yes, this is just as ridiculous as your assertion). Does the USA have free elections, and free media? I thought most people didn't vote and they only had two choices. Lawyer man number one who went to Harvard, or lawyer man number two who went to Harvard. I thought the corporations owned most of the media in the USA? The USA ranks very low on freedom of the press rankings. Correct me if I'm wrong. I'd be very interested if you knew how their society worked, or if you had visited the country? If you don't then you are ignorant. But, I'd love to hear your opinion anyway (assuming you aren't locked up without a fair trial), since that is the American way. A country with 45% illiterate people sure does have a lot of loud opinions. Sure - it's a society with many(many) issues, but it does have elections. With more people voting in them than in the USA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_the_People%27s_Re...

kcorbitt 12y ago

I really wish that articles like this would give more context for all the numbers that inevitably get thrown around. > China Huaneng Group Corp.’s 845-megawatt power plant What percent of the city's electricity is that? > Beijing plans to cut annual coal consumption by 13 million metric tons How much less soot will actually be in the air? Will the city feel noticeably cleaner? > China planned to close more than 2,000 smaller coal mines from 2013 to the end of this year How many coal mines does China have? > The level of PM2.5, the small particles that pose the greatest risk to human health, averaged 85.9 micrograms per cubic meter last year in the capital, compared with the national standard of 35. What is considered a safe level? What is considered acceptable in Europe/the US? I know that researching all that would take longer than just throwing up the facts from the press release. But without that context, it's hard to know whether this is really a big deal or just a normal retirement of older power plants for newer, cleaner alternatives.

comex 12y ago
To answer one of your questions, the US EPA's standard is 12 ug/m^3 averaged annually, and at most 35 in any 24-hour period[1]; the EU's is 25 annually.[2] [1] http://www.epa.gov/pm/2012/decfsimp.pdf http://www.epa.gov/pm/2012/decfsimp.pdf [2] http://ec.europa.eu/environment/air/quality/standards.htm http://ec.europa.eu/environment/air/quality/standards.htm
- mikeash 12y ago
  The US embassy in Beijing runs their own particulate pollution monitor, as the Chinese government's are somewhat suspect. A few years ago, the level became so high that it ran off the end of the scale. The programmer had put in a descriptor of "Crazy Bad" for that level as a joke, and that ended up being posted to the official Twitter feed. http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2010/11/25/shanghai%E2%80%99s-air-bad-but-crazy-bad/ http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2010/11/25/shanghai%E2%80...
cwyers 12y ago
> it's hard to know whether this is really a big deal or just a normal retirement of older power plants for newer, cleaner alternatives. Why isn't retirement of older power plants for newer, cleaner alternatives a big deal? If it's a lot of power plants and they're a lot cleaner, that's an impact.

tootie 12y ago

+1 for cutting coal burning, -1 for DDoS attack on GitHub. China is at par today.

dmd 12y ago
Right. Those are totally equivalent.
- illumen 12y ago
  At least they didn't fly in heavily armed police to shut it down like the USA did to Mega.
  - transfire 12y ago
    Link?
  - ceejayoz 12y ago
    The raid on Kim Dotcom was performed by NZ police, not American police. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaupload#Arrests_in_New_Zealand http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaupload#Arrests_in_New_Zeala...
    - bduerst 12y ago
      It's hyperbole to say the U.S. flew in people for the arrest, but it's also splitting hairs to say it was just the NZ who arrested Mega.

nayuki 12y ago

There was an interesting data synthesis piece of music this week: https://vimeo.com/122603843 https://vimeo.com/122603843 "Air Play - Smog Music Created With Beijing Air Quality Data"

PublicEnemy111 12y ago

This seems very uncharacteristic of China. The residents of Beijing have been told by the government for years that if you don't absolutely need to be outside, then don't go outside. This is the first I've heard of China putting anything before growth. Unrelated, but this gives me hope that they might crack down on counterfeiting soon.

seanmcdirmid 12y ago
Every year they also tell us how they are getting rid of coal, or how they got rid of it already wishing the city. Every single year, it is the same story, actually. Who cares about counterfeiting, I just want clean air.
ceejayoz 12y ago
Growth requires citizens not dying of air pollution. I don't really see this as putting something before growth.
- teach-me 12y ago
  Weak citizens dying of air pollution quickly and being replaced by healthy strong new recruits from the hundreds of millions living in the China villages. Very similar the recipe for big cities in Europe before the industrial revolution. There was no canalization, food had to be brought on horse cars without refrigerators from vast areas, making it decay. A dozen people per room, resulting in fast spreading of viruses and bacteria.
jagger27 12y ago
Perhaps the costs of China's new power alternatives are outweighing the costs of coal and pollution control?

lispm 12y ago

The article mixes a few things. CO2 emissions are climate change relevant, but for pollution in Beijing there are other emissions from these coal power plants responsible. Modern coal power plant have much lower emissions in general, but not for CO2. Probably the coal power plants are so old, that it is not effective to modernize them with modern filtering systems, higher efficiency, etc.

khepin 12y ago
Many of those plants are decades old, and poorly managed. But they're also ran by state owned companies which means there's no market incentive towards efficiency and a huge amount of politics regarding what you do. I worked almost 10 years ago for a European company doing district heating in China. In a smaller city in the north of China, they were able to replace the 19 existing coal plants with a single one.

peter303 12y ago

China probably has more shale-gas than the USA, but has been slow to develop it. Cheap shale gas in the US has cut US coal pollution in half. Shale gas development is extremely expensive. This one area where China's hybrid state-private enterprise system is not as nimble as the United States.

LiweiZ 12y ago

The biggest challenge China is facing is its management structure. It's a "一刀切" (decisions and executions are basically boolean-value-like things). The lack of effective and elastic delegate mechanism makes the organization look like an elephant that can not dance. It's easy to find examples from the time zone management (all regions in China are using the same time zone) to recent campaign of youth soccer. I know what I said here is off topic, but it might add some context for this topic.

jdmichal 12y ago
For others curious like me, Google translates "一刀切" as "one size fits all".

dejawu 12y ago

If any country has a chance at implementing nuclear power on a widespread scale, I think it's China. In America, the primary reason we don't use nuclear power is driven primarily by the negative perception and fear of the word "nuclear" (with a bit of help from the fossil fuel lobbies). One of the advantages of the one-party state is if the party wants something done, that thing will get done, no ifs, ands, or buts. China's rail network is an excellent example of this (and that's another thing we've failed to implement stateside due to political gridlock). Should China decide that nuclear is the way to go, then it will be done.

not_that_noob 12y ago
Yes, we all saw how well this worked at Chernobyl. Single party rule - no ifs, ands, buts or coconuts. There's no subsitute for democracy and people holding their governments accountable.
- venomsnake 12y ago
  And chernobil is not a big deal. We could have one per year and the damage to planet will be less than current fossil fuels.
- steve-howard 12y ago
  We've learned a lot from and since Chernobyl. Chernobyl came about because the people running the plant made a string of willfully stupid decisions to try out a safety feature for the plant. This isn't to say that democracy isn't superior to single-party rule, but that no one would invest in building a modern nuclear reactor and play fast and loose with safety procedures.
  - guscost 12y ago
    Arguably the people who built Chernobyl also made a willfully stupid decision to leave out passive safety features: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_nuclear_safety http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_nuclear_safety
12y ago

auganov 12y ago

Is it in response to that viral video [1] on air pollution that got banned a couple of weeks ago? Nice move. [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6X2uwlQGQM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6X2uwlQGQM

roccaturi 12y ago

Someone has been learning something from playing Cites: Skylines.