However, 58% thought that nuclear power causes climate change while only 46% thought that coal burning does so.

However re-conversion back to coal burning did not occur due to objections from the various railway Unions.

Coal burning has released and spread around the world more than 100 times more radioactive material than all the nuclear power plants in the world.

Coal burning has badly fouled the air in Guangdong and Hong Kong, to official embarrassment.

The Industry's Outlook Advocates of atomic power have asserted that looming electricity shortages in the East and increased concern over coal burning's contribution to global warming offer an opportunity for new reactors.

China's government has announced many plans to fight pollution over the years but has made little obvious progress, especially in the country's north and northeast, where coal burning has driven the rapid growth in heavy industrial output.

Though coal burning has increasingly been supplanted by less-toxic natural gas use in recent years, a 2010 study by the Clean Air Task Force still estimated that "air pollution from coal-fired power plants accounts for more than 13,000 premature deaths, 20,000 heart attacks, and 1.6 million lost workdays in the U.S. each year."