World's tallest building, S Africa's tallest tower lit up to celebrate China's Spring Festival

Cheerful light shows were presented Monday night on the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), as well as on the Leonardo Tower, South Africa's tallest building in Johannesburg.

On Monday, the Burj Khalifa, located in the heart of Dubai, was aglow with a dazzling display of lights and alive with audio works produced by China Media Group (CMG) for the sixth consecutive year since 2020, extending China's warm New Year greetings and sincere blessings to Chinese people worldwide and people of all nations.

The upcoming Spring Festival will be the first after the traditional Chinese annual celebration was added to the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in December 2024.

To allow more international tourists to appreciate this spectacular audio-visual feast up close, the Burj Khalifa will present the CMG Spring Festival light show again on Tuesday night, the Chinese New Year's Eve.

The Burj Khalifa stands 828 meters tall, with its entire body forming the world's largest LED screen.

This year's Spring Festival light show continues to innovate in the use of technology, deepening the integrated creation incorporating various festive customs and intangible cultural heritage elements into the design.

Also on Monday, the Leonardo Tower, the landmark building of Johannesburg, South Africa's largest city, was lit up in red, bringing a strong and festive Chinese New Year atmosphere and a stunning visual feast to the South African people.

The light show used the 234-meter-tall building as the stage, integrating the light with traditional Chinese Spring Festival elements, projecting festival greetings from China onto this southern African landmark.

"I am really looking forward to the CMG Spring Festival Gala that is going to happen soon. We are very excited that in South Africa, CMG has chosen to illuminate one of our tallest buildings in south Africa. It's been the first. I have not seen this before, so, it's really such an honor and a pleasure to witness this and see this in person. And so yes, we're looking forward to the Year of the Snake. We're looking forward to watching the Spring Festival Gala with our whole family and getting together and enjoying it with our Chinese friends," said Melissa Hollow, multimedia manager of the TV BRICS Africa.

World's tallest building, S Africa's tallest tower lit up to celebrate China's Spring Festival

A set of supercritical carbon dioxide (CO2) power generation units began commercial operation on Saturday in southwest China's Guizhou Province, indicating that the country has pioneered the world in commercializing this innovative technology.

Named "Chaotan-1" (Super Carbon-1), the system uses supercritical CO2 instead of steam as the working fluid to transfer heat and generate power. Supercritical CO2 refers to carbon dioxide maintained at extremely high temperature and pressure, where it exhibits both liquid- and gas-like properties, making it a highly efficient medium for energy conversion.

By leveraging these properties, the new power generation units, which captures waste heat from industrial processes, achieve higher efficiency than conventional steam-based systems.

"The exhaust gas from a steel plant's sintering machine can be over 400 degrees Celsius hot. We use the gas to heat carbon dioxide, compress it to about 200 atmospheres with this machine, and then send it into a heat exchanger, where it absorbs residual heat from the waste gas to drive turbines to generate electricity." said Huang Yanping, chief scientist at China National Nuclear Corporation and chief designer of the Chaotan-1 project.

Thanks to the psychical properties of supercritical CO2, Chaotan-1 improves waste heat utilization efficiency by more than 85 percent compared with existing steam-based sintering waste heat power generators, while boosting net power output by over 50 percent, yielding significant economic returns.

"By converting industrial waste heat into electricity to the greatest extent possible, the project can generate around 50 million yuan (about 7.10 million U.S. dollars) in additional net cash flow annually at local electricity prices. The investment cost can be recovered in roughly three years," Huang said.

Industry experts say the project carries major strategic value. Zhang Xiaodong, deputy director of the Industrial Development Department at Dongfang Electric Corporation, described the project as a milestone.

"Any new technology goes through a process from quantitative accumulation to qualitative change. This project marks a key milestone, which may well serve as an example of strategic importance. Its success will pave the way for the rollout of similar projects in the future," he said.

China pioneers commercial use of supercritical CO2 power generation