According to Mining News Pro -China’s Jiangsu province has pledged to take tougher measures to tackle air pollution over next three year i.e. till 2020 targeting heavy industry, energy consumption and transportation in the east coast manufacturing hub.
This has come after the country’s environment ministry accused an unspecified number of officials in Jiangsu province of not properly enforcing anti-pollution measures in the manufacturing hub on China`s east coast.
The Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) in a report noted a number of ways the province did not carry out strong enough efforts to implement the anti-pollution policies. According to the report, three cities in Jiangsu, including regional steelmaking center Xuzhou and the provincial capital of Nanjing, inflated the amount of reductions in coal consumption in 2017 by almost twice as much as the actual cuts.
Jiangsu is China`s second-largest steel producing province with around 140 MnT of steelmaking capacity and is home to a range of heavy industry.
Jiangsu’s new Three-Year Action plan:
• As a part of new Three-Year action plan, Jiangsu plans to cut steel capacity by 17.5 million tonnes by 2020, ban new capacity in the steel, coke, primary aluminium, casting cement and glass sectors, and shut down all independent coke plants near the Yangtze River and Tai Lake area.
• The province has aimed to keep the concentration of hazardous floating particles, known as PM2.5, below 46 micrograms per cubic metre by 2020 whereas last year, its PM2.5 reading was 49 micrograms. China`s official urban air quality standard is 35 micrograms, but the World Health Organization recommends levels of no more than 10 micrograms.
• Companies in heavy industry will face production restrictions and need to move to designated industrial parks within time periods to be set by local government or face closure, the plan said.
• The province is also aiming to boost the use of cleaner-burning natural gas and will accelerate construction of facilities such as liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals and storage tanks. Jiangsu is targeting natural gas consumption of about 35 billion cubic metres (bcm) by 2020, up from 21.7 bcm last year.
• Coal consumption, on the other hand, will be reduced and more than 2 gigawatts of small coal-fired power utilities will be phased out. The plan also targets switching some road transportation to rail and waterways. Lianyungang port will be asked to boost rail transport of iron ore to inland regions.
While provinces in northern China are planning to implement winter pollution plans for a second year, Jiangsu said it will also roll out the similar action during autumn.