China - Jincheng Coal-Bed Methane Project : environmental assessment (Vol. 1 of 2) : Main report

Sihe Coal-bed Gas Power Plant Environmental Impact Assessment Report for Jincheng Coal-bed Methane Project Jincheng Anthracite Mining Group April 2004 1  Sihe Coal-bed Gas Power Plant Table of Contents Executive Summary..............................................................................................................................................i 1. Introduction...................................................................................................................................................1 2. Environmental protection policy, law and administrative system.............................................3 2.1 The environmental protection administration and organization in China ....................3 2.2 Laws and polices on environmental protection of China......................................................3 2.3 International conventions that the PRC is party to................................................................4 2.4 Policies on environmental protection of the World Bank .....................................................4 2.5 Environmental standards in China, the World Bank and World Health Organization (WHO)................................................................................................................................4 3. General description of the Project.........................................................................................................11 3.1 Project name, size and primary composition..........................................................................11 3.2 Principle of coal-bed gas generation...........................................................................................11 3.3 Geographical position and justification....................................................................................12 3.4 Layout in the plant site....................................................................................................................15 3.5 Fuel and air pollution mitigation.................................................................................................15 3.6 Noise pollution and mitigation......................................................................................................17 3.7 Water supply and water treatment .............................................................................................17 3.8 Total pollutant emissions ................................................................................................................19 3.9 Transportation engineering outside the plant .........................................................................19 3.10 Construction schedule ...................................................................................................................20 4. Environmental baseline................................................................................................................................28 4.1 Basis of assessment............................................................................................................................28 4.2 Topography, geology and geomorphology................................................................................29 4.3 Water resource....................................................................................................................................30 4.4 Atmospheric Resources ...................................................................................................................31 4.5 Acoustical environment...................................................................................................................34 4.6 Ecological environment...................................................................................................................34 4.7 Health and safety...............................................................................................................................34 4.8 Social and economic environment...............................................................................................37 4.9 Human culture and natural landscape......................................................................................37 4.10 Land utilization................................................................................................................................37 5. Environmental ImpactAssessment..........................................................................................................48 5.1 Environmental impact identification and pollution factor screening .............................48 5.2 Operation Period...............................................................................................................................48 5.3 Impact outside plant area...............................................................................................................58 5.4 Ecology..................................................................................................................................................60 5.5 Social economy and living standards .........................................................................................61 5.6 Construction Period.........................................................................................................................64 6. Analysis of project alternatives .................................................................................................................74 6.1 No action...............................................................................................................................................74 6.2 Plant site alternatives.......................................................................................................................75 6.3 Units replacement..............................................................................................................................76 6.4 Fuel options .........................................................................................................................................77 6.5 NOX emission......................................................................................................................................78 6.6 Waste water discharge.....................................................................................................................79 7. Environmental management program...................................................................................................80 7.1 Environmental mitigation..............................................................................................................80 7.2 Environmental monitoring .............................................................................................................86 7.3 Responsibilities for mitigation and monitoring......................................................................88 7.4 Training plan.......................................................................................................................................89 8 Public participation and publicizing ........................................................................................................94 8.1 Public participation..........................................................................................................................94 8. 2 Publicizing...........................................................................................................................................94 2  Sihe Coal-bed Gas Power Plant Executive Summary The following summarizes the environmental assessment for Sihe Coal-bed Gas Power Plant and associated transmission system development. General description 1. The site of Sihe Coal-bed Gas Power Plant (Sihe Plant) lies in the west of Shanxi Province, China. The area possesses abundant coal resources but lacks in power supply relatively. Most power consumption relies on delivery of the middle and northern grids of Shanxi power grid. There is no planning of building a large power plant to supply power for local area. It is predicted that electric power shortage of Jincheng Municipality will exceed 1000MW by the year 2010. As a major industry in Jincheng Municipality, Jincheng Anthracite Mining Group needs construct comprehensive industries in order to satisfy itself development and power construction is included in the development program. When Jincheng Anthracite Mining Group builds Sihe Coal-bed Gas Power Plant, it is able to supply Jincheng power grid redundant power to alleviate tight supply of Jincheng power grid. Using gas engines for power generation, Sihe Plant can strengthen peak regulating capacity of the power grid, improve power supply structure and enhance operational safety and reliability of Jincheng power grid. 2. Sihe mining area bears abundant coal-bed gas and coal-bed gas content volume is up to 15.04~19.23 m3 per ton of coal. Coal-bed gas there can be exploited for 36 years. Sihe Plant using coal-bed gas for power generation belongs to a pit- mouth power plant. Compared with building a power plant in other pla ce, this project will relieve pressure on fuel transportation. Utilizing coal-bed gas to generate power has some advantages such as reducing threat to safe mining production and greenhouse gas emission (CH4). In addition, there is an existing coal-bed gas extraction station in Sihe mining area. Investment to building a gas extraction station can be conserved if a coal-bed gas power plant is constructed here. i  Sihe Coal-bed Gas Power Plant 3. Construction of Sihe Plant complies with environmentaland industrial policies. It has been approved by State Development and Plan Committee with the document [2001]2749. Land requisition and water resource acquisition of the Plant have both been approved by the departments with relevant documents. 4. Static investment of this project (i.e. capital investment) amounts to approximately 645.65 millions Yuan (RMB), of which self-possessed fund accounts for 25% i.e. 162.16 millions Yuan and principal of a loan accounts for 75% i.e. 486.48 millions Yuan. The Plant will apply for a loan of 97.3 million Yuan with annual loan interest rate of 5.76% from China Bank andapply for a loan of 47.06 millions dollars from Asian Development Bank (ADB), converted into 389.18 million Yuan if one dollar can be changed to 8.27 Yuan, with annual loan interest rate of 2.8% from the 2nd year. The grace period of ADB is 5 years, refundment deadline is 20 years, and the loan returning period is 25 years totally. Interest of construction period reaches 43.05 million Yuan. Dynamic investment amounts to 691.69 million Yuan. 5. The EIA report for Sihe Plant using gas turbine combined cycle device for power generation was completed in September 2002 by Meteorological Science Research Institute of China and approved on Jan. 30 2003 by State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) with the document Huan Shen [2003] No. 41. The EIA report after gas turbine combined cycle device was alternated is going to be approved further. The auxiliary 110kV power transmission project is in the charge of Jincheng Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau and its environmental impact registration form has been approved by this bureau. In the light of Operational Policy on environmental assessment (OP4.01) of the World Bank, the project of Sihe Plant (the Project) is classified as Catalogue B which needs to submit an EA report to the World Bank. 6. Following a review by the World Bank, it was also determined to supplement the environmental assessment studies with the assistance of a consultancy contract to aid with the production of an EA report including the associated transmission system to fully comply with the World Bank requirements. ii  Sihe Coal-bed Gas Power Plant Project description 7. Sihe Plant is located at the southern foot of Taihang Mountain in the southeast part of Shanxi Province. Topography around the Plant is composed of low mountains, hills and river valleys. The Plant site is closed to Hou (ma)-Yue (Shan) railway on the east. On the east of the railway is Qinhe River approximately 310m away the Plant. On the south of the Plant is the coal-bed gas extraction station which will supply the Plant coal-bed gas. On the west of the Plant is a 7m-wide road for transporting coal gangue. There is no village beside the Plant and the nearest village around is Qincui Village 400m away on the west. The relative drop in level within 1km area centering the Plant is 50m and ground elevation within 3km area centering the Plant is between 530-770m. 8. Construction scale of Sihe Plant is at 100MW level. Most coal-bed gas is supplied by the Gas Extraction Station on the south of the Plant with a 100m- long gas transporting pipeline. In the fact, the Plant and the Gas Extraction Station composes a small industrial zone. 9. Essential ingredient of coal-bed gas is CH4 analogous to natural gas, which is a kind of clean energy. Pollutant emitted from the power plant with coal-bed gas is principally NOX with no smoke dust or solid waste,SO2 can be ignored. 10. Sihe Plant will employ gas engines to generate electric power. In the feasibility study report, it is proposed to adopt Model G3516 units supplied by US Caterpillar Company. The capacity of a single unit is 975kw and installed capacity of 96 sets of units in the Plant adds up to 93.6MW. Every 6 gas engines are linked to a 4.4t/h exhaust heat boiler and every 4 such boilers are linked to a 3MW steam turbine. The installed capacity of the whole Plant reaches 105.6MW. Each chimney of 16 exhaust heat boilers is 40m high and it's inside diameter is 3m. NOX emission in total from chimneys is 212kg per hour and concentration is 180mg/Nm3 (15% O2 content, dry flue gas), which is in accordance with the World Bank requirement of 2000 mg/Nm3 (15% O2 content iii  Sihe Coal-bed Gas Power Plant and dry flue gas)----ambient levels of ozone less than 120