By Li Hongmei
The campaign against smog plaguing Beijing and neighboring cities may turn out to be a protracted battle that will drain enormous funds and manpower.
The most difficult field of battle may be Tangshan, a major steel-production center in Hebei province. Numerous blast furnaces for steel refining continously belch thick smoke into the air. According to the Chinese-language China Securities Journal, as a major component of the anti-smog campaign, Tangshan will have to cut its steel output by 40 million metric tons, or one third, by 2017.
Neighboring residents of steel plants in Tangshan complain that their communities are constantly doused in smog. "We cannot even hang clothes outside to dry. At night, the plants emit even thicker smoke, keeping us indoors instead of sitting outside on a summer night to enjoy the cool breeze. Often, the ground is covered with a thick layer of ash when we wake up in the morning," complained a resident.
According to mysteel.com, Hebei province boasts an annual steel capacity of 314 million tons, one third of the national total. Tangshan alone accounts for 120 million tons.
Of the nation's 700 steel-refining blast furnaces, 270 are located in Hebei province, 10-odd in Tianjin, and 40 and 30 in the neighboring Shanxi and Shandong provinces, respectively.
Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, and neighboring areas, accounting for one twentieth of the nation's total space, accommodate half of the total steel-refining blast furnaces in the nation. "Air pollution caused by steel production in the area is much more serious than other areas of the nation and is much more difficult to solve," said Xu Xiangqian, information superintendent of mysteel.com.
According to the Hebei Metallurgical Industry Association, Hebei's steel industry produced 1.23 kilograms of sulfur dioxide and 0.77 kilograms of industrial dust for every ton of steel in 2012, three to six times the amounts of its counterparts in industrially developed nations such as Germany and Japan.
According to the Ministry of Environmental Protection, of the 74 cities monitored by the ministry in 2013, the 10 cities with the worst air pollution are all located in Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, and neighboring areas. In the third quarter this year, the number of days with air quality dropping below the national standard in the region tripled that in the Yangtze and Pearl River Deltas.
Under the requirement of the ministry, some large steel plants in the region have started to install various air cleaning facilities, such as desulfurizers and dust collectors.
The Beijing city government announced plans to invest 200-300 billion yuan (US$32-65 billion) in combating the smog problem in the coming five years. The ministry estimates that the nation will have to invest 1.75 trillion yuan (US$287 billion) to cope with air pollution problems during the period.
