Coal should be on its last legs. It’s dirty, it’s finite, and it’s not even that cheap anymore . These factors make it all the more surprising that Beijing is currently ramping up coal-fired power in China. “While the rest of the world has cut coal-based electricity over the past 18 months,” reports the BBC , “China has added enough to power 31 million homes.” This is not to say that China’s dedication to coal power is anything new. From 2006 to 2015, Beijing operated on a “one coal plant a week” building programme. However, in 2015, the Chinese government attempted to slow down the growth of the coal sector as this breakneck “one coal plant a week” initiative proved itself to have dire consequences, producing huge quantities of choking smog that obscured Chinese cities, negatively impacting both the environment and the population’s health. The slowdown proved unsuccessful, however. […]