[xjcsa]

A thermal power plant of the same capacity as the Three Gorges hydropower project will burn 50 million tons of coal and discharge 100 million tons of carbon dioxide a year, he said.

I call bulls*** on this. How on earth would CO2 output be double the weight of the coal burned? Where would it come from? Anyone?

[Our man in washington]

The carbon comes from the coal and the oxygen from the air to make the carbon dioxide. As two of the three atoms to make the carbon dioxide are from the air and not the coal, it’s perfectly reasonable that more carbon dioxide would be released than the weight of the coal.