Jane Chen / Shanghai Daily news

Shanghai will invest 4 billion yuan (US$511 million) over the next five years to equip 95 percent of local coal-fired power generators with desulphuring facilities to make the city's power industry environmentally friendly.
On December 20, construction of the desulphuring project started at Huaneng Power International Inc's two power plants in Shanghai, the biggest such project in the five-year plan. The project is expected to be completed by June 2008 and will cut sulfur dioxide emissions by 40,000 tons a year from then.
The two power plants, with six generators, are designed to generate 2.4 million kilowatts of electric power per hour.
There are 16 power plants in Shanghai, with a total capacity of 10.6 million kilowatt of power per hour. Last year, the plants discharged 306,000 tons of sulfur dioxide, accounting for 60 percent of the total in Shanghai.
So far, desulphuring projects have started at six of the plants and will extend to another five by the middle of next year. By 2008, all the 11 projects will be completed and will cut 190,000 tons of sulphur dioxide from the air each year.
In addition to a special government subsidy, the government will use a sulphur dioxide disposal charge collected from power plants to finance the desulphuring projects for outdated power plants.