In a wonderful example of national co-operation several provinces near Beijing are going all out to help ensure blue skies for the host city of next summer’s Olympic Games.

The local governments of Hebei, Shandong and Shanxi provinces, Tianjin Municipality and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region have worked out measures to improve air quality for the Olympic Games.

The provincial government of coal-rich Shanxi published its measures last week, ordering that all desulfurization projects at major coal-fired power plants be completed before July 1 next year.

Businesses in heavily-polluting industries — power, iron and steel, chemical and concrete — will have to cut production or even close if they fail to meet the emission standards during the games. In addition, all vehicles traveling to Beijing from Shanxi must comply with Europe II emission standards from July 25 to Sept. 20, 2008.

Similar moves will also be taken in Shandong, which discharged 1.96 million tons of sulfur dioxide last year, the most among the mainland’s 31 provincial-level regions.

The Laicheng Power Plant of Huadian Power in Shandong’s Laiwu City began a desulfurization project on two 300,000-kw generation units in late October with an investment of RMB140 million (US$18.9 million). Originally, the project was scheduled for completion in 2009.

Environmental authorities in Hebei, which surrounds Beijing and Tianjin, have pledged to spend about RMB21 billion on anti-pollution projects and environmental monitoring stations.
Source: People’s Daily Online

Beijing Vice Major Liu Jingmin, a delegate to the five-yearly Party congress, said at a news conference that the blue skies Beijing was experiencing was due to the wind coming down from the north that cleaned the air in the host city of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. He said, ‘Frankly speaking, we didn’t take any measures. It’s the weather that played the role.’ Such honesty in a politician is rare and is to be applauded.

Taking a longer view, however, the situation is improving.

In 2006, Beijing registered 240 ‘blue sky’ days, or days with fairly good air quality (the scientific definition is not clear), a rise of 64 days from the previous year. In September ‘blue sky’ days totaled 25, setting a record high in seven years.

Liu Jingmin, who is also executive vice president of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Olympic Games, said Beijing would materialize its promise of ‘Green Olympics’ by not only improving the city’s ecology and environment, but also adopting a ‘green’, environment-friendly, approach to the management of city affairs.

Partly this is being done by slashing bus and subway fares. Partly by doubling the tax on motorcycles, passenger cars, sedans and trucks.
Renewable energy has been widely used in the of Olympic projects. For instance, the residences of athletes in the Olympic Village will be installed with special heating and refrigerating facilities powered by energy tapped from a neighboring sewage disposal plant.
Photovoltaic technology based on solar energy is widely used in the competition venues.
The city’s first wind power plant has been set up in the north.
The city has moved 167 pollutive factories to the suburbs or remoter areas. At the same time of the removal, they have undergone technical innovations.
The city used to have 16,000 coal-consuming boilers. Now 15,000 of them have been upgraded to use clean energy forms.

Senior government official Li Zhonghai, senior official with the China Association for Standardization and member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) said that solar power will be widely applied during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. He said about 90% of all the hot water used in the Olympic village will be solar heated and 80 to 90% of street lights around the Olympic venues will also be solar powered.

About 40 million Chinese households, or 150 million Chinese people, now use solar energy in their daily lives.

According to the People’s Daily, China is the world’s biggest user of solar water heating. According to the newspaper following the implementation of the Renewable Energy Law in 2006, China’s solar heating market is valued at tens of billions of renminbi and has provided hundreds of thousand jobs.
Source: Beijing Review