Crackdown on illegal power plants

Beijing will announce plans for cracking down illegal power plants in the next 60 days, an American brokerage house said. Operating without approval from Beijing, many local municipalities have been building illegal plants to defuse power shortages caused by China's booming economy, Merrill Lynch said. China opposes the plants because they don't fit its long-term energy strategy and are usually environmentally unfriendly, coal-powered facilities. The broker estimates China's unauthorized power capacity at 80-140 giga-watts from plants mainly located in coastal areas.