Wei Fengrui lifts the metal lid off of an old coal-fired water boiler in a shed attached to his house. Inside are jagged lumps of coal. Two years ago he spent the equivalent of US$430 on several tonnes of coal to heat his home in Erhe Zhuang, an hour southwest of Beijing. Last winter he was able to cut his bill in half while boosting the average inside temperature from 12 to 17℃. The trick? Insulation and double-glazed windows. "I'm very happy," says Wei, a farmer. "It saves energy, and the rooms are warmer." Wei's home was one of the first ten to be retrofitted under a new project led by researchers at Tsinghua University in Beijing. The team hopes to have the entire 200-residence village outfitted by next year. Insulation alone could cut coal consumption in half. If the researchers can get a facility for manufacturing pellets of biomass fuel off the ground, the village might well be able to kick the coal habit altogether, conceivably making it China's first village to wean itself off coal.
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