China's Alarming Air Pollution: 'Airpocalypse' Smog

[zoobyshoe]

The video is pretty alarming:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/china-air-pollution-smog-red-alert-airpocalypse/

This reminds me of the descriptions of London "pea soup" smog from back in the day, except in China it affects a vastly larger area.

 

[dkotschessaa]

The video is pretty alarming:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/china-air-pollution-smog-red-alert-airpocalypse/

This reminds me of the descriptions of London "pea soup" smog from back in the day, except in China it affects a vastly larger area.

That is really alarming, mostly because it doesn't appear that anything will be done about it, and it will probably only get worse.

 

[gleem]

China is the largest consumer of coal.

 

[zoobyshoe]

High irony:

China launched a satellite to monitor its greenhouse gas emissions early on Thursday, the latest step in efforts to cut its carbon footprint, the official Xinhua news agency said.

The launch follows the United States joining China in formally ratifying the Paris agreement to curb climate-warming emissions. It also comes as large sections of northern China have been shrouded in near-record levels of air pollution for most of the past week, disrupting flights, closing factories and schools, and forcing authorities to issue red alerts...

morehttp://www.reuters.com/article/us-climatechange-summit-china-satellite-idUSKBN14B00U

 

[mheslep]

That is really alarming, mostly because it doesn't appear that anything will be done about it, and it will probably only get worse.

Yes the air is bad now, really bad. IIRC, they've had air days with particulate levels only seen in a forest fire here.

But what is the evidence to support an assumption of worse future air pollution in China? Chinese coal consumption has finally started to decline, after gobbling half of the global coal total. China spent $103 billion on renewable energy in 2015 (new wind, solar, and mostly hydro). China has 20 nuclear reactors under construction, a new one coming online every three months (average) and 41 reactors planned. Chinese working age (16-59) population is declining, now decreasing at ~5 million per year. China has 200 million electric bicycles in use.

 

[zoobyshoe]

The Chinese could have been doing a lot about their smog problem all along. The current situation is self-inflicted.

While particulate emissions have been gradually reduced in the U.S. and other developed economies, they have continued to grow in China.

The concentration of particulates suspended in the air in China’s northern cities in the 1980s and early 1990s was already five times higher than it had been in the U.S. prior to the enactment of the Clean Air Act in 1970.

The technology to cut particulate emissions has been available for decades and is not complicated or expensive. Emissions control technologies include electrostatic precipitators, flue-gas desulfurization units (FGDs), activated carbon injection, dry sorbent injection, and fabric filters, also known as baghouses. These technologies can be used individually or preferably in combination to eliminate more than 99 percent of the emissions of particulates, mercury and other heavy metals, as well as acid-rain-causing sulfur and nitrogen oxides (SOx and NOx).

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion...ry/china-can-learn-u-s-cut-smog/#.WGDAtighxSU