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January, 2008:

Delta Emissions Up 18pc In 2003 Despite Pact

Jan 9th, 2008
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SCMP -Helen Wu and Cheung Chi-fai
Jan 09, 2008

The Pearl River Delta has reported a rise in emissions of up to 18 per cent in 2003, a year after a cross-border agreement with Hong Kong to reduce major pollutants by 2010, according to a document released yesterday.

It was the first time Guangdong had released figures on its progress towards the 2010 targets – ranging from 20 to 55 per cent reductions for pollutants including sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, particulates and volatile organic compounds (VOC).

The mid-term review of the Pearl River Delta Air Quality Management Plan showed that regional emissions, excluding Hong Kong, rose by 1 per cent for particulates, 2 per cent for sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide and 18 per cent for VOCs in 2003. The base year for comparisons was 1997.

In a separate release of Hong Kong’s 2006 emission figures by the Environmental Protection Department, further progress was reported in meeting the 2010 targets, with a reduction ranging from 23 to 48 per cent for the three major pollutants in the 2006 levels compared with 1997. However, sulfur dioxide emissions rose by 12 per cent.The review was conducted by experts from the department and Guangdong’s Environmental Protection Bureau. The 2003 emission figures for the delta region were the latest available based on a mutually agreed methodology.

An environment department source yesterday said the review was essential as Guangdong had been through rapid economic growth, making assumptions adopted in the previous cross-border air study obsolete. “It is possible that the mainland will miss the targets if they do not adopt enhanced measures to cut emissions,” he said.

According to the review, both sides could still meet the 2010 targets – or surpass some of them.
But Man Chi-sum, chief executive of Green Power, said the lack of legislation to prevent the creation of VOCs on the mainland made the prospects of a significant reduction “dim”.

Hahn Chu Hon-keung, of Friends of the Earth, also said the pace of development would make meeting the targets difficult.

HK, Guangdong Vow To Hit Air-Quality Targets

Jan 9th, 2008
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Environment News

HK, Guangdong vow to hit air-quality targets

The emission-reduction and control measures Hong Kong and Guangdong have adopted could bring about a positive impact, cutting air-pollutant emissions in the region, and are conducive to achieving the agreed 2010 emission-cut targets by both sides, according to findings of the Pearl River Delta Regional Air Quality Management Plan’s mid-term review.

The mid-term review report was considered by the Hong Kong/Guangdong Co-operation Joint Conference’s 10th working meeting today. It concluded that upon implementation of the current and committed emission-reduction measures under the management plan, Hong Kong should be able to fully meet the mutually agreed targets by 2010.

The report said by 2010, Hong Kong’s economy will rise 72%, population 11%, electricity consumption 43% and vehicle mileage 8%, using 1997 as the base year.

Pollutants reduced

Implementing the existing preventive and control measures will significantly cut 2010 emissions of sulphur dioxide 54% to 30,000 tonnes, nitrogen oxides 25%, to 90,000 tonnes, respirable suspended particulates 58%, to 5,000 tonnes and volatile organic compounds 55%, to 30,000 tonnes, when compared to 1997 levels.

In respect of the Pearl River Delta Economic Zone, with its significant socio-economic developments which well exceeded the original estimates, the emission-cut targets could be achieved by 2010 upon implementation of additional enhanced control measures as recommended in the mid-term review report.

These include:

* nitrogen-oxides removal for newly built power plants;
* tightening emission standards of air-pollutant emissions for local boilers;
* enhancing cleaner production requirement for volatile organic compounds-containing products;
* setting limits on consumer products’ volatile organic compound contents; and
* tightening control on emissions from local vessels.

To read the report’s executive summary, click here.

Both sides reiterated their commitment to continuing control measures set out in the management plan. The Guangdong Provincial Government will implement additional emission-control measures in the Pearl River Detla Economic Zone, taking account of the review’s recommendations.

Both sides also reaffirmed their determination to achieve the mutually agreed emission-reduction targets by 2010.

Transport Sector In Idling Show Of Force

Jan 9th, 2008
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Timothy Chui – Wednesday, January 09, 2008 – The Standard

Transport sector representatives yesterday told lawmakers the proposed ban on idling engines is impractical for their trade.

Packing the Legislative Council chamber in response to a public consultation over idling engines, more than 40 representatives said only allowing the first two vehicles at taxi and public light bus stands to keep their engines running would be unworkable as some minibus stands service multiple routes.

They also pointed out that the no-idling rule would mean taxis starting their engines nearly 30 to 40 times a day. Kowloon Taxi Owners Association chairman Yum Tai-ping said this would reduce battery life to one to two months from eight to 10 months.

Many taxi organizations also resented being included in the ban after having complied with calls to switch over to liquefied petroleum gas.

Taxi Operators Association chairman Leung Shiu-cheong warned that forcing taxis to switch off engines when it rains would be dangerous. Leung said without air-conditioning the windscreen would be clouded, and reduced visibility could pose risks when the driver takes off again.

China, Hong Kong and Macau Boundary Crossing Bus Association secretary-general Chan Chun-yee said the windows of many coaches cannot be opened for circulation and that temperatures inside the cabins can reach 60 degrees Celsius in the summer without air-conditioning.

The transport representatives said a ban would hurt quality of service and undermine their trade because passengers and tourists would be reluctant to travel in a sweltering cabin.

Liberal Party lawmaker Howard Young sympathized with the representatives, but said: “We must all accept one point – if we want to improve air quality we have to accept a price … We shouldn’t just focus on cost. I understand if you have to start engines more often it would aggravate wear and tear, but we have to be prepared to pay a certain price and the level of comfort is the same.”

Exemptions were proposed for turbo-charged and air-brake trucks by Kowloon Truck Merchants Association chairman Leung Kun-kuen who said the two systems needed five minutes to idle before shutting down.

The Hong Kong Institute of Engineers joined calls for the ban to be adjusted for different engine types, but it added that the intentions of the bill could also be served by raising the excessively low temperatures inside franchised buses.

Annelise Connell, a spokeswoman for Mini Spotters, a group of activists pushing for fuel efficiency, gave six examples of police not enforcing existing laws and expressed the hope that any law aimed at reducing idling engines would have enough resources for enforcement.

Conservancy Association director Hung Wing- tat said most cases of idling engines by taxis, buses and coaches occurred in urban business areas with tall buildings and poor ventilation. This would compound roadside pollution, Hung said.

The environmental affairs panel decided to extend its hearing of public views to next Wednesday.

Marine Pollution Regulations

Jan 8th, 2008
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Danger at sea – Calls are growing to tighten regulation of the world’s shipping fleet, a major source of pollution

Michael Richardson
Jan 08, 2008

Often steaming in international waters far from land, the world’s fleet of ocean-going ships has largely evaded scrutiny as a source of harmful air pollution and global warming emissions. But this lack of regulation is about to change as the fleet, which carries 90 per cent of trade, expands rapidly and pressure increases to impose tighter fuel standards, and others, on the trillion-dollar industry.

Calls are also growing louder to include both the shipping and aviation industries in any new international deal to cut greenhouse emissions. Neither are covered by the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. The cleanup proposals are being closely watched by major ports like Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore because they will add substantially to business costs. They could give other maritime centres a competitive advantage unless the new controls are adopted and enforced by all trading nations.

A report last month by four US environmental groups found that only six countries emitted more carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, than the world’s fleet of 60,000 ships. It said that, each year, the fleet released between 600 million and 900 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, about the same as the 130 million cars on US roads.

However, shipping industry officials say it is difficult to measure carbon dioxide pollution from the global fleet and that some estimates are exaggerated. A figure frequently cited by the industry is a report to the British government by former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern. It concluded that carbon dioxide emissions from ships contributed just 2 per cent to the global total in 2000, compared with 15 per cent from the transport sector as a whole. Critics insist that the level is substantially higher and fails to take account of the rapid expansion of seaborne trade, which has surged 50 per cent in the past 15 years.

Ships are also a source of non-carbon-dioxide pollution. The International Council on Clean Transportation, made up of transport and air quality officials from a wide range of states, reported last year that seagoing ships produced more sulfur dioxide than all the world’s cars, trucks and buses combined. The council’s study showed that the sulfur content of marine bunker fuel is far greater than highway diesel fuel. Bunker fuel is significantly cheaper than road fuel.

Environmental groups say that ships account for between 8 per cent and 10 per cent of sulfur emissions from all types of fossil fuel and also contribute nearly 30 per cent of global releases of nitrogen oxides. These emissions harm human health, cause acid rain and deplete the ozone layer.

Critics say that another pollutant from ships – black carbon, or soot – can warm the atmosphere many times more than the same amount of carbon dioxide.

In November, reacting to public concern about pollution from ships, the European Commission called on the International Maritime Organisation, the United Nations agency responsible for regulating shipping and marine pollution, to do more to help combat climate change. The IMO set up a scientific group in July to study the issue. The group included experts from major shipping and trading nations, including China, Japan and Singapore, as well as non-governmental organisations. Their report is due to be presented at an IMO meeting in London next month.

Any proposals to tighten fuel standards, reduce funnel exhaust gases and use only shore-based electric power when in port would be included as amendments to global marine pollution laws under the IMO’s Marpol Convention. They could be adopted as early as October and come into force 16 months later.

Some ship owners and government officials have cautioned the industry to take a conservative approach to pollution cuts because of the potential costs involved. But Tony Mason, secretary general of the International Chamber of Shipping, warned that if governments and industry failed to come up with improved standards by the end of this year, “we shall see a serious disenchantment with the IMO process and a proliferation of local regulations, led in all probability by the EU and the US”.

National and regional regulation has already begun in America and Europe. For example, the US House of Representatives approved legislation in March to allow the coastguard and Environmental Protection Agency to enforce emission limits on thousands of domestic and foreign-flagged ships that enter US waters each year.

If the IMO fails to come up with credible and enforceable global standards, sea-based transport will be saddled with a patchwork quilt of regulation. This will slow shipping and maritime trade, and increase its cost.

Michael Richardson is visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore. This is a personal comment.

Pollution Reaches Dangerous Levels: EPD

Jan 8th, 2008
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Lina Lim – SCMP
1:00pm, Jan 08, 2008

Pollution levels in Hong Kong on Tuesday reached dangerous levels – according to the territory’s Environmental Protection Department (EPD).

Pollution at general stations in the city recorded unhealthy levels of nitrogen dioxide and respirable suspended particulates between the 61 (high) to 105 (very high) point range.

Meanwhile, roadside stations in Causeway Bay, Central and Mongkok recorded more alarming levels at 91, 111 and 100, respectively.

People with heart or respiratory ailments were advised to avoid going outdoors for prolonged periods of time.

Respirable suspended particles are suspended particulates smaller than 10 micrometres which have the ability to penetrate deeply into the lungs.

Depending on their source and existing meteorological conditions, the particles can be made up of a number of different constituents such as silicon, aluminium, calcium, manganese and iron from construction sites and carbon, lead, bromine and hydrocarbons from vehicular emissions.

Nitrogen dioxide, however, enters the air as a result of combustion processes which involve high temperatures, such as those produced by power plants and vehicular engines.

It is a corrosive light brown gas which can cause urban haze or photo-chemical smog.

Hong Kong has a serous problem with air pollution and the growing government is under pressure to deal with the problem – particularly because of the effect it is having on people’s health.

It has been estimated that over 2,000 people annually die in Hong Kong because of air pollution; while others suffer serious health effects.

A government study several years ago argued that 80 per cent of the city’s pollution came from factories and power plants in southern China.

But a report by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Civic Exchange, a think-tank, argued that in 2006 Hong Kong’s air pollution was largely the result of local factors. This included the city’s road traffic, coal-fired power stations and ships.

Report: Identifying Dominant Sources of Respirable Suspended Particulates in Guangzhou, China

Jan 1st, 2008
by AdminCTA.
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Yu Song, Wei Dai, Xuesong Wang,* Mingming Cui, Hang Su, Shaodong Xie, and Yuanhang Zhang, Department of Environmental Sciences, Peking University – January 1, 2008

Abstract

Respirable suspended particulates (RSP, i.e., particles with an aerodynamic diameter of 10 μm or less) were measured in 2004 and 2005 at seven sites in the rapidly developing Guangzhou area of China. The average RSP concentration was 126 μg m-3, a high level that could be very harmful to human health. The chemical species composition of the RSP, including organic and elemental carbon, water-soluble ions, and elemental compositions, was also analyzed. The organics and sulfate may be the major components of RSP mass concentrations. Positive matrix factorization (PMF) was used to identify the sources of RSP as secondary sulfates (32%), secondary nitrates (6%), biomass burning (15%), coal fly ash/cement (18%), sea salt (3%), crustal dust (5%), vehicle exhaust (6%), and coal-fired power plants (3%). Reducing coal combustion and controlling vehicle emissions would alleviate RSP pollution, as most of the precursors were components of coal burning emissions and vehicular exhaust.

Conclusions

Guangzhou, a rapidly developing megacity in China, suffers from a high level of RSP pollution. Our results show that organics and sulfate were dominant in RSP mass concentrations. Climatologic conditions, that is, high temperature, high RH, and strong solar radiation, determined by the geographic location of Guangzhou (low latitude and proximity to the sea), resulted in high rates of VOC transformation to secondary organics and SO2 transformation to secondary sulfate. However, ammonium nitrate was unstable at high temperatures. These results also demonstrated the spatial
variability of RSP levels. Urban and industrial areas often had higher levels of RSP pollution. Source apportionment identified three major sources contributing to RSP pollution: secondary products, coal fly ash/cement, and biomass burning.

To alleviate RSP pollution in Guangzhou, some control measures should be implemented. First, reducing or replacing coal-fired power stations with advanced coal gasification technologies and desulfurizing the smoke emitted by coal-fired manufacturing plants could be important pathways to control SO2 and coal fly ash emission. These methods could help abate the secondary sulfate and coal fly ash in RSP. Second, public transportation such as subways and buses should be improved to limit the further increase in the number of automobiles, given that more than 80% of vehicles in Guangzhou were private cars. The gaseous precursors of NOx and VOCs emitted mostly from motor vehicles could be transformed to SOC and secondary nitrate. Third, growing grass or paving bare surfaces may limit the amount of cement dust entering the air. Construction projects should be well managed. Finally, the contribution of biomass burning was high in Guangzhou, especially in suburban areas. Some measures should be implemented to control these cultivation activities in farmlands. It is important to note, however, that atmospheric pollution is a regional problem, and the government of Guangzhou will need to negotiate with other administrations to control RSP levels in the study area.

The factor analysis method is only one way to apportion the sources of RSP; other methods, such as the bottom-up approach, should be implemented to obtain the source inventory in the future. Accurate source profiles should also be measured to better represent the conditions in Guangzhou and may be better applied in the multivariate method. Although seven sampling locations were used in this study, the number of sites is insufficient for evaluation of RSP pollution across Guangzhou; dispersion models, for example, MODEL-3 and CAMx, that include physical and chemical
processes, could solve this problem.

For detailed of the report please contact us

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