April, 2012:

Burning doubt

Apr 12th, 2012

SCMP

Clear the Air says:

Contrary to what is written below, the operating expenses of the incinerator at Shek Kwu Chau are estimated by the Government to be HKD 346 million per year. (since when did the Tsang maladministration get any estimated calculations correct ?? much easier to rubber stamp it then go and ask for more from friendly lawmakers !)

However incineration is in fact, thermal matter conversion – it leaves approx 30% residues of the matter in bottom and fly ash. If the burn temperature drops with wet MSW or defective parts , dioxins and furans will issue. Then the ash needs to be dumped daily …. Into landfills. This means creating additional landfills to handle the ash …….ad infinitum ……….with associated costs. No doubt the proposed artificial mega island at South Cheung Chau is the intended recipient of the ash.

There is no doubt the Government will want to build a second incinerator. It has failed to mandate recycling laws and fails to collect recycled items from private estates and business locations leaving that to a public voluntary DIY measure.

99% of daily recyclable items are exported from Hong Kong to China. Meanwhile, the local recycling industry is almost bankrupt. The Environment Minister has a diabolically defective non performing prevaricating portfolio – whatever happened to ministerial accountability – for this he got a Gold Bauhinia ???? He should be fired.

Donald Tsang’s proposed DBC retirement home in Futian happens to be the same distance from Tsang Tsui as the distance from Tsang Tsui to Tsing Yi – hence NIDBY – ‘Not In Donald’s Back Yard’ decision to choose Shek Kwu Chau ? Think about it.

Meanwhile Imperial College UK has started a 2 year study on increased deaths and illnesses related to proximity to incinerators, funded by the UK Government Health Protection Bureau.

Of course using plasma gasification plants sited at the landfills , the landfills could be mined eventually back to their original state. The plasma emissions, syngas, can create bio- jet fuel or electricity generation. They are profit making. The emissions are ……..molten plasmarok- that can be used as road aggregate. There is no ash since the 8,000 degrees Centigrade process vitrifies it – no landfills ad infinitum required. Meanwhile the Government relies on public comments from a whitecoat professor of biology from HK Baptist University (the recipient of numerous previous Government study fundings) as a reborn waste incineration expert to push its case.

Hong Kong does not need the Tsang legacy polluting its future, it needs a wholesale cleanout and change.

Basementgate. Tycoongate. Pollutiongate?

Burning doubt

Tom Yam questions the Environmental Protection Department’s decision to build a waste incinerator at Shek Kwu Chau without adequately counting or presenting its high financial and ecological costs

Apr 13, 2012

If the Environmental Protection Department has its way, Hong Kong will be saddled with the world’s largest waste incineration plant on a site that is the most expensive to develop (HK$14.96 billion at current prices), takes the longest time to construct, has the highest construction risk, and inflicts the most ecological damage.

The plant is to be located in Shek Kwu Chau, an area of natural beauty south of Cheung Chau and Lantau.

The department ignored findings by its consultants, conducted no comprehensive comparative analysis with the other potential site – the Tsang Tsui ash lagoons in Tuen Mun, presented no comparative cost and risk analysis, omitted and obfuscated information, and initiated the project in Shek Kwu Chau prior to approval by the Legislative Council.

In 2007, the department engaged a consultancy, Camp, Dresser and McKee International, to study possible sites for the incinerator. The firm analysed eight sites and recommended two, Tsang Tsui and Shek Kwu Chau, for further evaluation in January 2008.

The consultants gave the Tuen Mun site the highest score because of the ease of integration with existing landfill and waste facilities, much lower impact on local ecology, shorter construction time, and lower construction costs. The site is on existing ash lagoons in Nim Wan, in the northwestern New Territories. There are already industrial developments in the area, including the Black Point Power Station and the West New Territories Landfill.

In contrast, the consultants said, the Shek Kwu Chau site was in an ecologically sensitive area and required extensive reclamation and seabed dredging, as well as construction of all infrastructure from scratch. Twelve hectares on Shek Kwu Chau’s southwestern coast will have to be reclaimed to build an artificial island, plus berths and a breakwater, for a total of 31 hectares. There is no industrial development on Shek Kwu Chau. The area near the island is home to rich fisheries and rare wildlife, and is frequented by the endangered finless porpoise.

In 2008, the department engaged another consultancy, Aecom, to study the feasibility of the two sites and incinerator technology. Aecom’s report became the definitive document it used to justify its decisions. In a presentation in February last year to Legco’s environment panel, the department summarised analysis of incinerator technology in a clear, side-by-side comparison of the options in a table format under various criteria, including capital and operating costs, resulting in the selection of moving grate incinerator technology.

But there was no such cost comparison of the Tsang Tsui and Shek Kwu Chau sites. Instead, there were 13 pages of dense script discussing the two sites in terms of such criteria as air and water quality, noise impact, and ecology. There was no comparison of construction and operating costs for the two sites.

Close reading of these 13 pages shows that Aecom considered the two sites equally suitable, except in ecology and fisheries where the impact on Shek Kwu Chau would be great. It noted that the waters around Shek Kwu Chau were an important habitat for the finless porpoise and home to some 15 species of coral. Also, the white-bellied sea eagle, an uncommon species with limited known breeding sites in Hong Kong, was known to breed around the site. “Permanent loss of 31 hectares of fishing ground, of which 15.9 hectares is a previously identified fisheries spawning and nursery ground, is expected,” it concluded.

Yet, not only did the department obfuscate the comparison of the two sites, it omitted mention of the serious impact on the island’s ecology and fisheries in later presentations.

Inexplicably, the findings of both consultancy reports were ignored in the department’s “Explanation Booklet for the Proposed Waste Management Facilities” (March 2011) and in a document presented to Legco’s environment panel on March 26 this year.

Instead, the department cited a completely new reason for selecting Shek Kwu Chau: that it would ensure “a more balanced spatial distribution” of waste facilities here. This was never among the 20 criteria considered by the two consultants. The department reduces the complexity of the project to a simple matter of geography: spreading the waste processing around Hong Kong by despoiling a beautiful area.

More gallingly, the Shek Kwu Chau site was chosen long before the department revealed the cost estimates.

It presented the costs to Legco only five days before it sought the go-ahead from Legco’s environmental panel on March 26. And it was only on Tuesday, in a letter to the South China Morning Post (SEHK: 0583, announcements, news) , that a department official divulged the construction costs of the Tsang Tsui site: HK$9 billion in September 2011 prices, versus HK$11.383 billion for the Shek Kwu Chau site, a 26per cent difference in capital cost. No operating cost for either site has been disclosed.

However, a year before the costs were made public and Legco’s approval sought, the Lands Department had already issued a notice to reclaim land and dredge the seabed in the Shek Kwu Chau area. A cable junction has been installed on Cheung Sha beach in South Lantau to supply electricity to Shek Kwu Chau. On November 24 last year, Aecom said, it had won a contract with the department to manage construction of the incinerator in Shek Kwu Chau.

The department’s dubious decision-making process lends credence to the perception that its selection of Shek Kwu Chau was influenced by politics and special interests rather than the best outcome for Hong Kong.

Tom Yam is a Hong Kong-based management consultant. He holds a doctorate in electrical engineering and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He has worked at AT&T, Ernst & Young and IBM

More Chinese cities release air pollution data

Apr 11th, 2012

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http://asiancorrespondent.com/80239/more-chinese-cities-release-air-pollution-data/

11 April 2012

Six Chinese cities launched new air pollution monitoring systems in the past two weeks, as one of the country’s leading physicians warned that dirty skies could become China’s most serious health threat.

China pollution

Pollution in China Pic: AP

The northeastern coastal city of Dalian began releasing new air pollution readings on March 30. Citizens were invited to watch as environmental protection workers inaugurated the city’s new PM 2.5 monitor, which measures airborne particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter.

A local government news website reported that the first reading was 12 micrograms per cubic meter, far lower than the maximum limit of 75 micrograms mandated by new regulations.

A plan issued on February 29 by China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection calls for cities across the country to meet the new, tougher air quality standards by January 2016.

In Jiangsu province, a PM 2.5 monitoring system was launched in five cities on March 30, with 17 air quality measurement devices collecting data.

Air pollution readings from the 17 stations will be available 24 hours every day on the website of the province’s environmental protection department.

The Jiangnan Evening News reported that on the first day measurements were released, the lowest pollution levels were in Wuxi, a small tourist city on the outskirts of Shanghai.

The highest reading was 141 micrograms, taken in the provincial capital Nanjing.

Nanjing’s PM 2.5 measurement system had earlier attracted criticism for choosing measurement locations in areas with lower levels of air pollution. Netizens accused local officials of trying to obtain more favorable air quality readings by placing monitoring devices in sparsely-populated green areas.

The city’s Environmental Monitoring Center replied that they were acting according to national regulations, and had chosen a diverse array of measurement sites.

Dalian and Jiangsu are only the most recent cities and provinces to launch new air pollution monitoring systems in recent weeks.

On March 24, Zhejiang province inaugurated 16 measurement sites in five cities. The provincial government says it plans to install a total of 153 sites over the next three years.

The southern province of Guangdong began releasing PM 2.5 data collected in the heavily-populated Pearl River Delta on March 8. Data for other areas in the province will be made public starting in June.

PM 2.5 monitoring has become a major issue in China over the past months, with experts and ordinary citizens calling for more accurate and widespread air pollution measurements in cities across the country.

On March 16, one of China’s leading health authorities called for greater public awareness and government attention to the problem of air pollution.

In an interview with The Guardian, Zhong Nanshan, president of the China Medical Association, warned that “if the government neglects this matter, it will be the biggest health problem facing China.”

Zhong, who rose to prominence in 2002 by breaking official silence to reveal the full extent of the SARS epidemic, said that “the situation now is better” and expressed confidence that authorities were becoming more transparent in dealing with the problem of air pollution.

“At the very beginning of that [SARS] epidemic, it was really terrible,” he said. “We have learned a lesson.”

£54m claim turns up the heat over authority’s incinerator

Apr 10th, 2012

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A LOCAL authority has launched a £54m lawsuit over a troubled waste plant that was once hailed as a model for the whole of the UK.

Neath Port Talbot Council has issued a High Court writ against two dormant companies in the Currie & Brown Group, which offered technical advice over the project at Crymlyn Burrows, near Neath. It is one of the largest sums ever claimed in litigation relating to the construction industry.

Soon after the £32m plant opened in 2002, neighbouring residents complained of odours coming from it. It was temporarily shut down for environmental breaches in 2003, and later damaged by fire.

The defendants in the action are Currie & Brown Project Management and Currie & Brown Consulting, both of which are dormant companies.

Currie & Brown Project Management produced a technical due diligence report on the project for investors in 2000. Currie & Brown Consulting was appointed technical adviser to the investors in 2000 and the division was also appointed technical adviser to the council in 2002.

The case is scheduled for April 2009 and will be tried in Bristol by a High Court judge.

Will Watson, corporate director for the environment at Neath Port Talbot council, said: “The council is seeking damages following the failure of the materials recycling and energy centre to achieve anything like its contracted performance levels, particularly in terms of diverting waste from landfill, recycling and the production of compost.”

A spokeswoman for Currie & Brown confirmed the two companies in the group were facing a £54m claim from the council.

“The matter is in the hands of our insurers,” she said. “We do not wish to comment further.”

In May it emerged that Neath Port Talbot Council was suing neighbouring Bridgend Council for around £5m in connection with problems relating to the plant, which is officially described as Crymlyn Burrows Materials Recovery and Energy Centre.

Domestic rubbish from both council areas is disposed of at the plant, which processes material for recycling and incinerates other waste.

It is understood that during legal arguments between the two local authorities, Neath Port Talbot threatened to ban Bridgend from sending waste to the plant.

The Crymlyn Burrows waste processing plant has been controversial since before it opened in 2002.

Residents opposed it on health grounds, claiming there was no truly safe limit for the dioxins emitted by the incinerator. Dioxins are associated with birth defects, heart disease, infertility, respiratory problems and cancers.

But local authorities, who point out the incinerator has to comply with emission standards, saw it as a way to reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill in advance of targets set by the European Commission in 2010.

From the outset the plant processed around 150,000 tonnes of domestic refuse a year from Neath Port Talbot and Bridgend.

The plant was built and initially run by Portuguese operator HLC, but in 2005 Neath Port Talbot Council pulled the plug on HLC Neath Port Talbot after the firm went into administration.

Neath Port Talbot Council took over running the plant and in 2006 it was reported losses totalling more than £67m could accrue over 25 years unless a new operating partner was found. A legal tug-of-war ensued between the council and HLC’s creditor, the Royal Bank of Scotland, which was seeking to recoup some of its £40m debt with the plant’s assets. The dispute was settled out of court in November 2006, putting the plant firmly in the hands of Neath Port Talbot Council.

Early last year, Neath Port Talbot and Bridgend councils said they were planning to award a new 25-year contract for operating the facility.

In late April the two authorities issued a joint statement, saying: “Bridgend and Neath Port Talbot councils are in discussions concerning a contractual matter related to waste disposal arrangements and both are hopeful that an early resolution will be possible. At this stage, neither council is prepared to make any further comment.”

June 2011 Last updated at 08:01 GMT

Neath waste plant reopens after closure

Crymlyn Burrows Materials Recovery and Energy Centre

The Crymlyn Burrows waste incinerator opened in 2002

Continue reading the main story

Incinerator will meet the world’s most stringent green operating standards

Apr 10th, 2012

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SCMP – 10 April 2012

I refer to the article by Edwin Lau Che-feng, of Friends of the Earth (“Costly incinerator will be a waste of money”, April 2).

Based on the most recent studies, the estimated cost of building the first phase of integrated waste management facilities on an artificial island near Shek Kwu Chau is HK$14.96 billion in money- of-the-day prices, or HK$11.38 billion in September 2011 prices. The figure of HK$4 billion quoted in the article was a very preliminary estimate based on the information gathered around 2002-3, in the absence of detailed studies. As with other infrastructure projects, the actual cost estimation could only be made on the basis of the findings in the engineering studies and environmental impact assessment. Construction and material prices increased significantly from 2002 to 2011. Another cost factor is the stringent environmental requirements for achieving high environmental performance. The facilities will meet the most stringent international standards. Additional measures will also be incorporated to further reduce the impacts.

The estimated capital cost of building the facilities at Tsang Tsui is about HK$9 billion in September 2011 prices. The difference in the capital cost between the two sites is $2.4 billion (September 2011 prices) and relates to the costs of, for example, reclamation works, berths and breakwaters and submarine cables. With a capital cost of about HK$9 billion, the cost of building integrated waste management facilities near Shek Kwu Chau is comparable to that of other plants in Europe, such as the one in Amsterdam, that process about 2,400 tonnes per day (a fifth less than the one near Shek Kwu Chau).

The artificial island near Shek Kwu Chau is chosen because it would ensure a more balanced spatial distribution of waste facilities given that there is already a sludge treatment facility of 2,000 tonnes per day under construction in Tsang Tsui; it is closer to the Island East, Island West and West Kowloon refuse transfer stations; it is located in the downwind side of the prevailing wind; and it has the potential to enhance synergies with neighbouring islands. Like other advanced economies, the modern waste-to-energy plant under the integrated facilities can significantly reduce the waste volume and carbon dioxide emissions and is an indispensable part of the government’s multi-pronged strategy to tackle the imminent waste problem.

The Environmental Protection Department is committed to working with the community to reduce and recycle waste, while taking forward the integrated waste management facilities and other waste projects for Hong Kong.

Elvis W. K. Au, assistant director of environmental protection

Use of slag in public flats to cut carbon emissions

Apr 10th, 2012

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SCMP

Housing Authority will save money and lower pollution output by 3,700 tonnes of gas a year

Joyce Ng
Apr 10, 2012

Hong Kong’s annual carbon emissions will be cut by 3,700 tonnes, thanks to an environmentally friendly initiative of the Housing Authority.

The authority says it will save money and reduce its use of cement by mixing it with slag, a cheap by-product of steelmaking, in its annual construction of 15,000 flats.

The building material, known as granulated blast-furnace slag, is made by pulverising slag. The process produces 90 per cent less carbon than making cement.

The measure is one of the solutions identified in a carbon audit exercise the authority conducted for its upcoming public rental housing projects.

The saving of 3,700 tonnes of emissions is equivalent to the carbon dioxide intake of 16,000 trees.

“Our public rental homes house about 30 per cent of the city’s population. It is important to create a green living environment and have a greener housebuilding process,” said Ada Fung Yin-suen, deputy director of housing.

The cement industry accounts for 5 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions.

The slag will come from two suppliers in Guangdong and costs 5 per cent less than cement.

The initiative will help save HK$600,000, according to Fung.

The authority will use slag in building public rental housing estates in Anderson Road, East Kowloon, and Hung Shui Kiu, Yuen Long.

The slag was used in infrastructure projects such as the Tsing Ma Bridge, but it is new to residential construction in the city.

Joseph Mak Yiu-wing, chief structural engineer of the Housing Department, said he hoped private developers would follow suit.

Separately, the department has completed a carbon audit exercise for 12 future projects in Kai Tak, Sheung Shui, Ngau Tau Kok, Sha Tin and Yuen Long.

The audit identified room for lowering carbon emissions by installing lighting systems powered by wind and solar power, among other measures.

joyce.ng@scmp.com

Exclusive: Hong Kong probes $2.5 million payment in Kwok case: source

Apr 10th, 2012

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/24/us-hongkong-kwoks-probe-idUSBRE83N0IZ20120424

Exclusive: Hong Kong probes $2.5 million payment in Kwok case: source

Description: Former Hong Kong Chief Secretary Rafael Hui (L) leaves the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) headquarters in Hong Kong April 10, 2012. REUTERS/Stringer

Former Hong Kong Chief Secretary Rafael Hui (L) leaves the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) headquarters in Hong Kong April 10, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Stringer

By David Lague

HONG KONG | Tue Apr 24, 2012 8:04am EDT

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Hong Kong’s anti-graft agency is looking into payments totaling more than U.S. $2.5 million to a former top public servant as part of the city’s corruption investigation involving two billionaire brothers who run Asia’s largest property developer.

According to a source with knowledge of the investigation, the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) is investigating payments to Hong Kong’s former chief secretary, Rafael Hui. The payments are linked to Sun Hung Kai Properties (0016.HK), the powerful conglomerate run by Raymond and Thomas Kwok.

Hui and the Kwok brothers were arrested on suspicion of corruption on March 29 and released on bail without charges being filed. The three men, friends since childhood through Macau family connections, have been ordered to report back to ICAC headquarters later next month, when they are expected to extend their bail agreement, the source said.

Details of the investigation have not been disclosed. The payments cited by the Reuters source reveal for the first time precise information on Hui’s role in the investigation of the Kwoks, who rank among Asia’s richest families.

It is not clear whether the payments came from Sun Hung Kai Properties, one of its subsidiaries, or from the Kwok brothers themselves. Details on what else the ICAC is investigating are also unclear.

The Kwok brothers have denied any wrongdoing. The ICAC declined to comment while the investigation continues. Sun Hung Kai also declined to comment.

Several attempts at reaching Hui, including calls to former associates, were unsuccessful.

The ICAC arrested Sun Hung Kai Properties Executive Director Thomas Chan and four other people who are yet to be identified in March as part of the same investigation into allegations of bribery and misconduct in public office. They were also released on bail.

The arrests sent a shock through Hong Kong’s business community, a small, close-knit group of tycoon-led families that control much of the city’s business operations and hold heavy political influence. The case is the biggest investigation the ICAC has undertaken since its formation in 1974.

According to the source, Hui received a series of payments before and after his time in office worth more than $2.5 million. These payments are among several key transactions that are part of the investigation, the source said.

“KING STRATEGIST”

For Hui, 64, the ICAC probe threatens to tarnish a public service career in which he rose to become the deputy to Hong Kong’s outgoing chief executive, Donald Tsang.

Hui stood down as chief secretary in 2007 at the end of Tsang’s first term. He then spent two years on the Executive Council, an advisory body to the chief executive.

After his arrest, Hui resigned as an independent, non-executive director of pan-Asian insurer AIA Group (1299.HK). Prior to the investigation, he sold his 50 per cent share in an investment company, RH & Lang Ltd., which is registered in the British Virgin Islands, the South China Morning Post reported. Local media reports said Hui also sold off racehorses.

Hui, an opera fanatic, has been under a harsh spotlight before.

In 2005, he declined to move into the colonial mansion on Victoria Peak reserved for the chief secretary, opting to stay instead in his modern, 5,000-square-foot apartment. The luxury flat overlooking the Happy Valley racecourse that he and his wife call home is in the Leighton Hill complex, a Sun Hung Kai development. That prompted criticism at the time that Hui would be conflicted in his public role on any matters related to the Kwoks. On taking office, Hui pledged to pay HK$160,000 ($20,600) per month in rent to remain in the apartment.

As chief secretary, Hui’s connections with Sun Hung Kai came under public scrutiny after he took on the role of overseeing Hong Kong’s billion-dollar West Kowloon cultural district, a project on which the company had bid.

Hui, whose nickname is “King Strategist”, provided both political and business advice to Sun Hung Kai over the years, a boon for a developer in a city where the government controls the land supply. He was also trusted by the Kwoks’ mother, according to sources close to the family.

“He’s a very smart guy with many tricks, with a great grasp of details and flexibility,” said James To, a democratic lawmaker, who has dealt regularly with Hui over 20 years of public service.

Hui is a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the top-level advisory body to the Chinese government.

TINY ELITE

Upon completion of its investigation, the ICAC will send the evidence to Hong Kong’s justice department, which then decides if it will prosecute. The ICAC was set up in 1974 when crime and police corruption were rampant in the then British colony. The agency has investigated top police and government officials and construction executives.

But in the last few years, critics complain the commission has failed to successfully prosecute any high-level cases involving Hong Kong’s rich and powerful, or the burgeoning new class of mainland Chinese entrepreneurs.

The Kwoks and Hui are part of a tiny elite who dominate business and politics in the city of 7 million, which returned to Chinese rule in 1997. All three belong to the 1,200-member committee that selected Hong Kong’s next leader on March 25.

The Kwok brothers have built Sun Hung Kai, which they inherited from their father, into the world’s second-largest real estate developer. Their office tower portfolio includes the city’s two tallest buildings, the International Finance Center and the International Commerce Center. The property developer is the beating heart of a conglomerate that is deeply embedded in Hong Kong life, with stakes in the bus, phone and trash systems of Asia’s financial capital.

Sun Hung Kai’s stock has fallen 15.5 percent since the arrests, but that still leaves it with a market capitalization of $31.6 billion.

Forbes estimates the Kwok brothers’ fortune at $18.3 billion, according to figures in March just before they were arrested. For Hong Kong’s fabulously rich tycoon families, that puts them No. 2 behind Li Ka-shing, who is also Asia’s richest person.

Such wealth caught the eye of a notorious gangster, Cheung Tze-keung, known as “Big Spender”, who kidnapped Walter Kwok in 1997 and held him for six days in a wooden crate before his family paid a ransom, reportedly HK$600 million ($77 million). Cheung was executed a year later by firing squad in mainland China.

The incident left Walter badly shaken, sources and media reports say, but he returned to run the company until being forced from the helm in 2008. In a writ seeking to prevent his removal, Walter said his brothers, Raymond and Thomas, believed he had bipolar affective disorder — which Walter denies — and could not fulfill his duties.

The younger brothers also objected to a long-term friendship between Walter and a lawyer, Ida Tong, who they felt was exerting undue influence at the company, according to two other sources close to the family. Tong could not be reached for comment.

The embarrassing public tussle for Sun Hung Kai Properties forced the family’s octogenarian matriarch, Kwong Siu-hing, to intervene and assume the chairman’s role herself until last December, when Thomas and Raymond took on the joint role.

Walter has not been arrested, and his spokeswoman has declined to comment to Reuters.

(Additional reporting by Alex Frew McMillan and James Pomfret; Edting by Michael Flaherty and Bill Tarrant)

Cheap Hydrogen Cars In A Decade, Researchers Say

Apr 8th, 2012

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8 April 2012

A new process for producing fuel cells could help bring the cost of hydrogen carsdown significantly within 10 years, researchers claim.

Staff from the University of Connecticut developed the process, which involves spraying atom-sized particles of a catalyst onto a membrane, to produce hydrogen fuel cells.

image via University of Connecticut

They say that the same technique could also be used to make lithium-ion batteries, the kind used in most electric and hybrid cars.

The potential benefits of hydrogen fuel cell cars have long tempted auto makers. They have low emissions, no moving parts and because they generate power on board in fuel cells, they don’t need the long charging time of electric vehicles.

But the high production cost of the fuel cells has put the cars out of the price range of most consumers. The holy grail of many researchers has therefore been to find a way to get these costs down.

In order to make the fuel cells a catalyst is needed that can withstand the highly acidic solvents necessary to turn hydrogen into electricity. The only elements capable of this are platinum and iridium, which are both rare and expensive.

The new technique involves firing the catalyst on to the membrane in the form of a gas flame. The flame-based dispersion means the metal bonds quicker, eliminating the need for repeated binding and drying steps.

Professor Radenka Maric, who developed the process at the University of Connecticut’s Center for Clean Energy Engineering, said it used 10 times less catalyst material and produced significantly less waste

http://theenergycollective.com/namarchetti/81593/cheap-hydrogen-cars-decade-researchers-say

Roadside air pollution in Hong Kong: Why is it still so bad?

Apr 6th, 2012

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Download PDF : 110706RoadsideAir_en

Open minds could find more creative solutions for third airport runway

Apr 6th, 2012

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SCMP – 6 April 2012

I share Richard Fielding’s concern that “a third runway will do nothing to relieve crowding in the airspace over the Pearl River estuary”, which is but a side issue in his letter (“Third runway lobby ignoring serious environmental impact of growth”, March 29).

Indeed, by requiring an extension of Hong Kong’s airspace both north and west into the airspace over the Pearl River estuary to make the third runway workable, it will add much to the crowding and increase the complexity in airspace management there.

It will in turn add considerably to the workload and complexity of operations for Hong Kong’s airspace management. I refer to the near-collision between two aircraft on September 18, 2011 [waiting to land at the airport].

So far, the case presented to the public for adding a third runway to Chek Lap Kok has addressed only the simplistic number-crunching side of it but not the above problem, which is not so simple to quantify.

Even then, it begs the question of how soon a fourth runway will be required and where there is physical room for it.

If there is no room for it, and the third runway will not be operational until at least 2023 anyway, why not build an all-new three-runway airport elsewhere, with the room for straightforward growth to a fourth or even a fifth runway?

The third runway does not have to be at the Shenzhen airport (linked to Chek Lap Kok by fast rail) although it does seem like a more viable option than building one at Hong Kong airport, if all factors are taken into consideration. And it has been reported that London is considering connecting Heathrow with Gatwick by fast rail to make them function like one airport.

The section in Chapter 2 of the Airport Authority’s Master Plan 2030 technical report, titled “Relying on Neighbouring Airports is Not an Option”, dismisses it so feebly that it reads like thinking inside a self-created political box.

The air-services-agreement implication it is premised on would surely fall away if Beijing would simply deem such an already existing “third Hong Kong runway” at Shenzhen airport a part of Hong Kong. It is, after all, “one country”.

I am so glad the Executive Council is unlikely to make a final decision until 2015.

Peter Lok, Chai Wan

In Hong Kong, a Precipice of Waste

Apr 6th, 2012

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Published: February 6, 2011

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/07/business/energy-environment/07green.html?_r=2

HONG KONG — Retailers, manufacturers and economists love it: the annual consumption splurge that accompanies the Lunar New Year across vast parts of Asia.

A blog about energy and the environment.

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Judging by the frenzied activity in Hong Kong’s gleaming shopping centers and in its less-gleaming street markets, the start of the Year of the Rabbit last week produced yet another spend-fest.

Environmentalists, however, are less happy.

Take “lai see” envelopes, for instance. Small and garishly red, they are used to give gifts of cash to family members and employees to mark the New Year in Chinese and other East Asian societies. Sounds innocuous enough.

But if estimates by the Hong Kong campaign group Greeners Action are to be believed, more than 9,200 trees’ worth of paper is being handed out in the form of 180 million of these “red packets” this year in Hong Kong alone. Considering that Hong Kong has a population of seven million, that is more than 25 envelopes per person.

Last month, Greeners Action called on Hong Kong residents to recycle their lai see envelopes.

Meanwhile, the Hong Kong office of Friends of the Earth estimated in December that one-fifth of the food at traditional Chinese banquets in Hong Kong is thrown away. Company and wedding banquets are traditionally opulent affairs spanning as many as 12 courses, and they are designed to display generosity and wealth. Friends of the Earth is now urging residents to cut their banquet orders by two courses in a bid to reduce waste.

Don’t get me wrong; Western societies are wasteful, too, and the annual mountains of Christmas wrapping paper undoubtedly dwarf the piles of lai see envelopes that are thrown away in this part of the world each year. But Hong Kong, it seems, is an especially wasteful society.

Take a look, for instance, at data compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and published in its 2010 Factbook . It showed that two of the wealthiest societies in Asia, Japan and South Korea, produced 410 kilograms and 380 kilograms, respectively, of municipal waste per person each year. That is equivalent to just more than 900 pounds for Japan and 835 pounds for South Korea.

The figure for China, meanwhile, was 115 kilograms. The United States generates an average of 760 kilograms of trash per person annually, while the average in the European Union was 520 kilograms.

The O.E.C.D. statistics do not list separate figures for Hong Kong. But based on calculations I did on the back of a napkin using Hong Kong government data, the city easily outdid the world’s most developed societies in terms of per capita garbage generation: 928 kilograms, or 78 percent more than the E.U. average.

City administrators have warned for years that Hong Kong will run out of landfill space around the middle of this decade.

A “policy framework” written by the Hong Kong Environmental Protection Department in 2005 called for more waste recovery and recycling, with the aim of ensuring that 50 percent of solid waste was recycled by 2014. To encourage households and businesses to reduce trash, it recommended using alternatives like incinerators for organic waste and charging for garbage disposal.

Still, waste generation has continued to rise. Hong Kong generated 6.5 million tons of trash in 2009, compared with 5.7 million tons five years earlier.

It is no wonder; recycling habits are far from engrained in Hong Kong. Collection points for paper, plastics and metals may have become more plentiful, for example, but their contents are routinely mixed up with other types of waste. Glass recycling of the sort that is standard in Europe does not exist in Hong Kong.

More important, the main cause of all this waste — consumption growth — shows no sign of ebbing. Hong Kong is an economic powerhouse with a well-off society that loves to display its wealth.

Energy-saving habits also have yet to take root. Shopping centers, offices and movie theaters, for example, are air-conditioned to the point that Hong Kong residents take an extra layer of clothing wherever they go, even during the sweltering summer. And while there are new building regulations to encourage “green” construction, older buildings are generally poorly insulated and energy-inefficient.

A worrying question, then, is whether societies that are less well-off today, but becoming wealthier, will become as wasteful as Hong Kong is.

Imagine what would happen if mainland China, for example, with a population of 1.3 billion and 115 kilograms of trash per person, moved closer to the trash levels of Hong Kong — or even of the United States, Europe or Japan. While we cannot begrudge the increased consumption that comes with soaring growth, we would have a serious problem on our hands.

The environmental group WWF, for one, has extrapolated an interesting estimate from Hong Kong’s lifestyle. “Hong Kong people are living beyond the Earth’s limits,” it wrote in a report last month.

“If everyone in the world lived a similar lifestyle to that of Hong Kong people, we would need the equivalent resources of 2.2 earths.”

The recent calls by Greeners Action and Friends of the Earth to waste less and to recycle more are, at least, a sign that attitudes in Hong Kong have begun to shift. But judging by the trash statistics alone, much, much more is needed from residents, businesses and the Hong Kong government.

How about less packaging, far bigger public-awareness drives, and less fierce air-conditioning, for a start?

April, 2012:

Burning doubt

Burning doubt

Tom Yam questions the Environmental Protection Department’s decision to build a waste incinerator at Shek Kwu Chau without adequately counting or presenting its high financial and ecological costs

More Chinese cities release air pollution data

£54m claim turns up the heat over authority’s incinerator

Neath waste plant reopens after closure

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Published: February 6, 2011

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