China faces gas shortage in winter heating
Local governments in North China have taken measures in response to a gas shortage caused by the shift from coalpowered to gas-powered heating, with experts calling for patience.
The Development and Reform Commission in Taiyuan, capital of North China’s Shanxi Province, vowed to cut the gas supply for industry and commerce and even hotels and offices to ensure residential gas supplies for heating, thepaper. cn reported on Monday.
The notice comes after reports said many regions are suffering from a shortage of electricity or natural gas this winter due to the delayed construction of heating facilities.
Students at some rural primary schools in Hebei Province reportedly had to bathe in the sun to keep warm as their heating equipment remained uninstalled, China Youth Daily reported earlier.
“In the winter season, cities and regions not equipped with electrically-controlled or natural gas heating facilities can use coal-fired furnaces or other options for heating,” the Ministry of Environmental Protection confirmed with the Global Times on Thursday.
Guo Xiaojian, a villager in Jiexiu, North China’s Shanxi Province, told the Global Times that his house was connected to the village’s natural gas pipeline several months ago, but the heating was not always good.
“My house was still cold even after I turned on the gas heater as the temperature seldom reached 19 C or above. The gas was often cut off due to a supply shortage, which greatly bothered me,” he said.
“Local environment authorities have heavy tasks to fulfill, which require financial support, technologies and time,” Wang Gengchen, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Atmospheric Physics Institute, told the Global Times on Monday.
The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank’s (AIIB) Board of Directors has approved a $250 million loan for a project that will reduce China’s coal use by about 650,000 tons annually by connecting about 216,750 households in 510 rural villages to a natural gas distribution network.
People first
“Managing pollution should always follow scientific principles and have mature technologies to pave the way,” Wang said.
The Tianjin Environmental Protection Bureau said Monday that the city stopped the turn-around project of coal- to gas-powered heating in August as the government realized that natural gas may be in short supply in the next heating session.
Tianjin, located next to Beijing, has replaced the coal-powered heating systems of 530,000 households out of 1.21 million in the city in 2017, 240,000 more than it had planned.
The city also applied the use of electric-powered heating and is promoting central heating to prevent a shortage in natural gas that has occurred in some other areas.
“People’s welfare comes first, not the government index,” Yang Yong, chief of the bureau’s air department, told the Global Times.
Other households will be allowed to use clean coal-powered heating systems until all systems are replaced by next year.
Better air quality
The PM 2.5 index in 28 cities in North China was 68 micrograms per cubic meter on average in November, a 37 percent drop compared with the same period in 2016, according to a notice the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) sent to the Global Times on Monday.
Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei Province’s capital Shijiazhuang saw a 50 percent drop in PM 2.5 levels.
The improvement in air quality was achieved through a series of measures the country’s environmental authorities implemented. In 2013, the State Council introduced 10 measures to improve air quality, and this year the MEP began on-site environmental inspections in cities around the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area.
Favorable weather during this autumn and winter, together with the coal ban in many regions, contributed to the improvement in air quality, Wang said.