Changing life at the coal face to clean skies

Beijing continues its effort to clear the city's smoggy skies by replacing coal-fired boilers, Beijing News reports.

Beijing municipality says switching to gas-fired boilers will result in a reduction of burning 1400,000 tons of fire coal.

The total use of fire coal in 2013 is capped at 21,500,000 tons and the coal-fired boilers inside the Fourth Ring Road in the city will be substituted to reduce pollution, according to an official from Beijing Municipal Development and Reform Commission.

In Keliyuan thermal power plant, a 10-meter-high coal conveying gallery was demolished on Thursday during a transformation project, and 11 gas-fired boilers will displace 5 existing coal ones, the paper added.

The 10-meter-high coal conveying gallery is being demolished at Keliyuan thermal power plant on Thursday in Beijing. [Photo/Beijing News]

Meanwhile, coal-fired power plants will be closed in stages. The Keliyuan thermal power plant will be closed in 2013, the Gaojing thermal power plant and Guohua thermal power plant will be closed in 2014, and the Shijingshan thermal power plant in 2015.

In addition, citizens in Chaoyang, Haidian, Fengtai, and Shijingshan district are encouraged to use honeycomb briquette instead of fault coal and each briquette gets a financial subsidy of 0.1 yuan.