The planning of coal chemical industrial parks needs to pay attention to four key issues

Thread Content

Planning for coal chemical industrial parks requires attention to four key issues. Author/Source: Date: 2016-01-26. Clicks: 23. China’s modern coal chemical industry is currently developing in a park-based format. The so-called industrialization of coal chemical parks involves concentrating multiple coal chemical projects in a certain area and carrying out unified layout and planning. In some areas rich in coal, regulations for the development of modern coal chemical industries stipulate that such projects must be located within industrial parks. The author discussed this issue with an associate chief engineer from Datang Energy Chemical Company, which was involved throughout the demonstration of coal chemical projects in China. He is concerned that if the coal chemical industrial park is not properly planned or laid out, if the feasibility studies for the projects within the park are not handled adequately and if management is insufficient, the negative factors associated with the coal chemical projects in that park will have a cumulative effect, leading to serious consequences. Upon analysis, it was found that there are 4 major issues that coal chemical industrial parks and enterprises must pay close attention to during the planning and construction processes. Transportation cannot be a bottleneck. One of the characteristics of coal chemical projects is their high coal consumption. For example, a coal-to-natural gas project (hereinafter referred to as Project X) that uses low-quality coal as raw material and has an annual production capacity of 4 billion cubic meters requires over 24 million tons of coal per year, which is equivalent to one trainload of coal per hour. If a park has 5 projects of this scale, it means that 5 trains of coal need to be delivered continuously, 24 hours a day, every hour. Add to this the export of products and by-products, and the volume of transportation is quite substantial. Therefore, the layout of railways is extremely crucial. Not only that, coal chemical projects ultimately aim to convert coal into clean energy or chemical products, and a considerable amount of waste residue is generated in this process. Taking Project X as an example again, it generates over 3 million tons of ash, slag, and other solid wastes per year. To transport all of this waste away, 25 vehicles with a capacity of 15 tons each would be needed to operate continuously, hour after hour. Add to this the return of empty vehicles, and the number of vehicles moving around the park will be astonishing. The layout of individual projects often overlooks or downplays the need to conform to the overall layout of the park; as a result, it is inevitable that the flow of people and goods in these projects does not align with the road layout and directions within the park. This leads to intersections between vehicles and pedestrians, as well as traffic congestion, creating two major problems. First, it affects safety; second, it impacts capacity, and in severe cases it can become a bottleneck for the project. This can result in the project not being able to handle sufficient workload, failing to discharge it properly, and thus making it difficult for the project to operate at full capacity over a long period of time. However, some parks clearly did not give sufficient consideration to capacity issues during planning. Don’t let waste dumps become a burden. While transportation issues within a region can be resolved through infrastructure development such as building more roads, waste from industrial parks represents a major challenge. Taking Project X as an example again, it generates over 3 million tons of ash and slag per year; if there are 5 projects of similar scale in the park, the annual output of ash and slag would be around 15 million tons. Although some coal chemical projects state during feasibility studies that the ash and slag will be used for comprehensive utilization such as brick manufacturing and cement production, this is difficult to achieve in practice. Since many coal chemical industrial parks and projects are located in remote or underdeveloped areas, there is no market for using ash and slag in brick manufacturing, and it is not necessarily economical to do so. Thus, landfilling became the only option. The author previously inspected a coal chemical project; since the ash could not be reused as planned, within two years – during which time the plant’s production capacity was utilized for less than a quarter of its potential – the landfill built for storing this ash was already almost filled. To continue production, it would be necessary to acquire more land and build larger, additional landfills. This is a huge burden on the project. If this is the case for just one coal chemical project, it’s hard to imagine how many landfills would be needed to meet the demands of multiple such projects within a coal chemical park. This aspect has not been given sufficient consideration in almost all existing coal chemical industrial parks. In the short term, the conflict may not be apparent, but over time, in 3 to 5 years, it will become a very serious issue. Water can truly quench thirst. Coal chemical industries consume a large amount of water, making water usage the biggest problem. Taking Project X as an example, it requires 22.5 million tons of water per year. If a park has 5 projects of the same scale, its annual water consumption will reach hundreds of millions of tons. However, coal-rich areas are mostly located in the western regions, where water resources are extremely scarce. Some localities and enterprises hope to obtain some water allocation quotas for the coal chemical industry through water rights transfer projects such as sprinkler irrigation and drip irrigation. The problem is that it is unlikely that groundwater will be used for the water needs of coal chemical industries; instead, a large amount of surface water from rivers, lakes, and other sources is required. For example, some projects in the western region rely on the Yellow River as their water source. However, the water demand for coal chemical industries does not vary with the seasons, whereas the flow rate of water in the Yellow River is seasonal. What happens if there is a dry season that results in a disruption in water supply? How can the water needs of coal chemical industries be met in such situations? During the feasibility study phase for some coal chemical projects, local authorities promised certain water quotas and issued relevant documents to that effect. However, in some places, in an effort to secure projects, there is a situation where multiple entities claim the same water quotas, which raises doubts about whether these quotas are actually enforced. Solving pollution to ensure survival: The pollution problems associated with coal chemical projects are relatively severe, with large amounts of wastewater, waste gas, and waste residue being discharged, which has led to resistance from local residents and doubts from various sectors of society. In some areas, pollution has already become a serious problem even with just one coal chemical project; after the establishment of industrial parks, pollution emissions increase dramatically, making the pollution issue even more severe. In particular, the impact on the regional environment cannot be ignored. Take wastewater treatment as an example: with the current technologies available, it is very difficult to achieve zero discharge of wastewater generated in modern coal chemical industries. Almost all projects rely on evaporation ponds or temporary storage tanks to hold this highly saline wastewater with complex composition, which makes wastewater treatment one of the most challenging problems in the coal chemical industry. Some coal chemical projects have seen their production hindered by wastewater issues. To the best of the author’s knowledge, there is currently no fundamental solution for wastewater treatment in coal chemical parks, and the difficulty of treatment increases further when the wastewater from multiple projects is combined. The situation is the same for wastewater; pollution problems related to exhaust gas and solid waste are also extremely serious and difficult to address. Especially exhaust gases; as the emissions from various sources accumulate, localized pollution intensifies. If the pollution problem is not resolved fundamentally, it will be difficult to ensure the safety of coal chemical projects and their surrounding environment. There are far more issues that need to be addressed in the development of modern coal chemical industrial parks, such as safety problems. When planning and designing coal chemical industrial parks, it is essential to take the aforementioned issues fully into consideration and find practical solutions; otherwise, by the time the problems arise, it will be too late to find a way to address them.