Zhejiang goes deep into the battle to defend the blue sky and makes further progress in atmospheric governance
The Zhejiang Province government recently issued the "Zhejiang Province Action Plan for Continuous Improvement of Air Quality"(hereinafter referred to as the "Plan") to reduce fine particulate matter (PM2.5) Concentration is the main line and we will fight in depth to defend the blue sky. The "Plan" proposes that by 2025, the province's air quality will continue to lead the Yangtze River Delta region, with PM in cities divided into districts.2.5The average concentration continues to decline, comprehensively eliminating severe and above polluted weather.
Over the years, Zhejiang has made great efforts to prevent and control air pollution. Various indicators show that Zhejiang Province's air quality continues to lead the Yangtze River Delta. What changes have been made to the current situation of qi control? Behind environmental governance, how does economic and social development need to be transformed?
Advance further in treating qi
Zhejiang's pace of gas control is closely following the national action deployment and has now entered the third round of control.
In 2013, the State Council issued the "Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan", which was called the first "Ten Atmospheric Articles" in the industry. At that time, PM was added to the national environmental air quality standards for the first time2.5Indicators, the average annual concentration is below 35 micrograms/cubic meter. In 2017, PM of cities divided into districts in Zhejiang Province2.5The average concentration dropped from 61 micrograms/cubic meter in 2013 to 39 micrograms/cubic meter.
In 2018, the second round of the "Ten Atmospheres" was launched, and the State Council issued the "Three-Year Action Plan to Win the Battle to Protect the Blue Sky." In 2020, combined with the background of the epidemic, PM in Zhejiang's district-divided cities2.5The average concentration dropped to 25 micrograms/cubic meter, setting a record low; the ratio of days with good air quality reached 93.3%, continuing to lead the way in the Yangtze River Delta region.
In November last year, a new round of national "Action Plan for Continuous Improvement of Air Quality" was released, and Zhejiang formulated this "Plan" based on this.
In the three rounds of governance, Zhejiang not only brewed its first results, but also continued to advance.
For example,"Ultra-Low Emissions", the first prize of the first National Technology Invention Award won by Zhejiang Province, is the "Research and Development and Application of Key Technologies for Ultra-Low Emissions of Coal-fired Units" project jointly by Zhejiang University and Zheneng Group. This technology allows coal-fired power plants to "de-black" and "turn green", and the concept of ultra-low emissions has also moved from Zhejiang to the whole country.
From 2013 to 2017, all coal-fired power plants in Zhejiang have completed ultra-low emission renovations; from 2018 to 2020, all coal-fired boilers of 35 steam tons/hour and above in the province have been renovated. The "Plan" shows that during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, all steel and cement companies in Zhejiang Province will also fully complete the ultra-low emission transformation of some production parts, and ultra-low emissions are being promoted in more and more industries.
The domestic waste incineration industry is also a major emitter of exhaust gases. This "Plan" proposes that Zhejiang should start ultra-low emission transformation of the domestic waste incineration industry this year and basically complete the province-wide industry-wide transformation task by 2027, which is nationwide. It is still the first one.
Similar to ultra-low emissions, cultivating and creating A-level enterprises with air pollution prevention and control performance is also an improvement measure. It mainly encourages key industries to increase investment in environmental protection and improve the level of gas control. This time, Zhejiang has identified two major industries-the petrochemical industry and the glass industry. The former has higher emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and will basically reach Level A by 2027; the latter mainly emits nitrogen oxides and will basically reach Level A by 2025. This move is difficult, but the emission reduction effect is expected to be very significant.
"Every 0.1 microgram will compete." Gu Zhenyu, chief expert in the field of ecological environment in Zhejiang Province, said that data targets are only the power source, and the ultimate purpose of controlling gas is to ensure the health of the people and promote economic and social transformation.
Draw a "scissors difference"
Industry, energy, transportation... these are areas that are prone to producing exhaust gases, but they also provide important support for social and economic development. The economic growth curve continues to move upwards, but the exhaust emission curve has to turn downwards. Drawing this "scissors gap" is not only an ecological and environmental protection issue, but also a development issue of green transformation.
"Industry is eliminated","energy is moving to green" and "traffic control", the industry summarizes the general direction of transformation.
Taking the transportation field as an example, in order of unit emissions, waterway transportation is superior to railway transportation and road transportation, while road transportation is currently the main source in China. Among them, passenger car emissions account for a small proportion, and the number of new energy vehicles is increasing rapidly, and the green transformation of urban transportation is progressing rapidly. However, in terms of commercial vehicles, with the rapid development of the logistics industry, the proportion of road transportation in Zhejiang has increased in the past five years.
"Traffic control" is the first thing to control heavy diesel trucks. At present, the national standard for diesel trucks has been updated to National Six, but the proportion of national Four and below models in Zhejiang Province still accounts for nearly 30% of diesel vehicles. Although these vehicles only account for 1.5% of all vehicles, their emissions of major atmospheric pollutants exceed a quarter of total traffic emissions.
To this end, the "Plan" starts with key industries and requires new expansion and expansion projects in steel, cement, thermal power, non-ferrous metals, petrochemicals, coal chemical and other industries to adopt clean transportation methods such as railways, waterways, and new energy trucks, or vehicles with national six and above emission standards. By 2025, Ningbo Zhoushan Port will strive to achieve 90% clean transportation of iron ore, coal, etc., and all bulk goods in the steel and coal-fired thermal power industries will be transported in clean transportation or vehicles with emission standards of National 6 and above.
In the other two areas,"after industry elimination", the focus should be on optimizing industrial access at the source and curbing the blind launch of "two highs and one low (high energy consumption, high emissions, and low level)" projects;"energy moving green", we must vigorously develop clean and low-carbon energy. By 2025, the installed capacity of new energy power will increase to more than 45 million kilowatts, and the proportion of electricity in terminal energy consumption will reach about 40%.
Significant results have been achieved in gas control in recent years, but there are still technical bottlenecks. For example, ozone is synthesized from VOCs and nitrogen oxides, and the two precursors must be reduced in a certain ratio, otherwise ozone pollution may be intensified; ozone and nitrogen oxides will also undergo a chemical reaction, and the synthesized nitrate is PM2.5An important component of the program has a chain reaction... This "Plan" emphasizes source substitution and comprehensive management of VOCs, and also needs to accelerate the technical exploration of process control and end management.
Gu Zhenyu said that the synergy of pollution reduction and carbon reduction is the development trend of gas control. Only by reducing air pollutants and reducing carbon emissions as much as possible can ambient air quality be promoted to continuously improve. The new round of gas control has a strong impact on mechanism innovation and technological progress. Higher requirements have been put forward.
