Actually it's far worse that you think. On paper China has quite strict environmental standards but in practice they don't have compliance. The government will come up with a very high standard that will require a very low level of emissions for instance but at the same time have a completely unrealistic expectation how to get there. I o…
Actually it's far worse that you think. On paper China has quite strict environmental standards but in practice they don't have compliance. The government will come up with a very high standard that will require a very low level of emissions for instance but at the same time have a completely unrealistic expectation how to get there. I once heard Taiwan Power say that 25% of their cost for coal-fired power stations was pollution remediation. In China that figure would be 7%. Taiwan Power buys from suppliers all over the world. China almost exclusively buys Chinese-made. Taiwan's pollution standard on NOx are around 400 mg/M3 and China's standard is 50 mg/M3. They are you have the riddle. 8 times the performance, a fraction the cost and almost all locally made for China versus Taiwan. Sound too good to be true? Of course it is. China's data coming from there plants are fake. Their emission are not 50mg/M3 but likely many times that. I know how China engineers their plants. The emphasis is on cost and Guanxi not on performance. We know that something is not right by comparing the terrific performance of China's power plants to the still high level of PM 2.5 in the atmosphere collected by the Chinese government and the US embassy and consulates. I know Green Peace people too. They have studied atmospheric satellite data for China. The data does not show a very step reduction on NOx in China's air despite the "amazing" performance of China's power stations. To get good NOx performance (i.e. low emissions) here are some of the things you need. You need to do sophisticated boiler optimization with advanced automatic control. China's boilers are almost all manual. You need good air flow data and actuation, China's air flow data and actuation are done cheaply and not carefully designed. You need a good and comprehensive O2 measurement grid, China generally has only 1 or 2 O2 monitors done cheaply and rarely calibrated. You need a good SCR system with expensive catalysts with a high titanium content. China's catalysts are far cheaper than those in the West and their performance must be far worse although China claims their performance is far better. I could go on and on but you get the point. Without transparency and honesty this problem just continues to fester. By the way RMB 410 Million in fines for the whole country of China is equivalent to what just 1 1000 Mw Coal-fired power station burns through in coal in a week.
Actually it's far worse that you think. On paper China has quite strict environmental standards but in practice they don't have compliance. The government will come up with a very high standard that will require a very low level of emissions for instance but at the same time have a completely unrealistic expectation how to get there. I once heard Taiwan Power say that 25% of their cost for coal-fired power stations was pollution remediation. In China that figure would be 7%. Taiwan Power buys from suppliers all over the world. China almost exclusively buys Chinese-made. Taiwan's pollution standard on NOx are around 400 mg/M3 and China's standard is 50 mg/M3. They are you have the riddle. 8 times the performance, a fraction the cost and almost all locally made for China versus Taiwan. Sound too good to be true? Of course it is. China's data coming from there plants are fake. Their emission are not 50mg/M3 but likely many times that. I know how China engineers their plants. The emphasis is on cost and Guanxi not on performance. We know that something is not right by comparing the terrific performance of China's power plants to the still high level of PM 2.5 in the atmosphere collected by the Chinese government and the US embassy and consulates. I know Green Peace people too. They have studied atmospheric satellite data for China. The data does not show a very step reduction on NOx in China's air despite the "amazing" performance of China's power stations. To get good NOx performance (i.e. low emissions) here are some of the things you need. You need to do sophisticated boiler optimization with advanced automatic control. China's boilers are almost all manual. You need good air flow data and actuation, China's air flow data and actuation are done cheaply and not carefully designed. You need a good and comprehensive O2 measurement grid, China generally has only 1 or 2 O2 monitors done cheaply and rarely calibrated. You need a good SCR system with expensive catalysts with a high titanium content. China's catalysts are far cheaper than those in the West and their performance must be far worse although China claims their performance is far better. I could go on and on but you get the point. Without transparency and honesty this problem just continues to fester. By the way RMB 410 Million in fines for the whole country of China is equivalent to what just 1 1000 Mw Coal-fired power station burns through in coal in a week.