近期，《華盛頓郵報》一篇關于洛陽中硅“環保欠賬”的報道使其陷入尷尬境地。
　　
        但在經濟視點報記者的采訪中,該公司相關負責人卻認為其報道與實際情況有很大差距。

　　3月22日，偃師市晴空萬里。

　　在洛陽中硅高科技有限公司（以下簡稱洛陽中硅）偃師生產廠區內，芳草茵茵，圍墻外粉紅的桃花、墨綠的麥苗在微風中輕輕搖曳。

　　然而就是這樣一片頗具春意、生機盎然的田園春色，正遭受著一場輿論批評的風暴。

　　近日，美國《華盛頓郵報》一篇關于洛陽中硅高科技有限公司“環保欠賬”的報道使其陷入尷尬境地。該報道稱，洛陽中硅隨意傾倒工業副產品，污染環境。

　　“他們存在偏見，報道與實際情況有很大的差距。”該公司董事會秘書望海龍對于外媒的報道，顯得既憤怒又很無奈。

　　在最近公布的“大部制改革”方案中，國家環保總局升格為環保部，政府對環保的重視達到了前所未有的程度。環保問題，正成為一個企業甚至一個產業興敗存亡的衡量標準，也難怪望海龍情緒如此激動。

　　“白沫”風波

　　洛陽中硅成立于2003年，是我國第一家擁有自主知識產權的多晶硅生產廠家。截至目前，洛陽中硅先后在偃師高龍鎮和洛龍高新區建成了兩個面積分別為200畝和860畝的生產廠區，去年年產量已達506噸，而當年全國的產量還不到1000噸，中硅的產量在全國占60%以上。

　　作為一家被寄予厚望的高新技術企業，洛陽中硅在2007年卻面臨尷尬。

　　據偃師市白牛村的村民介紹，在2007年，有段時間經常見到廠里的大卡車運送一桶桶的“白沫”，傾倒在村小學附近。

　　“我們并不知道‘白沫’是什么，但是倒在小學附近，而且有異味，很容易引起大家恐慌。”因此，村民就及時向相關部門反映了情況。沒多久，那些“白沫”又被挖走了。

　　有人認為，“白沫”就是四氯化硅。多晶硅廣泛應用于太陽能電池領域，洛陽中硅是新興的綠色能源企業，但是生產多晶硅的主要副產品四氯化硅卻是劇毒物質。

　　但望海龍卻告訴記者，傾倒四氯化硅之事純屬子虛烏有，所謂的“白沫子”并不是四氯化硅，而是水和二氧化硅的混合物，原本呈酸性，被中和后才拉出工廠運到指定垃圾場，且毒害小。去年9月的事件是垃圾車翻倒在路邊造成的意外事件，玉米也并非被毒死而是被車壓壞的，事件已得到及時處理，并賠償了相關受損農民。毒氣也是不存在的，僅在2005年年底，由于機器調試過程中閥門出現故障，發生了氣體泄露的事故，之后再也沒有出現過類似事件。

　　望海龍認為，洛陽中硅對環保問題是非常重視且非常謹慎的。

　　在多晶硅生產中，四氯化硅的處理是多晶硅生產工藝的核心技術之一。目前該技術主要掌握在西方發達國家手中，其對四氯化硅的處理主要有兩種途徑：交給硅產業鏈中的下游生產廠家即一些化工廠，進行可用產品的再生產；或者是將四氯化硅氫化，還原為無毒的三氯化硅再進行處理。洛陽中硅的主要處理方式是進行冷凝、分離，然后再回收進行氫化處理，將轉化物外銷給化工廠。

　　剛起步的產業

　　多晶硅產業作為太陽能產業的原料生產部分，目前在很多國家都被看作是戰略技術產業。多晶硅產業在世界范圍內已有近50年的發展歷史，目前世界上多晶硅生產的先進技術，主要掌握在美國、日本和德國3個國家手中，并被這些國家長期壟斷。而中國的多晶硅生產工業發展還不到30年，且很多工廠僅為作坊式的小產量生產而非產業化生產。

　　目前，我國大部分多晶硅生產企業還在使用污染嚴重、產量低下的傳統西門子工藝，而洛陽中硅使用的是擁有國家專利的改良西門子工藝，該工藝在當前國際的多晶硅生產中使用率為80%以上，屬主流工藝。

　　洛陽中硅是我國第一家擁有自主知識產權的多晶硅生產廠家，并在國內率先打破西方國家的技術封鎖，實現多晶硅產業化生產，填補了國內大規模生產多晶硅的技術空白。

　　多晶硅作為太陽能產業的主要原料，主要用于太陽能光伏發電產業和IC電子信息產業。近幾年，隨著我國太陽能產業的快速發展，國內對多晶硅的需求不斷上漲，每年大概需要6000噸的多晶硅，而國內的產量還不足1000噸，因此，我國95%的多晶硅都要依靠國外進口。

　　望海龍認為，中國需要有自己的產業化多晶硅生產企業。

　　洛陽中硅經過5年的發展，在全國達到了產量第一、技術第一的龍頭地位。在洛陽中硅快速發展的帶動下，洛陽形成了一條巨大的硅產業鏈，對河南和洛陽的經濟起到了巨大的帶動作用。預計到2010年，洛陽的硅產業鏈將超過120億的產值。

　　與巨大的經濟效益相比，中硅高科給中國多晶硅產業帶來的技術革新和突破是難以估量的。中硅高科技有限公司的研發中心，為中硅提供技術支持，主要包括對已建成的生產線進行技術完善和開發新的生產工藝。去年12月28日，該研發中心被省發改委定為河南省多晶硅技。


原文鏈接

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/08/AR2008030802595.html

Solar Energy Firms Leave Waste Behind in China# o
$ B

By Ariana Eunjung Cha
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, March 9, 2008; A01

GAOLONG, China -- The first time Li Gengxuan saw the dump trucks from the nearby factory pull into his village, he couldn't believe what happened. Stopping between the cornfields and the primary school playground, the workers dumped buckets of bubbling white liquid onto the ground. Then they turned around and drove right back through the gates of their compound without a word.

This ritual has been going on almost every day for nine months, Li and other villagers said.

In China, a country buckling with the breakneck pace of its industrial growth, such stories of environmental pollution are not uncommon. But the Luoyang Zhonggui High-Technology Co., here in the central plains of Henan Province near the Yellow River, stands out for one reason: It's a green energy company, producing polysilicon destined for solar energy panels sold around the world. But the byproduct of polysilicon production -- silicon tetrachloride -- is a highly toxic substance that poses environmental hazards.

"The land where you dump or bury it will be infertile. No grass or trees will grow in the place. . . . It is like dynamite -- it is poisonous, it is polluting. Human beings can never touch it," said Ren Bingyan, a professor at the School of Material Sciences at Hebei Industrial University.

The situation in Li's village points to the environmental trade-offs the world is making as it races to head off a dwindling supply of fossil fuels.

Forests are being cleared to grow biofuels like palm oil, but scientists argue that the disappearance of such huge swaths of forests is contributing to climate change. Hydropower dams are being constructed to replace coal-fired power plants, but they are submerging whole ecosystems under water.

Likewise in China, the push to get into the solar energy market is having unexpected consequences.

With the prices of oil and coal soaring, policymakers around the world are looking at massive solar farms to heat water and generate electricity. For the past four years, however, the world has been suffering from a shortage of polysilicon -- the key component of sunlight-capturing wafers -- driving up prices of solar energy technology and creating a barrier to its adoption.

With the price of polysilicon soaring from $20 per kilogram to $300 per kilogram in the past five years, Chinese companies are eager to fill the gap.

In China, polysilicon plants are the new dot-coms. Flush with venture capital and with generous grants and low-interest loans from a central government touting its efforts to seek clean energy alternatives, more than 20 Chinese companies are starting polysilicon manufacturing plants. The combined capacity of these new factories is estimated at 80,000 to 100,000 tons -- more than double the 40,000 tons produced in the entire world today.

But Chinese companies' methods for dealing with waste haven't been perfected.

Because of the environmental hazard, polysilicon companies in the developed world recycle the compound, putting it back into the production process. But the high investment costs and time, not to mention the enormous energy consumption required for heating the substance to more than 1800 degrees Fahrenheit for the recycling, have discouraged many factories in China from doing the same. Like Luoyang Zhonggui, other solar plants in China have not installed technology to prevent pollutants from getting into the environment or have not brought those systems fully online, industry sources say.

"The recycling technology is of course being thought about, but currently it's still not mature," said Shi Jun, a former photovoltaic technology researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Shi, chief executive of Pro-EnerTech, a start-up polysilicon research firm in Shanghai, said that there's such a severe shortage of polysilicon that the government is willing to overlook this issue for now.

"If this happened in the United States, you'd probably be arrested," he said.

An independent, nationally accredited laboratory analyzed a sample of dirt from the dump site near the Luoyang Zhonggui plant at the request of The Washington Post. The tests show high concentrations of chlorine and hydrochloric acid, which can result from the breakdown of silicon tetrachloride and do not exist naturally in soil. "Crops cannot grow on this, and it is not suitable for people to live nearby," said Li Xiaoping, deputy director of the Shanghai Academy of Environmental Sciences.

Wang Hailong, secretary of the board of directors for Luoyang Zhonggui, said it is "impossible" to think that the company would dump large amounts of waste into a residential area. "Some of the villagers did not tell the truth," he said.

However, Wang said the company does release a "minimal amount of waste" in compliance with all environmental regulations. "We release it in a certain place in a certain way. Before it is released, it has gone through strict treatment procedures."

Yi Xusheng, the head of monitoring for the Henan Province Environmental Protection Agency, said the factory had passed a review before it opened, but that "it's possible that there are some pollutants in the production process" that inspectors were not aware of. Yi said the agency would investigate.

In 2005, when residents of Li's village, Shiniu, heard that a new solar energy company would be building a factory nearby, they celebrated.

The impoverished farming community of roughly 2,300, near the eastern end of the Silk Road, had been left behind during China's recent boom. In a country where the average wage in some areas has climbed to $200 a month, many of the village's residents make just $200 a year. They had high hopes their new neighbor would jump-start the local economy and help transform the area into an industrial hub.

The Luoyang Zhonggui factory grew out of an effort by a national research institute to improve on a 50-year-old polysilicon refining technology pioneered by Germany's Siemens. Concerned about intellectual property issues, Siemens has held off on selling its technology to the Chinese. So the Chinese have tried to create their own.

Last year, the Luoyang Zhonggui factory was estimated to have produced less than 300 tons of polysilicon, but it aims to increase that tenfold this year -- making it China's largest operating plant. It is a key supplier to Suntech Power Holdings, a solar panel company whose founder Shi Zhengrong recently topped the list of the richest people in China.

Made from the Earth's most abundant substance -- sand -- polysilicon is tricky to manufacture. It requires huge amounts of energy, and even a small misstep in the production can introduce impurities and ruin an entire batch. The other main challenge is dealing with the waste. For each ton of polysilicon produced, the process generates at least four tons of silicon tetrachloride liquid waste.

When exposed to humid air, silicon tetrachloride transforms into acids and poisonous hydrogen chloride gas, which can make people who breathe the air dizzy and can make their chests contract.

While it typically takes companies two years to get a polysilicon factory up and running properly, many Chinese companies are trying to do it in half that time or less, said Richard Winegarner, president of Sage Concepts, a California-based consulting firm.

As a result, Ren of Hebei Industrial University said, some Chinese plants are stockpiling the hazardous substances in the hopes that they can figure out a way to dispose of it later: "I know these factories began to store silicon tetrachloride in drums two years ago."

Pro-EnerTech's Shi says other companies -- including Luoyang Zhonggui -- are just dumping wherever they can.

"Theoretically, companies should collect it all, process it to get rid of the poisonous stuff, then release it or recycle. Zhonggui currently doesn't have the technology. Now they are just releasing it directly into the air," said Shi, who recently visited the factory.

Shi estimates that Chinese companies are saving millions of dollars by not installing pollution recovery.

He said that if environmental protection technology is used, the cost to produce one ton is approximately $84,500. But Chinese companies are making it at $21,000 to $56,000a ton.

In sharp contrast to the gleaming white buildings in Zhonggui's new gated complex in Gaolong, the situation in the villages surrounding it is bleak.

About nine months ago, residents of Li's village, which begins about 50 yards from the plant, noticed that their crops were wilting under a dusting of white powder. Sometimes, there was a hazy cloud up to three feet high near the dumping site; one person tending crops there fainted, several villagers said. Small rocks began to accumulate in kettles used for boiling faucet water.

Each night, villagers said, the factory's chimneys released a loud whoosh of acrid air that stung their eyes and made it hard to breath. "It's poison air. Sometimes it gets so bad you can't sit outside. You have to close all the doors and windows," said Qiao Shi Peng, 28, a truck driver who said he worries about his 1-year-old son's health.

The villagers said most obvious evidence of the pollution is the dumping, up to 10 times a day, of the liquid waste into what was formerly a grassy field. Eventually, the whole area turned white, like snow.

The worst part, said Li, 53, who lives with his son and granddaughter in the village, is that "they go outside the gates of their own compound to dump waste."

"We didn't know how bad it was until the August harvest, until things started dying," he said.

Early this year, one of the villagers put some of the contaminated soil in a plastic bag and went to the local environmental bureau. They never got back to him.

Zhang Zhenguo, 45, a farmer and small businessman, said he has a theory as to why: "They didn't test it because the government supports the plant."

Researchers Wu Meng and Crissie Ding contributed to this report.