Expert Interpretation | Actively promote the ultra-low emission transformation of coking, and help the green, low-carbon and high-quality development of the industry

Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council have attached great importance to the prevention and control of The "Ten Atmospheric Measures" and the "Three-Year Action Plan for Winning the Blue Sky Defense War" have been implemented one after another, and historic achievements and changes have taken place in air pollution control. China has become the country with the fastest atmospheric governance in the world, and the people's sense of blue sky gain and happiness has been significantly enhanced. Through the full implementation of ultra-low emissions from coal-fired power plants and ultra-low emissions from the steel industry, China has built the world's largest clean coal power supply system and is building the world's largest clean steel production system.

At the National Conference on Ecological and Environmental Protection, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that the battle to defend the blue sky is the top priority in the battle against pollution, and it is necessary to vigorously promote the coordinated emission reduction of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), nitrogen oxides and other pollutants, and continue to reduce the concentration of fine particulate matter. The State Council's recently issued Action Plan for Continuous Improvement of Air Quality calls for a 10% reduction in PM2.5 concentrations in cities at and above the prefecture level by 2025. In order to coordinate high-level protection and high-quality development, and promote the continuous improvement of air quality, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, together with relevant departments, issued the "Opinions on Promoting the Implementation of Ultra-low Emissions in the Coking Industry" (hereinafter referred to as the "Opinions"). The coking industry has become another industry that is about to implement ultra-low emissions after thermal power and steel industries. The "Opinions" focus on the reduction of nitrogen oxides and VOCs, adhere to precise pollution control, scientific pollution control, and pollution control in accordance with the law, which can improve the level of air pollution control in the whole process and process of the coking industry, promote structural optimization and adjustment, and continuous improvement of air quality, and provide strong support for in-depth pollution prevention and control.

1. Deeply understand the significance of implementing ultra-low emissions in the coking industry

China's coke production accounts for 70% of the world's total, and the key areas of air pollution prevention and control produce 58% of the country's coke with 13% of the country's land area. In recent years, although the green transformation and upgrading of the industrial structure of China's coking industry has achieved positive results, the optimization and adjustment of structure and layout cannot be achieved overnight, and it is still necessary to accelerate the green transformation and upgrading of the industry through the implementation of major projects such as ultra-low emissions.

The first is to implement the decisions and arrangements of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council. Since the "14th Five-Year Plan", the "Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Deepening the Battle of Pollution Prevention and Control", the "14th Five-Year Plan" Comprehensive Work Plan for Energy Conservation and Emission Reduction, the Action Plan for Continuous Improvement of Air Quality and other documents, and the National Conference on Ecological and Environmental Protection held in July 2023 have clearly proposed to promote the ultra-low emission transformation of the coking industry with high quality. Therefore, the issuance of the "Opinions" is timely, clarifying the goals and indicators, highlighting key tasks, and formulating policies and safeguard measures, which will effectively promote the green and low-carbon transformation of the coking industry.

The second is to help the air quality of cities with concentrated production capacity continue to improve. The VOCs emissions of the coking industry rank second among all industrial industries, and contain toxic and harmful substances such as benzene and benzopyrene. The coke production capacity of China's key areas of air pollution prevention and control accounts for half of the country's total production capacity. Cities with concentrated coking production capacity, such as Luliang, Changzhi, Handan, Linfen, Yuncheng, Taiyuan, Anyang and Weinan, have long ranked low among the 168 key cities in terms of air quality. The implementation of the "Opinions" will effectively reduce the emission of air pollutants from coking enterprises and improve the air quality in key areas and cities where coke production capacity is concentrated. Cities with a coke production capacity of more than 10 million tons in key areas such as Tangshan, Luliang, Changzhi and Yuncheng can reduce PM2.5 concentrations by an average of 2-3 micrograms per cubic meter after completing the ultra-low emission transformation.

The third is to comprehensively improve the level of pollution control and environmental management in the industry. Since 2021, the Central Ecological and Environmental Protection Inspectorate has investigated and dealt with a total of 37 cases of ecological and environmental problems involving coking enterprises, and notified 14 typical cases of illegal sewage discharge, blind layout, and illegal approval. In the process of atmospheric supervision and assistance, it was also found that some coking enterprises had problems such as online monitoring fraud, failure to implement emergency emission reduction measures for heavy pollution, serious unorganized emissions, and illegal discharge from bypasses. There is great potential for emission reduction in the fugitive emission of VOCs, desulfurization and denitrification facilities, material and product transportation, and refined operation management. The implementation of ultra-low emission transformation, focusing on engineering emission reduction, structural emission reduction, management emission reduction, coking industry pollution control and environmental management will move to a higher level.

2. Accurately understand the main content of ultra-low emissions in the coking industry

The implementation of ultra-low emission transformation in the coking industry is a systematic project, which not only improves the level of air pollution control and management of enterprises in the whole process and process, but also optimizes and adjusts the industrial structure, energy structure and transportation structure as a whole. In the process of implementing ultra-low emission transformation, it is necessary to realize the coordinated control of multiple pollutants and promote the "double reduction" of pollutant emission intensity and carbon emission intensity.

The first is to learn from mature experience and set scientific and reasonable goals. The mature experience of implementing ultra-low emission transformation in thermal power and steel has laid a good foundation for the implementation of ultra-low emission in the coking industry. Combined with the current actual situation across the country and the demand for air quality improvement, the "Opinions" put forward the transformation goal of "by the end of 2025, 60% of the coking capacity in key areas will be transformed, and by the end of 2028, the coking enterprises in key areas will basically complete the transformation, and 80% of the coking capacity will be completed in the country". From the perspective of progress, at present, the coke production capacity of about 50 million tons of steel and coke joint enterprises in China has been completed and publicized in accordance with the "Opinions on Promoting the Implementation of Ultra-low Emissions in the Iron and Steel Industry". Provinces in key regions have taken the lead in promoting ultra-low emissions from independent coking enterprises, with about 130 million tons of production capacity basically completed the transformation of organized and unorganized emissions, and 37 million tons of production capacity basically completed the transformation of clean transportation. From a technical point of view, the source prevention technology such as exhaust gas circulation and segmented combustion, the VOCs unorganized waste gas process control technology such as negative pressure recovery, the extensive use of high-efficiency desulfurization, denitrification and dust removal, RTO and other terminal treatment technologies, and the successful promotion and application of new energy and China VI heavy trucks in steel and other industries and fields have laid a technical foundation for the implementation of ultra-low emissions in the coking industry. From the management point of view, the iron and steel industry has explored the effective confirmation of the evaluation and monitoring and ultra-low emission transformation, and the performance grading of key industries, differentiated electricity prices, water prices and other policies have formed a virtuous circle of supporting the good and eliminating the inferior, and the level of environmental management has been continuously improved. Taking into account factors such as local progress, technical conditions, and the production and operation of enterprises, the goals set in the Opinions are reasonable and feasible.

The second is to promote the optimization and adjustment of the structure of the coking industry. From the perspective of industrial structure, the "Opinions" emphasize that new coking capacity is strictly prohibited in key areas, and existing coking enterprises are promoted to implement steel and coke integration, mergers and acquisitions, and eliminate backward production capacity in accordance with laws and regulations. The newly renovated and expanded coking projects are constructed in accordance with the ultra-low emission level, and the enterprises or facilities included in the phase-out and exit plan are no longer required to implement transformation, so as to avoid duplicate investment and waste. In view of the problems of weak environmental management, low concentration and short industrial chain of semi-coke (blue coke) enterprises, measures such as reasonable control of industrial scale, concentration in industrial parks or advantageous enterprises, and formulation of transformation and upgrading plans are proposed. From the perspective of transportation structure, the "Opinions" are fully connected with the ultra-low emission requirements of the iron and steel industry, and it is proposed that "the proportion of materials and products in and out of enterprises shall not be less than 80% in clean mode; At the same time, according to the characteristics of the industry, we will continue to provide application scenarios for new energy vehicles and non-road mobile machinery, and drive the development of the new energy vehicle industry. From the perspective of energy consumption structure, the "Opinions" put forward measures to encourage the use of steam heating or electric heating instead of gas tube furnaces, emphasizing the promotion and application of waste heat recovery technology, and taking measures for the efficient and comprehensive utilization of coke oven gas to improve the utilization rate of coal gas.

The third is to coordinate the coking industry to reduce pollution and carbon emissions. The "Opinions" focus on source prevention and control, process control, and end treatment system improvement, and put forward a series of index measures from the aspects of organized emissions, unorganized emissions, and clean transportation, and it is expected that after the completion of the ultra-low emission transformation, VOCs will be reduced by about 600,000 tons, and particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides will be reduced by about 30,000 tons, 50,000 tons, and 230,000 tons respectively. It must be recognized that while ultra-low emission transformation forms pollutant emission reduction, it also has a significant positive synergistic effect on carbon dioxide emission reduction. The "Opinions" encourage enterprises to promote the application of pollution reduction and carbon reduction technologies in ultra-low emission transformation, such as dry coke quenching, rising pipe waste heat recovery, circulating ammonia and primary cooler waste heat recovery, etc., and guide the coking industry chain to extend to downstream high value-added fine chemical products. It is estimated that after the completion of the ultra-low emission transformation, the whole industry will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 10 million tons.

Fourth, strengthen the whole process of fine environmental management. Coke oven is an uninterruptible production facility, coking enterprises to achieve ultra-low emissions stably, not only need reliable pollution prevention and control measures, but also need to be refined management in the production process, to do each work in place, in order to ensure that the emission reaches the limit, the coke oven does not smoke, and the plant area has no peculiar smell. Therefore, the "Opinions" put forward requirements for the environmental management of the whole process of coking enterprises. From the perspective of platform construction, it is necessary to build a plant-wide environmental management platform covering automatic monitoring facilities (CEMS), distributed control systems (DCS), VOCs monitors, air quality microstations, video surveillance and access control systems, etc., through the closed-loop management functions of abnormal alarm, disposal and feedback of production, governance and monitoring data. From the perspective of operation control, the "Opinions" emphasize the need to reduce the emission of pollutants under abnormal working conditions, require the construction of coke oven chimney exhaust gas backup treatment facilities or multi-warehouse room transformation, strengthen production organization management and equipment maintenance, and reduce the frequency of accident maintenance of various key equipment. The requirements for standardizing leak detection and repair (LDAR), controlling ammonia escape, and strengthening the supervision of coke quenching wastewater are proposed. From the perspective of the management system, the "Opinions" require the establishment and improvement of enterprise environmental protection management institutions and systems, in accordance with the requirements of the technical specifications for pollutant discharge permits, standardize, accurate and complete records of environmental management ledgers, truthfully reflect the operation of production facilities and pollution control facilities, and self-certify that they meet the requirements of ultra-low emissions.

Third, cohesion and cohesion to promote the super transformation of the coking industry to achieve practical results

Compliance with emissions is the legal responsibility of enterprises, and ultra-low emissions are encouraged. The "Opinions" guide through differentiated policies to encourage coking enterprises to promote ultra-low emission transformation with high quality. In the implementation of ultra-low emission transformation, it is necessary to fully evaluate, scientifically plan, and steadily advance.

First, we should fully understand the arduousness of ultra-low emission transformation. The implementation of ultra-low emission transformation in the coking industry is a systematic project covering the whole process and the whole process, source prevention and control, process control and end treatment, integrating structural adjustment, pollution reduction and carbon reduction, management improvement, energy conservation and emission reduction, and clean production. The entire industry, environmental management departments, third-party environmental protection agencies and other relevant practitioners should fully understand its arduousness. Learn the lessons of the waste of material and financial resources caused by insufficient understanding of some enterprises in the early stage of ultra-low emission transformation in the steel industry. It must be recognized that only reaching the organized emission limit is not equivalent to completing the ultra-low emission transformation, and only the construction of raw coal closed greenhouses is not equivalent to completing the ultra-low emission transformation.

Second, management departments at all levels should provide scientific guidance and make steady progress. It is suggested that the relevant departments should do a good job in the interpretation, publicity and implementation of supporting policies, and issue relevant technical guidance documents for ultra-low emission transformation and evaluation and monitoring in the coking industry as soon as possible, and encourage enterprises to carry out ultra-low emission transformation as soon as possible. Select coking enterprises with good basic conditions and high environmental management level as pilots, create demonstration benchmarks, do a good job in publicity and reporting, and encourage enterprises to keep up with benchmark enterprises. Local management departments should formulate quantifiable and assessable ultra-low emission transformation plans for coking enterprises in combination with local conditions, determine transformation tasks, refine the implementation to specific projects, and clarify the completion time. For enterprises that actively carry out transformation, we will help them strive for support such as funds for air pollution prevention and control, and for enterprises that have completed transformation, they will be given differentiated policies such as performance ratings. Except for areas where the need for air quality improvement is particularly urgent, no layer by layer, no "ultra-ultra-low" will be implemented. Environmental protection, development and reform, industry and information technology, finance, transportation and other departments at all levels should form a joint force to promote the establishment of a unified ladder electricity price system for high-energy-consuming industries, and qualified areas can formulate credit and financial policies based on pollutant emissions, energy consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions, and implement preferential environmental protection taxes, enterprise income tax credits for the purchase of special equipment for environmental protection, and credit and other policy support.

Third, industry enterprises should actively plan and take the initiative. As the main body of implementation, coking enterprises should carry out ultra-low emission pre-assessment, analyze the gap between the current situation of enterprises and ultra-low emission requirements, and formulate transformation plans according to local conditions. Among them, coking enterprises in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and surrounding areas and the Fenwei Plain should eliminate 4.3-meter coke ovens by the end of 2025 in accordance with the requirements of the "Industrial Structure Guidance Catalogue (2024)"; According to preliminary estimates, a 1 million ton independent coking enterprise with an average level of pollution control will have a one-time construction investment of about 80 million yuan to complete the ultra-low emission transformation; It is necessary to ensure that enterprise leaders really attach importance to it, invest in funds, implement real projects, and improve management levels to ensure that the transformation tasks are completed with high quality. The coking and steel-coke joint enterprises in key areas should play an exemplary role, take the lead in reforming, and strive to complete the project ahead of schedule; enterprises in non-key areas should strengthen technical exchanges and case investigations, fully learn from the transformation experience of benchmarking enterprises, and make steady progress in a timely manner. At the same time, industry associations and other institutions should build an exchange platform for ultra-low emission transformation of coking enterprises to promote the promotion and application of mature energy-saving and emission reduction technologies.

Fourth, public support and participation of the whole people. People's health and well-being are closely related to air quality, and improving air quality is improving people's livelihoods. It is necessary to take the general concern and extensive participation of the people in air quality as an important driving force for the in-depth development of air pollution prevention and control work. In the process of ultra-low emission transformation of the coking industry, it is necessary to encourage public participation, increase the disclosure of environmental information, improve the reward mechanism for reporting, take the initiative to accept public supervision, timely publish relevant information such as self-monitoring and pollution emission data, pay attention to air pollution control, actively provide clues of environmental violations, and give full play to the role of social supervision.

The promotion and implementation of ultra-low emissions in the coking industry will effectively help the battle of pollution prevention and control, make our sky bluer, and people's lives better!

(The author is Zou Shiying, deputy director of the Environmental Engineering Assessment Center of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment)