Peking setzt verstärkt auf die Windenergie, um seine beträchtlichen Umweltprobleme ein wenig besser in den Griff zu bekommen. Und natürlich handelt es sich gleich wieder um ein Megaprojekt zum Start: The world's largest wind power project will begin construction this month near Beijing, bringing green energy and cleaner air to the 2008 Summer Olympics and city residents coping with some of the worst air pollution in the world. The new wind power plant, located 60 miles outside Beijing in Guangting, will generate 400 megawatts per day, nearly doubling the electrical energy China currently obtains from wind. But that's just the beginning. Last summer at a climate change conference in Bonn, Germany, China surprised many by announcing it will generate 12 percent of its energy from renewable sources such as wind by 2020. Pollution is part of the driving force behind China's newfound passion for green energy, said Yu Jie of Greenpeace China's office in Beijing. "Acid rain blankets 70 percent of the country," Jie said, cutting crop yields, damaging trees and making rivers and lakes too acidic to support fish. The country's galloping economic growth over the past 20 years has meant enormous increases in electrical power demands, 75 percent of which come from coal. China is the world's largest coal-consuming country and home to 16 of the world's 20 most polluted cities on the planet, according to the World Bank. At least 400,000 people in China die each year from air-pollution-related illnesses, the World Bank reports.