MEP denies petroleum coke behind smog, haze
Petroleum coke, a material used as fuel in power projects in China, doesn’t have much impact on the smoggy and hazy weather in the country, said the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP).
The ministry made the remarks on Wednesday as a reply to Shen Kui, a professor at the Peking University Law School, who on January 5 requested the National Energy Administration (NEA) and the MEP to disclose information including the number of power plants fueled by petroleum coke in China and the pollution caused by those projects, the Beijing News reported Friday.
Shen made the move after rumors circulated on WeChat that petroleum coke is responsible for the smog in China.
However, according to the MEP, the dust caused by burning petroleum coke only accounted for a very tiny portion of the entire discharge amount of air pollutants in China in 2016.
The ministry added that any power plants with excessive emissions would be fined.
The NEA also replied to Shen’s inquiries on January 24, saying they cannot find information about the num- ber of petroleum coke used in thermal power projects in China and their relation with pollution, as there’s no record of which project are fueled by petroleum coke.
The scale of thermal power projects fueled by petroleum coke might be too small in China and the government may not be collecting enough information about those projects, Lin Boqiang, director of the China Center for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University, told the Global Times Friday.
However, information about energy plants should be made transparent to the public and the government should disseminate information before questions are raised, he noted.
According to the website of the US Environmental Protection Agency, significant quantities of fugitive dust from petroleum coke storage and handling operations present a health risk. In May 2016, Indian activist Pritam Singh applied for a national ban on petroleum coke as it emit large amount of sulphur dioxide in the environment, Indian news agency PTI reported.