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Pollution from China alters weather in U.S. West – CBS News

Dec 14th, 2011
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http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57341838/pollution-from-china-alters-w
eather-in-u.s-west/

CBS News  A U.N. conference on climate change ended Sunday without a major
deal to cut toxic emissions. No country emits more carbon dioxide than China
— a byproduct of its booming economy. And, as CBS News correspondent John
Blackstone reports, those Chinese emissions are having a big impact in the
U.S.

Chinese officials insist the murky air over Beijing this month is just fog.
But measurements taken at the U.S. embassy there show dangerously high
levels of air pollution — so bad that traffic has been disrupted and
flights have been delayed or cancelled.

“It’s no longer just their problem; it’s our problem,” said Kim Prather of
the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Prather studies atmospheric chemistry. CBS News met her at a scientific
conference in San Francisco, where she was presenting research that shows
what’s in the air over China can affect the weather in America.

“The atmosphere has no walls,” she said. “So pollution on this side of the
world can make it the other side of the world in about five days.”

The Chinese pollution is carried by the jet stream across the Pacific. In
the atmosphere over this country, it can stop the clouds from producing rain
and snow.

In general, Prather said, the equation is more pollution equals less
precipitation.

The particles of air pollution from China collect moisture in the clouds.
But the particles are so small and numerous they don’t get heavy enough to
fall as rain or snow. So the water stays in the clouds.

But while flying over California collecting atmospheric samples, Prather
found something else from China that may make up for much of that lost rain.
It’s dust — from huge storms in China’s vast deserts.

Because of their chemical makeup and larger size, those dust particles do
collect enough moisture to make rain and snow.

“We found that wherever there was dust, there was ice,” Prather said. “And
then below us was snow.”

Understanding the factors that influence California’s rain and snow is
important because what falls in the mountains is the main water source for
most of the state’s 37 million people.

“We’re working with the weather guys to try and see this climate-weather
link with pollution,” Prather said. “It’s a complex problem.”

By unraveling those complexities, Prather’s research could improve the
accuracy of weather forecasting — explaining why some clouds just blow over
while others produce snow storms.

China’s toxic soup

Dec 14th, 2011
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http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/ML14Ad01.html

China’s toxic soup
By Kent Ewing

HONG KONG – When residents of this city – now a special administrative region of China – complain about rising levels of air pollution that sometimes shroud its world-famous skyline in a murky pall of gray, they can cheer themselves with the thought: At least I don’t live in Beijing – the national capital.

This month, so far, has been particularly reassuring. Though Hong Kong’s pollution index has been high enough to warrant health warnings for those who suffer from respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, its residents have seen nothing like the vile muck that can be found in skies to the north.

Chinese officials were finally able to breathe a relatively clean sigh of relief last week when a fortuitous cold front swept through Beijing, lifting the embarrassing blanket of toxic smog that had
been choking the country’s capital for four consecutive days.

Air pollution levels were bad enough to cause the cancellation of nearly 700 flights in and out of the city and to send its population of 20 million on an unprecedented buying spree that turned surgical masks into a new fashion industry.

At one point, the rooftop pollution monitor at the US Embassy in Beijing jumped from a reading of “very unhealthy” to “beyond index”. When a city enters the fearsome realm of “beyond”, its citizens become unnerved and angry.

So that cold front, bone-chilling though it may be, brought welcome relief to the people and to the government – both municipal and central – that does its best to hide the country’s dire pollution problem, which is especially acute in Beijing, in the hope that its burgeoning middle class will be happy enough with China’s tremendous economic gains to accept the environmental and health consequences that go along with such breakneck growth.

But this cold front, too, will pass – and then, as anyone who has spent extended time in Beijing knows, the city’s skies will once again fill with a soupy poison that is clearly a health threat to the people who live and work there. In the end, what is your newfound wealth worth when the city in which you earned it is killing you?

Why is it that, even according to official data, the rate of lung cancer in Beijing has risen by nearly 60% since 2000 as the number of smokers has decreased? Shanghai is worse, by the way – with a 73% jump in lung cancer during that time – and the story is similar in other major Chinese cities.

If Chinese urbanites look long and hard enough, however, somewhere in that noxious cloud above and around them they may see at least a metaphorical silver lining: Pollution is now so bad in the capital that its people – distrustful of bureaucratic pledges to clean it up, not to mention the preposterously low official pollution readings that simply do not tally with the atmospheric gunk they see with their own eyes – are taking matters into their own hands. And they are starting to make a difference.

When government readings – based on an outdated monitoring system that counts only suspended particles between 2.5 and 10 micrometers in diameter – cannot be trusted, Beijingers turn to the US Embassy, whose up-to-date equipment counts particles smaller than 2.5 micrometers (PM2.5). These baneful jots and specks, experts agree, comprise most of the city’s air pollution and are far more likely to cause damage to the lungs that can lead to cancer and serious respiratory and cardiovascular diseases.

Beyond the gross inaccuracies of Beijing’s monitoring system, city officials also choose to present a misleading average of pollution over the past 24 hours, whereas the more precise US Embassy readings are current and broadcast hourly via Twitter. These tweets have been a source of tension between embassy officials and Beijing bureaucrats, but many of the city’snetizens have come to rely on them as they plan their schedules for days, and even weeks, when the air they breathe may be harmful to their health.

While Twitter is blocked in mainland China, wily Beijingers use virtual private networks to circumvent the censors, and there is also a mobile phone app that accesses the embassy feed. And, once the bad news leaks out, it is quickly posted on SinaWeibo, the Chinese version of Twitter, for anyone with a computer or a smartphone to see and share.

Thus, on December 4, many residents were able to compare the embassy reading of 522 on the US Environmental Protection Agency’s 500-point scale (and so “beyond index”) with the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Environmental Protection’s assessment of air pollution as “light” that day. The bureau also described the city’s yellow haze, which reduced visibility to less than 500 meters, as innocuous fog, not deadly smog.

Such discrepancies hardly inspire confidence in local officials – who, by the way, do possess and employ state-of-the-art PM2.5 monitoring equipment. Beijing has 27 monitoring stations capable of measuring PM2.5 levels, but officials choose to keep their readings to themselves.

Perhaps they learned a lesson from the eastern city of Nanjing, which was quickly castigated last month by central authorities after publishing PM2.5 readings online.

To be fair, it should be noted that the central government’s Ministry of Environmental Protection has announced plans to set new pollution standards based on PM2.5 readings, but not until 2016, and some cities – for example, Shanghai, China’s financial capital – have pledged to adopt the new standards sooner than that.

Let’s also remember that the US only started measuring PM2.5 a decade ago and did not begin enforcing limits on small-particle emissions until 2006.

China’s 30-year economic boom has left many of its cities with pollution levels similar to those witnessed in Los Angeles and London 40 to 50 years ago. Beijing may not even be the worst case – but, because of its special status as the nation’s capital and cultural center, it is the most prominent and embarrassing.

Even the rich, powerful and well connected are fed up. One of the city’s biggest property developers, Pan Shiyi, used hisWeibo microblog, which has seven million followers, to launch a poll last month on whether Beijing should adopt stricter pollution standards. The results were predictable: 91% of the 42,118 followers who voted for wanting to see better standards put in place this year.

Since city officials have no plans to do this, however, some residents are literally taking matters into their own hands. Thanks to a local environmental group called Green Beagle – founded by journalist FengYongfeng – ordinary Beijingers are recording PM2.5 pollution levels using the group’s hand-held, locally made monitoring device.

Green Beagle volunteers measure pollution on the street, in offices, in supermarkets and in their own homes – and then post their readings on Green Beagle’s website.

At this point, Green Beagle possesses only one monitoring device, which it lends out for up to a week at a time to a growing contingent of volunteers. Despite the group’s meager resources, its postings, also woefully at odds with official readings, are adding to the pressure on authorities to act.

That was clear last week when state-run media – which generally used to live in the same state of denial as municipal officials in Beijing – joined the campaign for cleaner air.

Last Thursday, China Daily ran a story in which a Beijing-based expert on the environment made an unambiguous call for a tougher air-quality regime.

“Including PM2.5 readings is essential in figuring out the country’s haze problems,” said Ma Jun, director of the Public and Environmental Affairs Institute, “and it reflects the growing influence of public opinion regarding air quality.”

And this from an editorial in the usually see-no-evil Global Times: “Our pollution has become severe. It is time for us to shift our focus from development to protection.”

So far, however, local officials in Beijing are making no promises, even though – as the city was setting the stage to host the 2008 Summer Olympic Games – they took action that proved convincingly that pollution levels could be dramatically reduced. Blue skies prevailed while the games were on; once they ended, it was back to business as usual.

Embarrassingly, this has left the US Embassy as the pollution authority in China’s capital city.

Kent Ewing is a Hong Kong-based teacher and writer. He can be reached atkewing56@gmail.com Follow him on Twitter: @KentEwing1

(Copyright 2011 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

Death-by-Air in Beijing Shows China’s Heart Risk From Worsening Pollution

Dec 12th, 2011
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-15/death-by-air-in-beijing-shows-china-s-heart-risk-from-worsening-pollution.html

Death-by-Air in Beijing Exposes Pollution’s Untold Heart

Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images

Cars travel on the second ring road as pollution reaches what the US Embassy monitoring station says are ‘Hazardous’ levels in Beijing on December 5, 2011.

Cars travel on the second ring road as pollution reaches what the US Embassy monitoring station says are ‘Hazardous’ levels in Beijing on December 5, 2011. Photographer: Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images

Citizens Offer Clarity on Beijing's Air Quality

Dec. 12 (Bloomberg) — Bloomberg’s Paul Allen reports on Beijing’s air pollution levels. Poor air quality in Beijing, and the way it’s reported by government authorities, is prompting some of the city’s residents to take measurements into their own hands and post the results online. (Source: Bloomberg)

As smog grounded hundreds of flights from Beijing last week, emergency doctors at Peking UniversityPeople’s Hospital faced a rush of patients.

Lungs weren’t the problem, says Ding Rongjing, the hospital’s deputy head of cardiology. Five people were admitted for heart attacks from Dec. 4 to 6, compared with one or two a week typically. One 60-year-old male patient died.

The illnesses are an unwanted consequence of the economic growth that helped spur a 32 percent jump in China’s car sales last year. Outdoor air pollution kills 1.3 million people globally each year, the World Health Organization estimates. A growing body of evidence shows dirty air not only triggers asthma and other respiratory conditions, over time it may the damage heart and blood vessels, and even cause birth defects.

“Whenever we have days with bad pollution, we get significantly more patients with symptoms like high blood pressure, feeling of suffocation, and chest pains,” Ding said in an interview at the hospital, where she’s worked since 1996. On days of extreme pollution, heart and stroke cases at the 1,450-bed center can increase as much as 40 percent to 280 patients, she said.

Before hosting the 2008 Olympics, Beijing imposed driving limits, suspended work at construction sites and moved factories out of the city to clean up the capital’s air. Economic growth, averaging 10 percent a year, and a population of 19.6 millionpeople expanding at a 3.8 percent clip is making air-quality improvements harder to sustain.

Starve the Heart

Microscopic air particles 30 times smaller than the width of a human hair penetrate deep in the lungs, where they can pass into the bloodstream, said Jon Ayres, professor of environmental and respiratory medicine at the University of Birmingham, in a telephone interview. The contaminants increase the risk of artery-blocking clots that can starve the heart, brain and other organs of oxygen, according to Ayres.

“In somebody with coronary artery disease where the arteries are narrower anyway, having blood that is more likely to clot is a bad thing,” said Ayres, who chairs a U.K. panel on the medical effects of air pollutants.

The danger is increased when the inhaled substances cause the coronary arteries to become inflamed, he said. Cardiovascular disease is the biggest killer in China, accounting for 38 percent of deaths, the WHO says.

Traffic Jams

Constant traffic jams and resultant idling engines emit lung-penetrating toxic material, said Pan Xiaochuan, a professor of environmental health at Peking University who studies the impact of air pollution.

The U.S. embassy in Beijing monitors pollutants smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, known as PM2.5, and releases the information via Twitter.

“What is needed is better traffic management,” Pan said.“People still drive even if the traffic is bad, and it’s hard to convince them to take public transport after they spent so much money to buy their own cars.”

There were 4.81 million vehicles on Beijing roads last year, triple the number in 2000, government data show. Car ownership in China is offsetting the benefits of the past decade’s efforts to limit industrial emissions, said Xu Dongqun, deputy director of the Institute for Environmental Health and Related Product Safety at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Murky Haze

“The level of fine particulate matter is still increasing because it comes not just from industrial emission and coal-burning, but also from the large amount of cars on the roads,”Xu said on Dec. 5 from a second-floor meeting room in central Beijing, where murky haze outside rendered the housing blocks across the street barely visible. “This is why we see the level of PM2.5 worsening in cities.”

Emissions data on PM2.5 are slated to be made publicly available throughout China’s cities, including Beijing, by 2016. The timeframe is too slow, according to a Dec. 8 editorial in the state-owned China Daily newspaper, which called on the government to be “brave enough” to measure the tiny contaminants.

The government currently uses an indicator known as PM10 that measures particulate as big as 10 micrometers in diameter for its public pollution data.

Air quality in all of the 32 Chinese cities that track pollution fall short of WHO guidelines. The air in Beijing is the fifth-worst in China, based on the PM10 measure. Annual levels average 121 micrograms per cubic meter of air, compared with a global average of 71 micrograms and the 20 micrograms recommended by the Geneva-based agency.

Deadly Air

Each 10-microgram increase above WHO guidelines for PM2.5 boosts emergency room visits for cardiovascular ailments by as much as 7 percent, a 2009 study by the Peking University School of Public Health found.

Breathing dirty air does have an impact on mortality, researchers found in a 12-year study in June involving 12,584 residents of the northeastern city of Shenyang. After adjusting for smoking and other known risk factors, the authors found levels of PM10 and the air pollutant nitrogen oxide “were significantly associated” with death from cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, they said.

Information on air quality in Beijing is provided by multiple sources, including the U.S. embassy, and daily measurements are often inconsistent. That makes it harder for residents to know how and when they should take extra precautions, says cardiologist Ding.

Smog Deterrent

The Chinese CDC would like to see coordinated warning data broadcast on the nightly news, the center’s Xu said. Publicizing the data may have implications for businesses if it means more people are worried about air quality and are reluctant to live in the city.

“That’s one of the major factors that has an impact on standard of living in Beijing,” said Lee Quane, the Hong Kong-based regional director for Asia at ECA International. Executives relocating from abroad will typically opt for Hong Kong over Beijing if they have choice, he said.

The human resources advisory firm recommends employers pay Beijing staff a higher hardship allowance than those in Chinese citiessuch as Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Quane said.

“Beijing has historically had the worst air pollution out of the 20 mainland Chinese cities that we look at,” he said.“Many of these senior executives are married and have children, who are much more affected by air pollution, so they need greater financial incentives to come.”

ECA recommends companies offer an extra 15-to-25 percent of base salary to top-level executives relocating to Beijing, compared with 10-20 percent for Shanghai.

“We definitely worry about young kids and elderly people with lung and heart diseases,” said Richard Saint Cyr, a doctor at theBeijing United Family Hospital. “Most people think it’s just lungs. But if you’re already on the edge with heart disease, and you’re out playing golf when the air pollution is really bad, it is a very high risk for having a heart attack.”

To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Daryl Loo in Beijing at dloo7@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jason Gale at j.gale@bloomberg.net

Shanghai airport to double capacity

Dec 8th, 2011
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South China Morning Post – Dec. 8, 2011

Shanghai Pudong International Airport received approval to build a fourth and fifth runway in an expansion that will see the number of aircraft movements double by 2020.

The addition of two runways will enable the airport to handle 650,000 landings and take-offs a year in 2020, compared with 332,100 aircraft movements last year.

Pudong airport received the green light for the expansion from the Development and Reform Commission on November 21, but the approval was only made public when the Civil Aviation Administration of China put an announcement on its website on Tuesday.

The 3,800-metre fourth runway and an auxiliary taxiway will be built to the east of the second runway. It will cost 2.58 billion yuan (HK$3.17 billion) and include additional air-traffic-control and meteorology facilities. The 3,400-metre fifth runway will be built to the east of the fourth and include a new traffic tower at a cost of 4.65 billion yuan.

Construction of the runways is expected to be completed by 2015. Shanghai is the second-busiest airport in the country after Beijing and is sought after by international airlines seeking to expand in China.

However, the shortage of landing slots at Pudong has kept airlines from increasing service to the country’s commercial capital. Hongqiao airport, which is supposed to be for domestic flights only, opened to international flights last year, partially because of congestion at Pudong.

China Eastern Airlines (SEHK: 0670) and Shanghai Airlines are the two base carriers in Shanghai.

In the first half, Pudong airport handled 167,510 aircraft movements, up by 6 per cent from a year earlier. Passenger numbers grew 4 per cent to 19.8 million while cargo volume dropped 2.9 per cent to 1.53 million tonnes. The airport saw its net profit increase 31 per cent year on year to 723 million yuan in the first half, on 923 million yuan in turnover.

charlotte.so@scmp.com

Smog sparks debate over Beijing air standards

Dec 4th, 2011
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http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j6KZ3p6-BUTawr10DSpMsQkNGqMA?docId=CNG.206dcf984f8f4bb862564c1ce34ec8a2.3f1

Smog sparks debate over Beijing air standards

By Pascale Trouillaud (AFP)–1 day ago

BEIJING — Officially, Beijing’s air quality is improving. But in recent weeks, patients with respiratory problems have flooded hospitals, highways have closed and hundreds of flights have been grounded by thick smog.

The choking air that regularly descended on the Chinese capital in October and November has given fresh impetus to a growing public debate over air quality in the city, whose 20 million residents are increasingly worried.

Their concerns are being fuelled in part by data gathered by the US embassy in Beijing, which produces its own pollution readings using a different gauge to Chinese authorities and broadcasts them online and on Twitter.

In late October, when a thick grey smog blanketed much of northern China, causing six highways to be closed and more than 200 flights to be cancelled or delayed in Beijing, the US embassy rated the capital’s air as “hazardous”.

But the official data, which measure only larger particles in the air, ranked the pollution levels much lower, calling them “slight” — leading some people to suspect the government was deliberately underplaying the issue.

“For a quarter of the year, we can’t see beyond 500 metres (yards) and the government shamelessly declares that air quality is good,” said one critic on Sina’s weibo, a hugely popular microblog. “Can’t they tell us the truth?”

Even the state-run Global Times newspaper waded in, asking the government to “avoid confusing information”.

The environment ministry has since acknowledged that the standards “do not completely conform to China’s air quality requirements, and must be amended as soon as possible.”

However, it says the change will only be fully implemented in 2016.

China currently rates air quality by measuring airborne particulates of 10 micrometres or less, adopting a standard known as PM10.

The change would involve releasing PM2.5 data, the system currently used by the US embassy that measures levels of particles 2.5 micrometres or smaller.

Scientists say Beijing’s pollution is mostly caused by these smaller particles, which are deemed more dangerous to health as they can pass through smaller airways and penetrate deeper into the lungs, and even into the blood.

According to the state-run China Daily, if the US standard was adopted nationwide, only 20 percent of Chinese cities would be rated as having satisfactory air quality, against the current 80 percent.

However, Yu Jianhua, head of the air pollution department at the capital’s environmental protection bureau, told AFP the city’s official data and the US measurements could not be compared.

“US embassy readings…. are taken from one single observation point every hour, while ours are collected from a network of 27 stations throughout the city, and calculate an average over 24 hours,” he said.

Interviewed on a morning of thick smog, Yu blamed “humidity and a lack of wind that have lowered air quality” during Beijing’s normally sunny autumn.

Authorities in Beijing had, he said, already taken steps to battle the main causes of pollution — cars, factories, construction sites, coal-fired plants and domestic heating.

In 2008, when huge clean-up efforts took place ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games, there were 274 days of “good air quality” according to official figures — a figure that increased to 285 in 2009 and 286 in 2010, he said.

“In the past few years, air quality in Beijing has continuously improved,” he added.

“We have reduced coal combustion in heating and factories, raised vehicle emissions standards and scrapped 150,000 old cars this year. We also spray water on construction sites to bring the particulates to the ground.”

But Zhou Rong, a climate expert at Greenpeace, said pollution in Beijing was “much more serious than in Shanghai or (the southern city of) Guangzhou.”

“Beijing is not as close to the sea as Shanghai and Guangzhou and doesn’t get so much rain, which is very helpful to clear the pollution,” she said.

“It is also surrounded by a bunch of provinces burning lots of coal.”

Added to this, the number of cars on Beijing’s roads is increasing by around 250,000 a year, on top of the five million already registered.

Gu Haitong, deputy head of the respiratory department at Beijing’s Tongren hospital, said he had seen a marked increase in patients in recent months.

“Normally, I see between 20 and 30 people with respiratory problems every half-day, but since October, I have seen 40 to 50,” he told AFP. “Asthma is on the rise in Beijing.”

The number of lung cancer cases has increased by 60 percent over 10 years and the disease has become the first cause of death in the Chinese capital.

While high smoking rates are the main cause, there are fears it is being exacerbated by pollution.

“Pollution is going to become a major health problem within 10 to 20 years,” Gu said.

Greenpeace’s Zhou said she hoped the PM2.5 standard would be implemented sooner than planned. “We think that 2016 is too late,” she said.

She acknowledged that the new standard would result in local governments being able to class fewer days as “good” from a pollution standpoint.

“It could (also) create panic… But we think the public has the right to know what exactly the air condition is,” she said.

Copyright © 2011 AFP. All rights reserved

In Beijing, residents try to purify the pollution

Nov 14th, 2011
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http://www.thenational.ae/news/worldwide/in-beijing-residents-try-to-purify-the-pollution

People shop for air purifiers in Beijing, where air quality has become a hot topic.

People shop for air purifiers in Beijing, where air quality has become a hot topic.

Daniel Bardsley / The National

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BEIJING // When residents of most world capitals gather, they compare flat-screen televisions, schools for their children or real estate. In Beijing, however, talk usually turns to filters and flow rates as expatriates and locals choose air purifiers to combat the pollution.

With hourly online air quality readings from the US embassy regularly rating the capital’s air as “hazardous”, pollution is a subject never far from people’s minds. In Beijing it really matters whether a Blueair or an IQAir purifier gives better results.

Dr Richard Saint Cyr, an American general practitioner who runs the My Health Beijing website, wrote that “Beijing’s internet forums are always filled with heated debates as to which air purifier is best”.

Half the most popular posts on the blog last year were linked to air pollution, among them articles comparing face masks and the most popular air purifier brands. Distribution companies dealing solely with supplying air purifiers to the capital’s residents have been set up.

Awareness among expatriates is “now very high”, says Chris Buckley, who has a doctorate in chemistry from Oxford University and runs a Beijing company selling purifiers.

He said the US embassy air quality figures, often much worse than official readings, have been key in making people more anxious. Air pollution in China kills up to 400,000 annually, a World Bank study found.

“The highest level of concern is among parents with children. Rightly so, since there are studies that show that lung development in young children is retarded by high levels of air pollution,” he said. Yet some experts believe individuals have little hope of mitigating the effects of pollution.

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“There’s not that much that people can do,” said Wong Tzewai, co-director of the City University of Hong Kong’s Centre for Occupational and Environmental Health Studies and a researcher on air pollution. “The [only] idea perhaps is to spend less time outdoors and more time indoors,” he said, adding that air purifiers can “help a bit” but “there’s no good scientific study to show they do make a difference”.

Some can however remove most of the smallest particulates, according to purifier manufacturers and some Beijing consumer studies.

Certainly many people would like to be able to afford them, judging from the outrage earlier this month when it was revealed that a Chinese manufacturer, the Broad Group, has supplied hundreds of air purifiers for buildings used by senior Chinese leaders in Beijing.

“They don’t have to eat gutter oil or drink poisoned milk powder and now they’re protected from filthy air,” one microblogger was reported to have said.

There have been calls for the Chinese authorities to publish data on the concentration in the air of PM2.5s, particles of 2.5 microns or less in diameter, which have the most serious long-term health effects. Yet government pollution readings only consider larger particulates, which the body more easily filters out. Officials have recently said they will allow the public to visit Beijing’s air-quality monitoring station.

Tens of thousands of people having recently voted for the release of more rigorous air-quality information, and the authorities have said they will publish PM2.5 data, although no date has been set. Yesterday, state media reported the Chinese Academy for Environmental Planning had set a target of reducing particulate pollution in several parts of the country, including Beijing, by 10 per cent by 2015.

Actually cleaning up the air, rather than merely telling people how polluted it is, is likely to pose larger challenges. “It all depends on the balance of economic progress versus environmental concerns,” said Mr Buckley. “The economy here has to deliver a lot of new jobs every year just to keep everyone employed, and social stability is regarded as paramount. With this in mind, it is unlikely that the problem will be solved overnight.”

In Hong Kong, which suffers heavy smog, there is “a complete lack of political will” over the problem, according to James Middleton, chairman of the Clear the Air pressure group. “The Hong Kong government always places the tycoons ahead of the state of the air,” he said.

A 2010 survey of Hong Kong residents found up to a quarter would consider leaving because of air pollution, sparking fears of a brain drain.

Yet even in Beijing, where the air quality is worse, many are unconcerned. Zhu Jianxing, a 43-year-old who runs a food stall next to Beijing’s second ring road, a six-lane motorway regularly clogged with traffic, said he did not worry as he was “in good health”.

“And I smoke, so why should I think about the pollution? The only thing is to stay at home. I could do that, but that means I don’t earn any money,” he said.

dbardsley@thenational.ae

but, we still need a third runway By the time it would be built the PRD will be an overpriced ghost town

Nov 9th, 2011
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20,000 factories on the brink of crisis

Bonnie Chen

Wednesday, November 09, 2011

More than 20,000 Hong Kong-owned factories in the Pearl River Delta may close or downsize because the Guangdong government is ready to raise the minimum wage once again in January, the Federation of Hong Kong industries warns.

Federation vice chairman Stanley Lau Chin-ho said provincial authorities are considering raising the minimum wage by 18-20 percent in January. The base wage was raised in March this year.

Overseas orders have fallen 5-30 percent and will decline further, Lau said, putting at risk 30 percent of 60,000 Hong Kong-owned factories in the delta.

The federation has now written to Guangdong authorities seeking delays in the implementation of the next increase in the base wage.

Chinese Manufacturers’ Association of Hong Kong vice president Johnny Yeung Chi-hung is holding out hope that wages will be adjusted upward in the second half of next year in stages, with a single-digit increase each time.

“Since 2009 the minimum wage increased at a double-digit rate yearly,” he said. “The latest rise was in March 2011. It was the worst time as many companies needed to settle outstanding payments.”

Lau said conditions are worse than during the 2008 financial tsunami, and he urged the SAR government to relaunch the special loan guarantee scheme introduced in 2008.

A government spokeswoman noted that while the scheme was wound up in 2010, the SME Financing Guarantee Scheme with 50-70 percent loan guarantees was launched in January this year.

To ride out the difficulties, Lau suggests that manufacturers move away from labor-intensive operations, enhance brand-building efforts and explore markets in emerging economies. He also points to selling more products in the domestic market.

In his policy address, Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen proposed a HK$1 billion fund to help business explore the mainland market. Implementation details are being drawn up with the intention of applying for funding approval from the Legislative Council in the first half of next year.

Light to be shed on air quality

Nov 3rd, 2011
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SCMP
Howard Winn – Laisee Column  3rd Nov 2011

The US embassy in Beijing has infuriated the Chinese authorities by giving out its own air quality measurements, which differ markedly from the official Chinese ones. Unfortunately for the government most people believe the US figures. While air pollution isn’t so bad here as in Beijing the problem in Hong Kong is that while the Environment Bureau puts out daily figures they can’t be trusted.

When the University of Science and Technology did its own measurement of the air quality with its mobile real-time air monitoring van, its readings showed much higher levels of pollution than the government monitoring stations.

We also understand that the Environment Bureau is using outdated equipment which is no longer accepted in the US and many parts of the EU. The readings this old equipment gives can be out by as much as 30-40 per cent.

So, since the Hong Kong government is so reluctant to tell us the true air quality figures despite having plenty of money to buy modern equipment, perhaps the US consulate could do us all a favour and monitor the air quality for us.

Brammo scores Hong Kong government deal

Nov 2nd, 2011
by Editor.
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http://gigaom.com/cleantech/brammo-scores-hong-kong-government-deal/

http://earth2tech.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/brammotestdrive.jpg?w=300&h=166

Electric motorcycle maker Brammo says it’s scored a deal to supply the Hong Kong government and police force with its electric motorcycles. Brammo says the Hong Kong government will replace its existing gas-powered motorcycle fleet with Brammo’s Enertia (see my test drive of the Enertia below).

Hong Kong’s Water Supplies Department will use the Enertia Plus, while the Hong Kong police department will use the 2012 Enertia Plus “LE,” or the Law Enforcement edition, which has features for police. Brammo’s exclusive dealer in Hong Kong is JCAM Advanced Mobility Company.

I’m not sure how many electric motorcycles the deal entails, but I’ve asked the company and will update this when I know more. It’s gotta be sizable, particularly for Brammo, which is a small company based in Ashland, Oregon.

Two-wheeled EVs in China

http://gigaom2.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/brammoenertiahongkong.jpg?w=223&h=300

The electric vehicle market is being driven by sales of electric scooters, motorcycles, and e-bikes sold in China, as the Chinese government has banned gas-powered motorcycles in some places. According to Lux Research, sales of batteries for electric bikes and scooters will grow from being a $6.4 billion market in 2010 to a $10.9 billion market in 2015 (11 percent growth), led by the Chinese market. According to some statistics the market for electric motorcycles in China is expected to grow 11 percent per year through 2014 to 31.6 million units.

All the electric motorcycle, and scooter startups are angling for deals like this one, including firms like Mission Motors, Vectrix, Zero Motorcycles, and KLD Energy. Focusing on the U.S. market alone isn’t enough for these companies.

Brammo’s plans

Just last week Brammo announced it has raised another $28 million, and no doubt securing that funding had something to do with this deal. The funding was led by Polaris Industries, which makes sporting vehicles like ATVs and snowmobiles. Brammo is also backed by Alpine Energy; NorthPort Investments; the venture arm of Best Buy, Best Buy Capital; and Canadian investment firm Chrysalix.

http://gigaom2.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/brammo_empulse_sms_01.jpg?w=300&h=199

The Enertia electric motorcycle has a 60–70 mph max speed,40-mile range and roughly $8,000 price tag. But Brammo has been planning on building higher-end bikes, including its Empulse, which has a new battery pack, a power management system and a water-cooled motor. The Empulse has a 100-mph top speed, an average range of 60 miles per charge and an estimated starting price of $9,995.

Brammo is also building four new, 6-speed models that are using a transmission system that enables higher speeds and the equivalent of the performance of a traditional gas-based motorcycle. The transmission tech — called the Integrated Electric Transmission (IET) — will come from partner SMRE Engineering, and the prices for these motorcycles clock in around $10,000 to $12,000.

Mainland to invest up to US$300m in biofuels

Oct 29th, 2011
by Editor.
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South China Morning Post – 29 Oct 2011

Airlines are expected to share the costs of building refinery, needed to scale up production, says Boeing

The mainland’s aviation industry is expected to inject as much as US$300 million over the next four years to expand its supply of biofuels, says a senior executive at American aircraft manufacturer Boeing.

Billy Glover, vice-president of environment and aviation policy, said the industry would need a full-scale refinery operation – costing US$200 million to US$300 million – by 2015 in order to meet the global target of replacing 1 per cent of individual countries’ annual jet fuel usage with biofuels.

He made the remark after Air China (SEHK: 0753, announcements, news) successfully completed its first test flight using a biofuel partially produced from jatropha seeds.

The two-hour flight around Beijing by an Air China 747 jumbo jet was a milestone in a partnership formed by the airline, Boeing andPetroChina(SEHK: 0857, announcements, news) earlier this year to research and develop a biofuels supply chain on the mainland.

“The mainland carriers have a really strong role not only in signalling their interests in buying the fuel, but also in demonstration use and other aspects that help producers and refiners to make the commercial go-ahead decision,” Glover said.

Fuel suppliers, airlines and the Chines government are expected to share the costs of the project. Glover said other mainland airlines, besides Air China, had expressed interest in becoming biofuels buyers or developing the supply chain.

The 10,000 tonnes of biofuels used in yesterday’s test flight – produced from jatropha seeds by PetroChina – currently cost twice as much as kerosene, the traditional aviation fuel, and are yet to be economical viable for commercial operations.

However, prices of biofuels are expected to decline with the development of a supply chain. Shen Diancheng, a PetroChina vice-president, told Xinhua yesterday that his company had planted 80,000 hectares of jatropha trees on wastelands in the mountains and hills in Yunnan, Sichuan and Jiangxi provinces.

That is enough to produce 60,000 tonnes (54.5 million litres) of biofuel by the end of 2014. The amount, however, is only about 2.4 per cent of the world’s target capacity of 2.27 billion litres. However, Shen said there were about 800 million mu (53.4 million hectares) of barren hills on the mainland suitable for growing jatropha seeds.

Algae – another promising feedstock that could yield 15 times more oil than other crops – had also emerged from the laboratory recently and test planting had begun in Pingdu, Qingdao, Glover said.

Air China is expected to launch another test flight across the Pacific Ocean to a North American city in the next few months.

Airlines around the world are scrambling to find cleaner and more sustainable fuels to replace fossil fuels in a bid to fight global warming, as well as stricter emission caps.

anita.lam@scmp.com

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