China hunts energy forms to supply rural cooking

A shortage of fuel for cooking is forcing China's 800 million peasants to strip vegetation from large tracts of land, causing serious soil erosion and the growth of deserts. Concern over this has prompted the government to embark on a costly 10-year development program to find alternative energy sources for rural areas, including geothermal energy, solar and wind power, biogas, and the use of oil shale and peat.