Chinese steel companies do not participate in the global emissions reduction plan
According to China Steel News Network
Recently, China's steel enterprises have not participated in the World Iron and Steel Association (hereinafter referred to as "World Steel Association") global emission reduction plan news, pushing Chinese steel enterprises to the whirlpool of public opinion.
The same standard is unfair
The World Steel Association's emission reduction plan was proposed as early as 2007. Zhang Xiaogang, then General Manager of Angang Group, told the Financial Times that China's large steel mills should support the plan and contribute to reducing carbon dioxide emissions. At that time, he was worried that more small steel mills could not be persuaded because of more carbon dioxide due to equipment and technical problems. Today, another name of Zhang Xiaogang is the chairman of the World Steel Association.
Four years later, the implementation of this plan is not as smooth as Zhang Xiaogang predicted. Large steel companies first rejected the plan, and the World Steel Association expressed regret.
According to the World Steel Association, the plan is to try to persuade most of the world's largest steel companies to provide them with carbon dioxide emissions data from their steel mills on a regular basis, hoping to establish a database linked to the type of steel plant technology (and operating methods). In order to better understand which technologies can reduce carbon dioxide emissions without disrupting the recent rapid growth of global steel production.
According to the Financial Times, Chinese steel companies did not participate because they were worried that if they joined the program, they might inadvertently disclose technical data and provide competitors with commercially useful details. Hou Zhizhen, director of the Lange Steel Information Research Center, believes that steel mills must have their own considerations in this aspect. We are still in the process of development, and the Western countries have already gone through this process. Through many data, we can roughly judge our steel mills. Production level and consumption of raw materials.
The World Steel Association has assured the Chinese that any data in the plan can only be seen by a small number of officials of the association and will not be allowed to be obtained by individual companies.
In this regard, a large number of domestic steel enterprises related to the media said: "We have been in accordance with national standards in reducing emissions, but the carbon dioxide emissions of Chinese steel mills must be announced, this matter depends on the country's Regulations." Hou Zhizhen also believes that China's various steel companies, as independent legal persons in production and management, may choose to participate or not participate. Energy conservation and emission reduction are regulated in our country, but there are no specific mandatory restrictions in the world. .
The World Steel Association official website shows that through data collection, benchmark improvements can be achieved based on actual performance data. Later, during the post-Kyoto Protocol, countries and regions will report and set carbon dioxide emission commitments.
It is worth pondering that Canadian Environment Minister Kent announced on December 12 that Canada will officially withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol.
The relevant person in charge of the WISCO Group said: “We should first ask the western developed countries what they have done for environmental protection in their previous development process, and what have they done now." In this person's view, Chinese steel companies only need to comply with national requirements. It is enough to do a good job of reducing emissions. It does not make sense to participate in international programs.
Hou Zhisheng also said frankly: "We have developed afterwards, and we are still in the process of development. Europe and the United States have entered the post-industrial era, and electric furnace steel is used more, so the pressure on emission reduction is not as big as ours." Perhaps this is this. The reason is that Chinese steel mills feel that it is unfair to measure emissions using the same standard. Therefore, she believes that the issue of international emission reduction is in the process of developing awareness and must find a relatively acceptable method and standard.
According to national standards, eliminate backward production capacity
Although Chinese steel companies have not participated in the World Steel Association's plan, they have not relaxed their emissions reductions. After all, the government's energy conservation and emission reduction plans for the industry are being implemented step by step. As early as January 2010, the State Council strengthened the elimination of backward production capacity in research and deployment. After that, energy conservation and emission reduction were put on the agenda and linked to the performance of local governments. The goal of the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” countries is to eliminate blast furnaces of 400 cubic meters and below (excluding cast iron), converters and electric furnaces of 30 tons and below, and the energy consumption per unit of industrial added value and carbon dioxide emissions have decreased by 18%. Under the guidance of the policy, large steel mills are in compliance with the national emission reduction plan.
Similar to other industries, the steel production process will eventually produce “three wastes” (waste residue, waste water, waste gas). Enterprises usually use some environmentally-friendly equipment that has recycling and recycling functions (such as dust removal equipment, wastewater treatment equipment, etc.). Reduce the pollution of the "three wastes" to the environment. However, analysts point out that the operation of these environmentally friendly equipment can sometimes reduce production efficiency. Despite this, the use of environmentally friendly equipment is more effective in reducing emissions than by directly reducing production.
In this regard, a senior member of the Northeast Steel Plant also believes that the most important thing to reduce emissions is to eliminate backward production capacity, not completely reducing production. “Lost production capacity mainly refers to small furnaces with low production efficiency." He further exemplified that “small steel mills produce the same raw materials as large steel mills, but the technology and crafts of big steel mills are good. Compared with the consumption of the charge on the coke iron ore and the amount of carbon dioxide emitted, it is low. In his view, if some steel mills consume raw materials due to process reasons, and no energy-saving equipment, the cost will be higher than other steel mills. "The product added in this way has a low added value and is naturally eliminated ."
Hou Zhisheng also believes that the market mechanism will promote energy conservation and emission reduction to a certain extent. The steel industry itself has a problem of scale effect. Only when it develops to a certain scale will it be beneficial to technological transformation, reduce emission standards, and improve the labor efficiency of enterprises. This is also an impetus for energy conservation and emission reduction, especially in the market. When good, it may force some backward production capacity to be eliminated.
