Style | Chen Silin: Help build a green "Central Plains Alkali Capital" with military feelings

In autumn, in the Anpeng Chemical Professional Park in Tongbai County, Henan Province, wide roads are vertically and horizontally, trees on both sides of the road are lined with trees, and there are many tower cranes at key project sites such as plant protection science and technology parks, sewage treatment plants, and cogeneration projects... The development speed of "natural alkali capital" is amazing.

Chen Silin (third from left) accompanied the leaders of Tongbai County to inspect the Tongbai Chemical Industry Cluster

What many people don't expect is that just a few years ago, the industrial park was a different scene, relying on the natural alkali deposits with the largest reserves in Asia, and the alkali and nitrogen chemical industry has always been the pillar industry of the county, but it is also the most polluted area in the county. And to become today's green park, with the strong support of the local government, but also inseparable from a person's eight years of dedication and perseverance. He changed the Anpeng Chemical Professional Park and re-planned a new future of low carbon and technology.

He is Chen Silin, chairman of Henan Huaiyuan Thermal Energy Environmental Protection Technology Co., Ltd.

Plunge into the barracks and splurge your youthful blood

Chen Silin's life experience is quite rich. A native of Jiangsu, he graduated from high school in the midst of a self-defense counterattack against Vietnam. Chen Silin embraced his blood and signed up for the army despite his family's objections. "At that time, I didn't have much thought, I just felt that as a descendant of Yanhuang, I should serve the motherland when the country needs it and charge the front."

After enlisting, Chen Silin trained hard and studied hard, and successively won honors such as excellent soldier, excellent squad leader, and excellent officer. Because of his outstanding performance, he was transferred to the organ to do clerical work, and also joined the Communist Party of China with honor. He demanded himself to a higher standard, and through unremitting efforts, he was admitted to a military school, and after graduation, he was assigned to a tank unit to do financial work, and because of his excellent performance in the work, he was awarded a third-class meritorious service once.

At that time, the reform and opening up was in full swing, and the story of spring was being interpreted on the land of China, and when facing the change of employment, Chen Silin keenly felt that the private economy was the most dynamic force, and wanted to participate in this tide of the times, "I want to go to places and be entities." It became his dream for a new phase of his life.

But the idea was opposed by his family. The leaders of the army also advised him to "change jobs step by step, find a stable job, and if you want to start a business, there will be opportunities later." So, Chen Silin decided to "go step by step". In 2000, Chen Silin transferred to a municipal environmental protection bureau, mainly responsible for environmental supervision, ditch oil, hazardous waste, solid waste disposal, management, etc., during the environmental protection work to train to become a technical backbone of environmental protection. In his work, he came into contact with the specific content of the production and operation of front-line enterprises, and also understood the necessity of environmental protection work.

Planning a green future for Tongbai Chemical Park

The dream of serving the country through industry has always lingered in Chen Silin's heart, and he wants to take advantage of his youth and bravely put it into action. At the end of 2006, Chen Silin resigned and started his own business. At the time, he had neither experience nor goals. In the past, his subordinates in the army worked hard in the construction engineering industry for many years and invited Chen Silin to cooperate. At this time, the construction market was booming, and taking advantage of this shareholder wind, Chen Silin quickly earned his first pot of gold, and later entered the real estate and chemical fields.

In October 2014, the Tongbai County Government invited Dr. Li Meitong of Tianjin University of Technology to lead the team to visit the Anpeng Chemical Park in Tongbai County and make scientific planning for the park. Because of the previous cooperation in environmental protection, Professor Li Meitong invited Chen Silin as one of the environmental protection experts. At that time, the chemical park in Tongbai County was a single alkali and nitrogen processing zone, with only two enterprises, Henan Zhongyuan Chemical Co., Ltd., which mainly produces alkali, and Henan Tongbai Star Chemical Co., Ltd., which mainly produces nitrogen.

During the inspection, Chen Silin found that the park's production was still in a simple and extensive primitive model, lacking basic environmental protection facilities, and had received a notice from the relevant government department that if it did not invest in infrastructure, it would be shut down.

After investigation and demonstration, the expert team came up with a solution for the Tongbai County Government. "The production of the park must meet the relevant requirements of the national environmental protection policy, and the entire park needs to be upgraded and transformed into a provincial chemical park, which needs to upgrade and transform the infrastructure in several aspects, one is the centralized treatment of sewage, the other is the centralized disposal of hazardous waste and solid waste, and the third is that the park must have a central heating source to replace the small and loose boilers used by the previous enterprises for their own heating." But all three required investment, and Tongbai County at that time was a state-level poor county, especially the total investment of 1.5 billion yuan in the central heating (one district and one heat source) project in the chemical park, which the county government was unable to solve.

Because Chen Silin has worked in the environmental protection department, is familiar with relevant standards, and has experience in starting a business, the local government asked him to help solve the central heating problem in the park. Chen Silin realized that providing safe, green and economical thermal energy for industrial parks is in line with the direction of the country to accelerate the construction of a new pattern of green, low-carbon and sustainable development, and is a major trend in the future and an industrial opportunity. He proposed that the chemical park could attract investment to prepare for the construction of cogeneration projects to solve the problem of central heating. But there is one requirement: to keep up with the country's long-term environmental protection development plan and achieve zero emissions. "At that time, as long as our thermal power plant did ultra-low emissions, it would meet the standards, but I still insisted on the overall planning of zero emissions for cogeneration project facilities, and all production waste gas, water and slag were all harmlessly treated in the production plant area, especially the emission standards of exhaust gas were better than the emission standards of natural gas boilers."

When it comes to why he is so "ahead", Chen Silin said that it is due to the understanding of the importance of environmental protection accumulated before. When working in the environmental inspection detachment, the illegal discharge of pollution by some enterprises was very serious. In the course of work, entrepreneurs are often organized to participate in training organized by the Ministry of Environmental Protection. Through the explanations of experts, they further understood the short, medium and long-term planning of environmental governance and realized the importance that the country attaches to environmental protection. Looking back now, he is also glad that he persevered at that time. "If the ultra-low emission planning had been carried out at that time, the environmental protection facilities that are only put into operation now would once again face the challenge of tearing down and upgrading again, which will take huge capital investment, time and energy."

Eight years of perseverance and insistence on doing the right thing

At that time, although there were already cogeneration projects and equipment in China, there was no ready-made experience for zero-emission treatment in the park. Chen Silin visited many factories and parks in China again and again, and began the arduous exploration of the zero emission project of the first cogeneration project in the first industrial park in China.

In April 2015, Henan Huaiyuan Thermal Energy Environmental Protection Technology Co., Ltd. was established and officially settled in the chemical park. Started the preliminary feasibility study, design, environmental impact assessment, energy assessment and so on of the cogeneration project.

In October 2016, the approval of various procedures for the cogeneration project was completed. In December of the same year, Anpeng Chemical Park in Tongbai County was approved by Henan Province as a provincial chemical park "Henan Tongbai Chemical Industry Cluster", with a planned area of 26.41 square kilometers. In April 2022, the first phase of the first phase was completed with a total investment of 680 million yuan and put into operation.

From a wasteland to today's green production park, Chen Silin not only invested all the funds of his previous entrepreneurship, but also took on foreign debt. The pressure in between this is not known to outsiders. More than 100 employees of the enterprise, he has always insisted on free food and accommodation, five insurances and one housing fund. "Behind an employee is a family." Chen Silin chose to bear the pressure himself. Since the equipment has not yet been officially put into production, in order to save money, he has been working in the factory shed built in the park.

Financial pressure is not the biggest difficulty, what is more difficult is to change people's ideas. Although since December 2021, ten ministries and commissions of the state have stipulated that the use of central heating must be used for the cancellation of small and loose boilers in the park, because the park enterprises have been using self-built boilers for heating, the self-induced cost is very low, and they do not buy into the newly launched clean heat energy projects. There were even people from enterprises in the park who said to Chen Silin, even if the government asked you to build it, we don't need your steam, or burn my boiler. In the face of resistance and criticism, Chen Silin has been silently insisting. He believes that under the concept of high-quality development of the country, green industrial parks must be the future direction.

As a native of Jiangsu, Chen Silin loves his hometown Yunlong Lake the most. This beautiful and ecologically diverse lake was once in danger of being polluted. More than a decade ago, Yunlong Lake was surrounded by large and small hotels and restaurants, and leftovers and sewage were discharged into the lake. The lake is muddy, and you can smell the faint smell when walking around the lake. With the advice of environmental inspectors and the support of local government leaders, more than 2,000 hotels near the lake were closed. "At that time, the government also faced great resistance, but it was the persistence and determination at that time that led to the beautiful Yunlong Lake, which is now as famous as Hangzhou's West Lake."

Tongbai County is also a beautiful ecological place, which is the county seat of the national garden, rich in vegetation, and is known as the "Central Plains Oxygen Bar". This is also an old revolutionary area, and when he is in a depressed mood, Chen Silin often goes to the heroes' monument in Tongbai County to draw strength from the heroes' arduous struggle.

On October 16, 2022, the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China opened successfully in Beijing. After listening to General Secretary Xi Jinping's report at the opening meeting, Chen Silin was deeply excited and looking forward to it. The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China clearly proposed to accelerate the construction of a waste recycling system, and also pointed out that it is necessary to fully implement the pollution discharge permit system and improve the modern environmental governance system. It also gave me a shot in the arm. Chen Silin said, "Although the process is very difficult, walking on the right path is the motivation for me to persevere." As a former soldier and environmental protection person, I must always maintain full energy, combat effectiveness, remember my responsibilities, and in the future, I will stick to my original intention and contribute my part to the transformation of the old revolutionary area Tongbai into green protoalkali. ”

Author: Chen Xi, reporter of "Children of China"

Editor: South China

[ This article was published in China Sons and Daughters Magazine, Issue 12, 2022 ]