Inner Mongolia: Recycle Resources and Develop Advantageous Industries

"The company's more than 50,000 square meters of factory buildings are all built with fly ash, metallurgical slag and so on." Yang Xiaojun, vice president of Baotou Xinchuang Ruitu Environmental Protection Building Materials Co., Ltd., told reporters that compared with traditional clay bricks, the new building materials produced by the company have the advantages of light weight, fire prevention, earthquake resistance and heat insulation.

With a total investment of 4.1 billion yuan, Xinchuang Ruitu Company, which was completed and put into operation in early October this year, is the largest new environmental protection and energy-saving building materials enterprise in Asia for municipal solid waste treatment. The company's 12 production lines can digest 1.2 million tons of fly ash a year. As well as 800000 tons of slag, desulfurization gypsum, granulated slag, steel slag, construction waste, etc. After the first phase of the project is put into operation, more than 1000 kinds of building materials products can be produced, with annual sales revenue of 3.7 billion yuan, "the investment can be recovered in less than four years." Yang Xiaojun said confidently.

Xinchuang Ruitu Company is one of the energy-saving and environment-friendly enterprises introduced by Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in the process of vigorously optimizing the industrial structure and promoting the intensive use of resources. In recent years, Inner Mongolia has insisted on expanding and strengthening its advantageous and characteristic industries at a high level, transforming traditional industries with high standards, undertaking non-resource-based industries from a high starting point, and has taken a new road of industrialization development with industrial diversification, industrial extension, industrial concentration and industrial upgrading.

Chu Bo, Secretary of the Party Committee of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, pointed out at a recent meeting that we should more consciously and thoroughly implement the scientific concept of development, actively adjust the industrial structure, continuously extend the industrial chain, and vigorously develop the circular economy, so as to achieve a new leap forward in the economic and social development of Inner Mongolia.

Comprehensive utilization of "secondary resources"

In recent years, Inner Mongolia's industry has maintained a growth rate of about 30%. In 2006, the GDP of the whole region rose to 479 billion yuan, and the total economic volume leaped to the 17th place in the country. With the continuous improvement of the quality and efficiency of economic operation, Inner Mongolia has formed six dominant and characteristic industries with energy, metallurgy, chemical industry, equipment manufacturing, processing of agricultural and livestock products and high and new technology as the main industries. The industrial added value of these six dominant industries has accounted for about 90% of the industrial added value above the scale of the whole region. As a traditional industrial city, the economic structure of Baotou City can be said to be a microcosm of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. According to the data released by Baotou Economic Commission, from January to August this year, the five pillar industries of iron and steel, aluminum, equipment manufacturing, electric power and rare earth completed a total added value of 262.9 billion yuan, accounting for 83.4% of the added value of industries above the city's scale.

However, with the rapid development of industrial economy, more and more industrial wastes have caused tremendous pressure on the ecological environment. "Waste is a misplaced resource," said Sun Liankun, director of the Resources Department of Baotou Economic Commission. Comprehensive utilization of industrial waste can bring economic benefits, help achieve energy conservation and emission reduction goals, and thus promote sustainable economic and social development. Since 2003, Baotou City has made full use of relevant industrial policies and scientific and technological achievements, and successively promulgated "Detailed Rules for the Implementation of Comprehensive Utilization of Fly Ash in Baotou City", "Opinions on Accelerating the Development of New Wall Materials", "Measures for the Management of Comprehensive Utilization of Fly Ash in Baotou City" and other measures, according to the overall industrial layout and the development of the power industry. Baotou has decided to build three industrial parks in the east, middle and west of the city to digest industrial waste such as fly ash in the whole city. As of early November, Baotou City has built and put into operation 70 enterprises for comprehensive utilization of fly ash, which can comprehensively utilize nearly 4 million tons of fly ash annually.

For the comprehensive utilization project of fly ash, Baotou City has given great support, not only giving a reward of 50 cents per ton to individuals or enterprises using fly ash, but also stipulating that "new cement enterprises, cement structural parts enterprises and projects engaged in road construction and frame structure construction are developed." Fly ash and its products should be actively used. With the reduction of clay brick factories from 100 to more than 30, fly ash products have accounted for half of the market share in Baotou's construction industry. In the past, in Baotou City, the fly ash discharged by power plants and heat source plants needed land requisition for storage, but now, a ton of fly ash can be sold for forty or fifty yuan, and industrial waste has become a popular resource.

This huge contrast also occurs in Baotou Steel, which discharges nearly 4 million tons of metallurgical slag every year. In addition to being used for road construction and backfilling in the plant area, the more than 30 million tons of metallurgical slag accumulated over the years has almost become a hill. In 2004, Baotou Steel set up Baotou Steel Hengzhiyuan New Environmental Protection Building Material Products Company, which now consumes 400,000 tons of metallurgical slag annually, forming an annual output of 1.4 million square meters of pavement bricks and 140,000 square meters of wall bricks. Zhao Shangqing, deputy general manager of Hengzhiyuan Company, told reporters that steel slag bricks have the characteristics of high hardness, corrosion resistance and strong water absorption and permeability. The price of each brick is ten cents lower than that of red bricks, which has been well received by users. "Our social and environmental benefits are good, and it also brings certain economic benefits.".

In order to expand the application scope of metallurgical slag, Baotou Steel has invested 60 million yuan to build a metallurgical slag micro-powder production line, which can consume 800,000 tons of iron and steel slag annually after putting into operation, thus basically realizing zero emission of metallurgical slag. In addition, Baotou Steel also plans to jointly build a production line with an annual output of 100 million fly ash bricks and a production line with an annual output of 200,000 cubic meters of fly ash aerated concrete blocks and new wall materials to realize the comprehensive utilization of fly ash. At that time, Baotou Steel will truly realize the transformation from "black metallurgy" to "green metallurgy".

According to Wang Jinguo, deputy director of the Economic Commission of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, by the end of 2006, the region had identified 151 enterprises for comprehensive utilization of resources, realized sales revenue of 3 billion yuan for comprehensive utilization products, and comprehensively utilized 8.04 million tons of various waste residues. Among them, the utilization of fly ash and slag reached 2.71 million tons.

The Outline of the 11th Five-Year Development Plan of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region proposes that by 2010, the comprehensive utilization rate of industrial solid waste in the whole region will reach 50%. Wang Jinguo said that vigorously promoting the comprehensive utilization of resources is an important measure for the whole region to adhere to economical, clean and safe development, and plays an important role in promoting the realization of the energy saving and emission reduction target of reducing GDP energy consumption by 25% in 2010 compared with the end of the "Tenth Five-Year Plan".

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Promote industrial chain extension

In Shulinzhao Town, Dalate Banner, Ordos City, what comes into view are rows of neat factory buildings and open grasslands. You can hardly smell any peculiar smell. It is hard to believe that this is a "chemical city" with a total investment of 30 billion yuan.

On October 28, the first batch of projects of this large-scale energy and chemical circular economy industrial base jointly built by Inner Mongolia Yili Resources Group, Shenhua Group, Shanghai Huayi Group and Tangshan Jidong Cement Company were completed and put into operation. It has formed an integrated circular industrial chain of "coal-coal gangue-thermoelectricity-refined salt-ionic membrane caustic soda-polyvinyl chloride-industrial waste residue environmental protection cement".

Shang Huping, deputy general manager of Shenhua Yili Energy Co., Ltd., told reporters that the company is currently the largest coal gangue power plant with total installed capacity in China and the largest coal-electricity integration project in China. After the completion of the power plant, 3.6 million tons of low calorific value fuels such as local coal gangue can be used annually. As the direct air cooling technology and the industrial wastewater recycling technology are adopted, more than 75% of water can be saved. At the same time, the furnace ash produced by the plant is sent to Yili Jidong Cement Company to make cement on the spot.

"We are building a new dry process cement production line that can use 100% carbide slag instead of limestone, which is the first one in China, and can use 1.55 million tons of industrial waste residue in the base and surrounding areas every year." Yang Hongjun, general manager of Yili Jidong Cement Co., Ltd., told reporters that this production line can reduce the cost of cement by about 25 yuan per ton, and truly achieve the goal of "maximizing energy saving and consumption reduction, minimizing pollution emissions, maximizing waste utilization and optimizing investment costs".

While the project of Yili Energy and Chemical Circular Economy Industrial Base is completed and put into operation, the development mode of circular economy can be seen everywhere in enterprises and parks such as Mengxi High-tech Industrial Park, Tuoketuo Industrial Zone, Horqin Industrial Zone and Baotou Aluminum Group.

According to the person in charge of the Development and Reform Commission of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, the local conversion rate of coal in Inner Mongolia is close to 50%. Some of the coal here is converted into electricity and exported from the air; some of it is converted into oil, gas, methanol, ethylene and other chemical products in large quantities through high-tech production lines. "It is estimated that converting coal to electricity will increase the value by 5 times, and converting coal to chemical industry will increase the value by more than 10 times." The person in charge said. By 2010, the proportion of non-resource-based industries in the autonomous region will increase from 10% to about 30%, and the proportion of extended processing of major dominant industries will be more than 50%. By further extending the industrial chain and continuously improving the level of intensive processing, Inner Mongolia has kept the added value of resources in the local area to the maximum extent, effectively protecting the ecological environment while making intensive use of resources.

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