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In a picture taken on June 16, 2009, commuters on a country road ride past a wind farm developed by state-owned China Energy Conservation Investment Corp in Zhangbei, north of Beijing in Hebei province. While a couple of years ago only a few dozen of the 80-metre (262-foot) propellor-like turbines stood on the wind farm's vast open expanse of grass, today there are 200 and counting.

As Superstorm Sandy showed, the "grid" that provides our electricity can be a fragile thing. Building a modern, more resilient version will cost hundreds of billions of dollars — but most agree — it's essential to a cleaner, more energy-efficient future.

It's a challenge confronting the United States and other nations — notably China.

The California Report's Marjorie Sun reports the country's aging grid is already proving to be an obstacle to "greening" China's energy production.