A Chinese city is powered by burning money, not coal

In China, one city is forgetting about coal and burning something else for energy: Money.

By burning one ton of damaged paper money instead of coal, the power plant in Luoyang is generating more than 600 kWh of electricity, the Xinhua news agency says. This is the first time a Chinese city has ever deliberately burned money for this purpose, and within a year 1.32 million kWh of electricity will be generated, equal to 4,000 tons of coal.

The money being used has been taken out of circulation because of too much handling or other damage, the BBC reports. The new technique has the blessing of the People's Bank of China, which agrees it's a rather efficient way to make electricity.

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