What is an orderly start of a reasonable hydropower project?

Premier Li Keqiang of the State Council presided over the first meeting of the new National Energy Commission on April 18 to study and discuss relevant strategic issues and major projects in energy development. Facing the large area of ​​smog pollution in the country, the meeting decided to increase the adjustment of China's energy structure, that is, through the control of energy sources to reduce the growth rate of energy demand, the development of clean energy and a series of measures to "declare warfare".

The new expression for hydropower in this conference is: "Initiate reasonable hydropower projects on the basis of ecological protection and resettlement." This formulation seems to be slightly different from the statement of “actively developing hydropower based on ecological protection and resettlement” in the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan”. This subtle change has caused some speculation. This is because the expression “Actively develop hydropower based on ecological protection and resettlement” in the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” is from the “Eleventh Five-Year Plan” in the The formulation of hydropower evolved.

The reason for this evolution is that many comrades believe that because of the severe demonization of China’s hydropower during the “Eleventh Five-Year Plan” period, not only some planned projects have been shelved, but also some projects that have already started have been stopped. . Finally, the approval of China's large-scale hydropower during the “Eleventh Five-Year Plan” period was basically frozen. As the most important clean energy at present, the obstruction of hydropower projects has made China's energy structure adjustment and energy conservation and emission reduction work hard, and has encountered unprecedented difficulties. This led to the 2011 after the “Eleventh Five-Year Plan” which saw a negative growth in the amount of electricity generated by hydropower. At the same time, the energy consumption levels in many areas of our country did not decrease. This shows that hydropower and other clean energy status are important. In the later period of the “Eleventh Five-Year Plan”, in order to reverse the demonization of hydropower, the state organized a series of hydropower science popularization propaganda, clarifying some misleading propaganda of demonizing hydropower, and a large number of hydropower projects were only restarted. At the same time, in the “12th Five-Year Plan” that was newly formulated at that time, the expression of “orderly development of hydropower under the premise of protecting the ecological environment” in the “Eleventh Five-Year Plan” was changed to “Effective ecological protection and On the basis of resettlement, we will actively develop hydropower."

At that time, many people understood that from "orderly development" to "active development" was a major adjustment of the country's efforts to increase the support for hydropower. However, the facts that follow are not optimistic. According to the requirement of 160 million kilowatts of new hydropower in the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” (including the pumped storage capacity of 40 million kilowatts), China’s new hydropower projects should start at 32 million kilowatts per year during the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” period. However, it has been more than three years since the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" has passed, and our newly started hydropower is still less than 40 million kilowatts. The proportion of completed plans is less than 25%, and the completion of the plan is not as good as the “Eleventh Five-Year Plan”. This shows that the adjustment of China's hydropower policy from "orderly development" to "positive development" has not actually accelerated the construction of hydropower.

Since then, after further careful analysis of the meaning of "orderly development" and "positive development," it has been found that "orderly development" and "positive development" only focus on describing different situations. One is microscopic behavior, and the other is macroscopical attitude. For microscopic and specific development, it must be ordered. As for macro development, the country’s attitude towards hydropower has always been actively supported. Obviously, positive development is also the country’s consistent attitude towards hydropower. However, people may have doubts that since the state’s attitude towards hydropower has been actively supported, why did the “11th Five-Year” and “Twelfth Five-Year” hydropower start-up plans failed to complete? The author believes that it is likely to be the planning The expression “preserving the ecology” can easily lead to misunderstandings.

There is a difference between ecology and the environment, and there is no problem in advocating the protection of the environment. However, replacing the slogan of protecting the environment with the protection of the ecology may lead to ambiguity. The ecological environment has strong Chinese characteristics, and this term is hardly found in the international ecological dictionary. Therefore, although many domestic scholars often use it, the term “ecological terminology” issued by the National Science and Technology Nomenclature Committee so far does not include this term.

Environment generally refers to the sum of everything around a biological organism. It includes space and various factors that can directly or indirectly affect the life and development of organisms, including physical and chemical environments and biological environments. When people use the term “environment”, they often refer to the human environment and people as the main body. Like macro-economy and environment, its main body is relative to human. The American philosopher Ralston once pointed out: "Every organism has to rebel against its environment, and culture strengthens this confrontation. People living in culture realize the rule over nature. We have changed the earth and made It becomes a city, but this process contains some kind of dialectical truth: the topic is nature, the antithesis is culture, the congruction is culture that lives in nature; both constitute a homeland, a residence ('ecology' The meaning of the Greek root oikos is the residence."

It can be seen from the macro point of view that for humans, ecology is to create an ecological environment that adapts to human survival through resistance to the natural environment, rather than simply insisting on the preservation of a certain kind of natural ecology. This is the macro-level ecology. However, the situation is very different for the ecology in the microscopic sense. For example, the ecological subject may be completely different from the ecological researcher of a specific animal or plant. Therefore, they can also be called the ecology of a certain field. It can be seen that in the concept of people, both ecology and ecology can be multi-level.

For the entire ecosystem including the entire human society, the difference between the expression of the ecological environment and the environment is not significant. However, when we study or consider a sub-ecosystem that does not include humans, the results of the conservation of local sub-ecosystems will likely have an adverse impact on the entire ecosystem including humans.

At present, this kind of global ecological damage brought about by the one-sided emphasis on the protection of certain types of ecology has attracted the attention of the international ecological community. In November 2013, the chairman of the British Ecological Society published his speech on "ecology must evolve" at the Centennial Celebration of the British Ecological Society in the "nature" magazine. He pointed out that ecological research must stand at the height of all humanity and must pay close attention to major ecological issues related to human survival and development such as climate change, disease transmission, and food security. He called on scholars to study the ecology of various animals and plants. It should not only emphasize protection, but also respect its evolutionary laws. In other words, ecologists must have a "people-oriented" awareness of the protection of the ecology, and must respect the series of natural ecological evolution brought about by the development of human civilization.