FGD and DeNOx
NEWSLETTER       

                                                                                                         March 2005
                                                                                                             No. 323

SO₂ and NO_x Control Needed in China

China’s State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) blacklisted 46 coal-fired power plants, ordering them to install FGD equipment as required and warning that legal action would be taken against them if they failed to do so. The plants, mostly located in Shandong, Henan and Shanxi provinces, are among the 137 FGD projects planned in the country's Acid Rain and sulfur dioxide control regions covering 1.09 million square kilometers with 39 percent of the nation's total population, said a statement issued by the State Environmental Protection Administration. A SEPA official said the desulfurization projects should be completed by the end of 2005 according to the regulations. However, construction on the projects has not even begun.

Increasing discharges of nitric acid and sulfur dioxide are worsening China's acid rain, according to a five-year Sino-Norwegian program to monitor acidification in southwestern China. "The growth of nitrates, thanks to a swift rise of automobiles and coal consumption plus overuse of fertilizers, is playing an increasing role in the country's acid rain pollution," said Tang Dagang, director of Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences. He went on to say that the future acid rain control plan should give full consideration to sulfuric, nitric and HCl emissions and disposal. "If no effective control is set up on nitric acid, it will result in both acid rain and nutrification of waters," he said.

To date, China has no special regulation to control nitric acid, said Liu Bingjiang, a senior official with SEPA. Mid- and eastern China has seen severe acid rain in the last decade. Last year, the country discharged more than 21 million tons of SO₂, up 12 percent from the previous year, while 265 domestic cities reported acid rain.

“Despite a lot of measures taken by the authorities, there has been no obvious improvement,” said Wang Jian, an official with SEPA. "The regional acid rain pollution is still out of control and even worse in some southern cities," said Wang.

Statistics show acid rain costs the country an annual loss of 110 billion Yuan (US$13.3 billion), two or three per cent of its annual gross domestic product. China's annual SO₂ emissions, of which thermal power emissions make up 34.6 percent, exceed the maximum environmental capacity by 80 percent. The surging demand for coal and excessive number of small-scale thermal power plants are two main reasons for the rapid growth in SO₂ discharges. "It is estimated that the country will consume more than 1.8 billion tons of coal in 2005, emitting an additional 6 million tons of SO₂," said Wang.

To curb the Acid Rain problem, the State started to lay out a series of new regulations last year. On the one hand, it urged all thermal power plants to install FGD facilities, regardless of their age. New power plants with FGD will be able to set higher grid prices. On the other hand, it has developed strict punishment for excess missions of SO₂. Last year, the State raised the charge on SO₂ emission from 210 Yuan (US$25) to 420 Yuan (US$50) per ton and will charge 630 Yuan (US$75) per ton next year.

"However, the old thermal power plants remain a big headache," said Liu. Currently, few of them have FGD facilities because "to install an efficient desulfurization facility may cost one third of the investment in a thermal power plant. Plus there is no policy on raising the grid price so far." In Guizhou Province, only two of the nine old coal-burning power plants have such facilities.

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