The Yellow River is running red. It's not bloody, but the new hue spells danger. I've been in Lanzhou, the polluting western Chinese city that caused this toxic flow, and I'm glad to know that nearby something is being done to clean up China's act.

I was asleep as the plane arrived in Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu province. From outside the city, I noticed only the rugged beauty of Gansu. I did not know that Lanzhou was and is one of China's most polluted cities.

Since 17 of the world's 20 most polluted cities are in mainland China, that gives Lanzhou a dishonorable worldwide claim as well.

A 1999 survey by the World Resources Institute in Washington called Lanzhou the world's most polluted city, and factories belching black smoke have made respiratory disease the number-one cause of death for the city's two million residents.

During my month in China last year, I spent most of my time in Qinghai (North Tibet), which neighbors Gansu to the west. The boundary in many places is the Yellow River, "the Mother River of China." Now a heating company in Lanzhou has leaked dyed water into the Yellow River, turning it from its titular tint to an otherworldly fuchsia.

While the administrators of the culpable Tanjianzi No. 2 Heat Providing Station assert that the red liquid is not poisonous, Chinese water consumers still have a bad taste in their mouths.

Last year, a benzene leak from Jilin Petrochemical into the Songhua River in northeastern China forced the shutdown of the water supply in the city of Harbin. Officials tried to maintain order, but scrambling to clean up the mess is far less effective than preventing it.

Here Comes the Sun

Ironically, the heating plant that caused the Lanzhou leak may be part of the most unnecessary pollution in China.

China's seemingly hapless environmental record has a bright spot-solar heating. China is the world leader, with 30 million households using solar water heaters. I saw parabolic solar heaters outside adobe homes throughout rural Qinghai. At first I took them for satellite dishes. Solar power is used not only for household heat but for cooking as well.

Now, as part of China's Renewable Energy Law that took effect early this year, Gansu is getting the world's largest solar power plant.

On Tuesday the government announced that it would build a 100 megawatt facility in the Gansu town of Dunhuang. Dunhuang has sunshine for 3,362 hours a year, or 38% of the daylight time.

The sun is of course an abundant source of energy, and one that should be harnessed to displace the current 70% of China's energy that comes from fossil fuel (primarily coal).

Also on Tuesday, Beijing's municipal smog levels reached their maximally harmful "hazardous" rating. The thick and toxic gloom I have myself unfortunately experienced caused at least 80 flights to be delayed during the day. This does not bode well for the 2008 Olympic city.

China requires innovation and political will to make its 10% yearly economic growth a healthy progress rather than a breakneck, choking rush over the edge.

All Rays at Once

Private and public initiatives on the national and international level must coincide with full force in order to avert a public health disaster in China that could only be described as a man-made plague.

China's Suntech Power, which trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol STP, announced this Monday that its third-quarter profit almost tripled. Suntech is taking its expertise abroad, saying on Wednesday, November 22, that it is set to outfit a Spanish photovoltaic grid facility with solar modules beginning in mid 2007.

China's National Development and Reform Commission and the State Environmental Protection Agency are of course involved, but so is the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory, which has assisted China in renewable energy development since 1995.

When the Bush administration pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol, the primary reason was the failure of international agreement to impose emissions controls on the booming economies of India and China. Cooperation with those countries will help the US proceed constructively on the matter, even though Kyoto is not Washington's guideline.

But China is the key to China's success, and it shouldn't take a chemical-red river to remind the country's newly prosperous that their health is as important as their wealth. Renewable energy can and must provide a healthier strain of mercantile might for China's future.

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