Casper Star Tribune: Just as coal fueled the steam engines that settled the American West and electrified our cities around the turn of 20th century, coal is building a new China. Much of the world got its first glimpse of a Las Vegas-style new megalopolis via television during the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, now home to nearly 18 million people. But what couldn’t be conveyed on TV was the choking air pollution that rings Beijing and many other Chinese cities. The air here …