On June 14, Sichuan Minjiang Port Avionics Development Co., Ltd. and Sichuan Provincial Transportation Design Institute Co., Ltd. submitted a scientific research project on the construction of Minjiang Ecological Demonstration Waterway to the Provincial Port Investment Group, and passed the pre-acceptance.
Coincidentally, Yibin Port in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River is implementing the "oil to electricity" operation vehicle to promote the construction of a green and low-carbon port in depth.
In June 2021, Sichuan launched the "Five-Year Action for Green Water and Green Aviation Green Development" (hereinafter referred to as the "Green Aviation Action"), pressing the "acceleration button" for the green development of water transport in Sichuan. Now, the "Green Aviation Action" has been carried out for three years, and the "greenery" is surging.
Green ships
A multi-pronged approach to prevent sewage from entering the river
On June 10, a ship docked at Luzhou Port, and the first mate Qin Xiaoshuang and his colleagues skillfully delivered domestic sewage. They connect the pipeline, log in to the "Boat E-line" APP to register, press the button, and the sewage on the ship is "sent" along the pipe to the septic tank of the port.
Sichuan's first ship's pollutant receiving ship, Lubishui No. 1, was also not idle. For ships that are inconvenient to go ashore, Lubishui No. 1 "comes to the door" to collect garbage and sewage, and then sends it to the wharf for centralized disposal.
Such scenes have become the norm in Sichuan. Every day, 5 garbage receiving ships are busy in the waters of Yibin, Luzhou and Nanchong, receiving domestic garbage, domestic sewage and oily sewage generated by navigation, berthing and operating vessels, and transferring them to the shore through the wharf to ensure that the pollutants of ships in the jurisdiction are "zero discharge, all free of charge, and all received".
A large cargo ship loaded with coal docked at Nanchong Port.
In recent years, in order to ensure the clean water of the river, Sichuan has taken a multi-pronged approach to prevent sewage from going down the river.
In terms of reducing non-point source pollution, Sichuan has completely banned catering ships on the Yangtze River, Minjiang and Jinsha rivers, and more than 30 catering boats in the Jialing River, Qujiang, Fujiang and Tuojiang river basins are still in operation, and all their domestic sewage enters the urban pipe network or is packaged ashore. Sichuan prohibits the direct discharge of sewage from ships, all major ports have realized the diversion of rain and sewage, and all ore wharves and large storage yards have built windproof and dust-suppressing facilities or achieved closed storage.
For pollutants generated on board, Sichuan has established a long-term mechanism for receiving, transshipment and disposal. In 2021, the Department of Transport, the Provincial Development and Reform Commission, the Department of Ecology and Environment, and the Department of Housing and Urban-Rural Development jointly issued the "Opinions on Establishing and Improving a Long-term Mechanism for the Prevention and Control of Pollution from Ships and Ports in the Yangtze River Economic Belt" to guide all localities to actively implement the policy of free receipt of domestic waste from ships. Multiple departments have actively cooperated to promote the operation of the joint supervision and service information system for ship water pollutants (the mobile phone terminal is "ship E line"), and realized the whole process supervision of ship pollutants receiving, transferring and disposing of. "The collection and disposal of pollutants from ships and terminals is clear at a glance, eliminating the possibility of indiscriminate discharge. At the same time, multiple departments work together to solve problems such as disposal difficulties and transportation difficulties, so that enterprises have no worries. The relevant person in charge of the Sichuan Provincial Shipping and Maritime Management Center introduced.
According to the data, by the end of 2023, more than 80 port enterprises in Sichuan have implemented the use of the joint supervision and service information system for ship water pollutants, and the annual transfer and disposal rates of ship garbage, domestic sewage, and oily sewage in the province have reached 98.83%, 99.34%, and 98.12%, respectively, an increase of 12.61%, 8.56%, and 24.1% compared with the same period in 2021.
In recent years, Sichuan has also accelerated the promotion of low-carbon and economical shore power, and the coverage rate of shore power infrastructure at ports and terminals in key waters has reached 93%. At the same time, it is expected to achieve full coverage of standardized shore power by 2027, which is expected to reduce the energy consumption cost of ships calling at ports by two-thirds.
The promotion of new energy ships is progressing rapidly. Sichuan combined with the construction of "safe ferry" to promote the landing of new energy ships. Up to now, 11 cities and prefectures such as Chengdu, Zigong, Deyang, and Guangyuan have new energy ships put into operation, and the number of new energy ships in the province has grown from 1 in 2020 to more than 60.
Green port and shipping
Focus on innovation, focus on environmental protection and carbon reduction
The results of the scientific research project on the construction of the Minjiang Ecological Demonstration Waterway, which has just passed the pre-acceptance, will be applied to the first phase of the waterway improvement project of the Minjiang River (Longxikou hub to Yibin Hejiangmen). In the process of waterway improvement, the project construction unit promotes the ecological restoration of river water by adding ecological fish nest brick structures and other technological means.
Minjiang River large waterway.
"In view of the living characteristics of rare and endemic fish in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, in the process of channel improvement, we follow the principle of 'avoidance, mitigation and compensation' to reduce the impact of the project on the living environment of fish." Hao Ling, deputy general manager of the Provincial Transportation Design Institute, introduced that in the structure of the building, a variety of ecological structural types have been innovatively developed, such as the use of open-hole tooth construction to create a variety of water flow patterns; The cube structure with four sides of the hole is used to form a multi-channel hollow ecological fish nest.
The real scene of the Minjiang Longxikou avionics hub project.
Sichuan has made many attempts to build similar green ports and shipping. In terms of design, the pilot channel isolation wall on the lock adopts prefabricated technology, which can save about 37,000 cubic meters of concrete and about 12 million yuan of engineering investment compared with traditional construction methods. The Minjiang Qianwei avionics hub, which has been completed and put into use, has built an ecological fish passage and a fish breeding and release station, which effectively reduces the impact caused by the change of the natural channel of fish in the original river.
The construction of green ports and shipping not only focuses on ecological protection, but also focuses on energy conservation and carbon reduction.
Located at Bayi Wharf on the shore of Huacheng Reservoir in Bazhong City, photovoltaic panels are neatly laid on the roof of the shelter, glowing with silver-white light in the sun. This is a "zero-carbon ferry" that the local government is striving to build.
Bayi Wharf has 917 hours of effective sunshine hours per year, and through the installation of photovoltaic power generation facilities and energy storage equipment, it can achieve a monthly power output of 70,000 kWh, which can fully meet the daily electricity consumption of new energy ships, wharves and ferries, and no longer rely on external power supply. By the end of this year, Sichuan will build more than 15 "zero-carbon ferries".
After the launch of the "Green Aviation Action", in 2022, the provincial government issued the "Sichuan Provincial Carbon Peak Implementation Plan", requiring the implementation of green upgrading and transformation of transportation infrastructure.
"Click here to see the berths in the port area, the volume of incoming and outgoing goods, and enter the system to directly carry out daily operations such as tallying, loading and picking, turning containers, loading and unloading ships online." Standing in front of a large screen full of real-time data, the person in charge of Yibin Port Terminal Company introduced that this "twin" data system "moved" Yibin Port to the screen, and the staff could carry out relevant operations accurately and efficiently without going to the scene.
Yibin Port 5G Smart Port Visualization Platform.
This is the first 5G smart port project in Sichuan - the first phase of the 5G smart port project of Yibin Port. Three sets of intelligent systems have been built in the first bid section of the project, including the port container operation management system, the container intelligent gate system, and the port business big data visualization system, which significantly reduces labor costs and increases the port operation efficiency by 30%; The second bid section was completed in December last year and is expected to reduce carbon emissions by about 2.4 tons per year.
According to the goal, by the end of 2027, Yibin Port will build distributed power generation, centralized storage photovoltaic power stations and charging and battery swapping facilities and equipment to meet the main electricity consumption of the port, and the main operating vehicles will achieve clean and intelligent energy consumption.
Green transportation
Take out real money and constantly optimize the structure
At the beginning of the year, Sichuan Provincial Port Investment Group announced the start of the construction of the first batch of electric new energy cargo ships in Sichuan Province, with an initial plan to invest nearly 20 million yuan to build two 1,100-ton extended-range electric distribution multi-purpose cargo ships.
"This kind of cargo ship has fast speed, strong beaching capacity, low energy consumption, and is suitable for the Jialing River channel, with large load capacity and large container capacity." According to the relevant person in charge of the new channel logistics company affiliated to the Provincial Port Investment Group, after the completion of the ship, the "Guang'an-Chongqing" route will be mainly operated in the Jialing River basin to realize the green upgrade of the golden waterway.
The development of green shipping is an important part of the "Green Navigation Action". In 2023, the first provincial-level water transport support policy - "Sichuan Province to Support the Development of Inland Water Transport "Substitution with Awards" Implementation Plan" was promulgated, and the government used real money to support the adjustment of transportation structure such as medium and long-distance transportation of ship capacity and bulk materials, "road (rail) to water", and multimodal transport.
"A new ship with a capacity of 5,000 tons, with a subsidy of millions of yuan, can cover about 20% of the purchase cost." Many water transport business owners believe that the strong policy support sends a positive signal and makes the industry full of confidence in the future development.
The relevant person in charge of the Provincial Shipping and Maritime Management Affairs Center said that since 2021, the throughput of Sichuan ports has increased significantly year after year, with a growth rate of 40%-50%, while the average annual growth rate of waterway freight volume is only 3%. From the implementation of the policy in September last year to June this year, the province has added nearly 200,000 tons of effective capacity, an increase of 10% compared with the province's capacity in 2023." According to statistics, there are currently more than 349 deadweight cargo ships of more than 1,000 tons in the province, and the average tonnage of ships under construction on the Yangtze River trunk line is 6,300 tons.
At the same time as the capacity increases, more and more water cargo ships sail out of Sichuan, going farther and farther, forming close interaction with downstream ports.
The "Sichuan-Hubei-Shanghai" Yangtze River liner made its maiden voyage.
On January 17 this year, the "Sichuan-Hubei-Shanghai" Yangtze River Express liner was officially opened, and the whole transportation time was shortened by more than 5 days; The "Shanghai-Chongqing Direct Express" extends from Chongqing to Yibin Port, and "Yibin-made" cars are exported to Central Asia through Jianghai intermodal transport; The transportation of bulk goods such as coal from Guangyuan on the Jialing River to Chongqing has been normalized...... The shipping network in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River is being formed at an accelerated pace.
Not long ago, the "Sichuan Provincial Waterway Transport Quality Improvement and Multiplication Action Plan (2024-2028)" was issued, putting forward development goals: strive to achieve 100 million tons of waterway freight volume in Sichuan, 60 billion ton-kilometers of waterway cargo turnover, 100,000 TEUs of iron-water intermodal container throughput, 36 million tons of long-distance freight volume, and 2.8 million tons of cargo ship capacity by 2028. The status of water transport in the integrated transportation system has been significantly improved.
Photo courtesy of Sichuan Provincial Department of Transportation
Source: Chuanguan News