Shenzhen Daily (Han Ximin) THE Shenzhen Environmental Protection Bureau will impose stricter rules to control car emissions and upgrade power stations that use heavy oil, the main sources of air pollution.
“The city will speed up the elimination of old, heavy duty vehicles and trucks that use diesel and discharge sulfur dioxide and nitrogen particles, the major pollutants that cause the hazy weather,” Guo Yurong, chief of the environment watchdog, said Tuesday at an international forum on pollution control in Shenzhen.
The city now has 75,000 vehicles that use diesel oil, among which 73 percent are old and fail emission standards.
At the same time, all the power-generating units at Nanshan Thermal Power Generating Plant will run on liquefied natural gas (LNG) instead of heavy oil by the end of the year.
With the use of LNG, the volume of sulfur dioxide discharged by the plant will drop by 3,000 tons a year. This would greatly improve air quality in Nanshan area, Guo said.
A recent report by the bureau shows the city recorded 39 hazy days from July to September, five days more than the same period last year. The hazy days have been increasing year on year since 2003 as the air quality deteriorates. In 2003, the city recorded 130 hazy days for the year. In 2004 the hazy days hit a record of 177 days, while so far this year 176 days of haze have been recorded.
The formation of haze was attributed to emissions from cars. There are around 1.2 million vehicles in Shenzhen. Cars have been required to use cleaner National III standard gas in a measure introduced by the government July 1.
“Shenzhen’s effort alone to cut hazy days is not enough, and a joint mechanism and coordination of Pearl River Delta cities should be reinforced,” Wu Dui, a researcher with the Guangdong Metrological Observatory, told the forum.