Others News
- Power giants say polluting projects have been closed
Date: 19-Jan-2007 Sources: (Xinhua Online)
After being placed on the government's blacklist of polluters, four major Chinese power producers -- Huaneng, Datang, Huadian and Guodian -- said on Thursday they have closed most of the projects that fell short of the mandatory environmental standards.
The companies were named and shamed on Jan. 10 by the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) in a campaign against polluters. They promised that this year they would pay more attention to save energy and cut pollution.
Naming 82 industrial projects built without approval from environmental protection departments, the SEPA threatened to suspended all new projects of the offending companies until they rectified their polluting projects.
The four power firms claimed to have taken immediate steps to respond to the situation.
'Huaneng Group has shut down the offending generators and begun to install desulfurisation devices at its Wulashan Power Plant in Inner Mongolia. These measures have been commended by the SEPA,' said Hu Shihai, assistant general manager of Huaneng Group.
The other three companies said they had responded immediately by shutting down generators as required, and were discussing with local governments the installation of desulfurisation equipment.
It was the SEPA's first significant penalization of major state-owned firms since its establishment three decades ago. It was taken after the country missed its energy-saving and pollution-control targets set out by Premier Wen Jiabao.
Last year's government targets included a reduction in energy consumption of four percent and a reduction of two percent in pollutant emissions.
'Environmental problems have become a bottleneck in China's economic and social development,' said SEPA deputy director Pan Yue.
Pan said previous efforts to curb pollution achieved limited results due to resistance from local officials and powerful interest groups. The SEPA had adopted harsher standards in approving new projects.
Last year, 163 projects with a combined investment of 770 billion yuan (99 billion U.S. dollars), mainly in the steel, metallurgy, electricity and chemical sectors, were halted after SEPA suspended approval to prevent further environmental pollution.
Sponsor Results:
