Yesterday the top environmental regulatory body called for a crackdown on power plants built in violation of rules.

Authorities across the country were asked to thoroughly check power plants that are under construction or being planned to see if they have undergone environmental impact assessment.

Those launched without an assessment or approval from environment authorities will be stopped or required to make necessary changes.

Authorities will refuse to take applications from companies that do not clean up their act.

They will also supervise approved projects or those already under construction and urge them to implement environmental protection measures.

Due to the country's soaring demand for power, a large number of power plants were built last year with no regard to national polices, said Pan Yue, vice-minister of the State Environmental Protection Administration, yesterday.

That leads to more projects under construction than planned and goes beyond the capacity of the country's resources and environment, he said.

According to Pan, in the first 11 months of the year, the administration received environmental impact assessments on 200 power plants with a capacity of 175.6 million kilowatts.

Among them, 94 were approved. They have a capacity of 80.8 million kilowatts. The rest were either rejected or are being dealt with.

The peak time was September, October and November, when 50, 43 and 46 projects were submitted to the administration.

The phenomenon shows that development has overshot the desired path, Pan said.

The 200 projects are scattered all over the country with the exception of Beijing, Hainan Province and Tibet Autonomous Region.

Pan said if all of the 200 projects are put into operation, the consumption of coal in the country will grow by more than 400 million tons a year.

At the same time, those plants could discharge an additional 5 million tons of sulfur dioxide and 53.3 million tons of smoke and dust each year if no pollution control measures are taken.

That could make it hard for some areas to reach their sulfur dioxide control targets and cause serious pollution, Pan said.

He said to assess the environment impact of power plants, full consideration should be given to the status and capacity of the environment where the plants are to be built.

In regions where there are more plants than the environment can sustain, strict reduction measures should be taken to ensure that the discharge of pollutants does not increase.

In northern regions short of water, the building of power plants must undergo strict feasibility studies. For projects in such regions, the use of underground water is banned.

Pan said the administration will also take similar action to check sectors such as steel, cement and electrolyte aluminum.

(China Daily December 10, 2004)