Beijing, with a population of over 20 million, has suffered from hazardous air pollution since last January, which has threatened the people greatly since the pollutants can cause fatal health problems.

On January 12, the air quality monitor run by the U.S. embassy in Beijing reported an air pollution level of 886, which directly indicated PM2.5 – a fine particulate less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter – is off its maximum level of 500. This warns that everyone should refrain from all physical activities outdoors. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the average concentrations of PM2.5 per cubic meter should not be more than 25 micrograms, yet the readings on some days in January exceeded 40 times of the standard.

The effect of the PM 2.5 is even more disastrous: The U.S. embassy Beijing air quality monitor website stated “PM 2.5 particulates are of concern since they are small enough to directly enter the lungs and even the blood stream,” and warned that ‘hazardous’ level of air quality can result in “Serious aggravation of heart or lung disease and premature mortality in persons with cardiopulmonary disease and the elderly; serious risk of respiratory effects in general population.”

Nonetheless, you did not need to check the Air Quality Index (AQI) to see how dreadful the air quality was. The darkness from the extreme dustiness lasted the whole afternoon on that day, and the thick dusty layers hindered sight within approximately 300 meters, where even the huge skyscrapers were hardly visible. “The smog was so thick that more than 50 flights were cancelled at Beijing Capital International Airport, causing chaos ahead of Chinese New Year, when city-dwellers travel to see relatives” reported the Independent on January 29. The effect of the ‘hazardous’ level of the air quality was immediate. Dr. Huang of the Beijing Shijitan hospital said in an interview with CBS News that the number of patients hospitalized because of chronic bronchitis or other respiratory illnesses had increased by 20% after the hazardous air quality days.

Yet, this catastrophic phenomenon did not just happen for an occasional day. Beijing has been besieged by the hazy and dusty skies for the last several months at a consistent level, and there have been only a few days of blue skies; the AQI reads under the degree of ‘Unhealthy’. Even China’s national newspaper, China Digital Times, published an article titled “Beijing Air Quality: Worse than SARS.”

As a response to the people’s outcry, the city government took urgent action. According to Bloomberg on the last January 29, Beijing decided to temporarily shut down the 103 factories around the city, and the government agencies and state-owned companies were commended to reduce vehicle use by 30% until the end of January.

The scenery of Beijing in the past months has been changed visibly. People started wearing PM 2.5-blocking masks outside, and frequently check AQI via the application on their mobile phones. The term ‘PM 2.5’ is often being discussed everywhere – in newspapers, television and people’s daily dialogue. Some companies distribute free 3M dust masks for college students on campus instead of their traditional marketing strategies of giving a small gift such as stationary.

It is estimated to affect the job market in Beijing as well. On April 1, Financial Times reported that the ‘Airpocalypse’ has made it difficult for companies to find international work talent, and many expatriates are planning to leave Beijing due to the concern for health. There are nearly 200,000 foreign residents in Beijing and many of the expats are professionals with high-earning jobs, which contribute greatly to the socio-economic development of the city, the news report said.

“Air pollution is a major problem in China because of the country’s rapid pace of industrialization, reliance on coal power, explosive growth in car ownership and the sometimes disregard for environmental laws,” said CNN news on January 19. China has been the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter since 2007, and approximately 70 percent of its total energy still comes from coal.

The 2012 Cancer Registry Annual Report showed that cancer-related mortality in China has increased by 465 percent in the past three decades and the lung cancer was the top cause among all the cancers.

According to the World Bank (WB) report, 20 cities in China listed on the 30 most polluted cities in the world. In the recent study by Greenpeace and Peking University’s School of Public Health, it is estimated that the exposure to PM2.5 caused more than 8,500 premature deaths in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Xi’an in 2012.

Image credit: People in Beijing via Flickr.com

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Louisville, U.S.A. – Eco Power Solutions, the leading provider of advanced multi-pollutant emissions control systems, demonstrated the success of its COMPLY 2000 technology during a Coal-Gen tour of its Technology Center on Tuesday, August 14. The Center’s coal unit removed nearly 100 percent of NOx and SOx emissions during the two-hour tour.

Eco Power Solutions hosted a group of industry executives at its Technology Center in Louisville as part of the 2012 Coal-Gen conference. During the tour, the COMPLY 2000 scrubbed flue gas from an on-site, coal-fired boiler. The unit removed an average 98.6 percent of NOx, 99.99 percent of SOx and captured 75.5 percent of CO2.

“Today our technology exceeded all EPA air quality regulations and removed greater than 95 percent of all criteria pollutants, including mercury, NOx, SOx, heavy metals, acid gases and CO2,” said Tom Bartolomei, President and CEO of Eco Power Solutions. “Eco Power Solutions has proven it can help coal- and gas-fired power meet increasing clean air standards while maintaining delivery of reliable, cost-effective electricity.”

“Eco Power Solutions proved the strength of its emissions scrubbing technology today,” said Brock Ramey, North American Power Research Manager for Industrial Info Resources, who took the tour. “They explained every step of the process, and gave us an ongoing look at the results. Numbers don’t lie, and we watched the COMPLY technology remove almost 100 percent of pollutants and capture three quarters of CO2.”

Opened in 2010, the Technology Center gives visitors the chance to see the COMPLY 2000, the world’s most advanced, turnkey multi-pollutant emissions control technology on the market today, operating in real time. This technology provides an all–in–one solution to reduce mercury, NOx and SOx emissions, arsenic, chromium, nickel, other heavy metals and acid gases; and capture CO2.

The COMPLY 2000 applies gas/vapor and condensing techniques to emission control and proven scrubbing technology. The unit generates a minimum of wastewater by utilizing hydraulic hot-gas-to-water heat recovery technology. Unlike current methods that reduce each of these emissions individually, the COMPLY 2000 eliminates virtually all of these emissions from flue gases concurrently, allowing customers to better control costs.

To achieve the unprecedented multi-pollutant removal levels, the COMPLY 2000 uses an ozone injection process for NOx conversion. A fogging spray is mixed with a hydrogen peroxide solution for SOx conversion that is condensed concurrently with other pollutants over coils to remove all combustion emissions from the exhaust gas stream. This process converts NOx and SOx to nitric and sulfuric acid in the wastewater stream collected at the bottom of the COMPLY 2000 unit. Simultaneously, unburned hydrocarbons and particulate matter are removed during the condensation phase along with carbonic acid resulting from dissolved CO2. This wastewater can then be treated and recycled.

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China’s capital Beijing plans to implement congestion fees on some of its major, highly trafficked roads, Chinese Xinhua news agency reported on September 2 The measure is primarily meant to help reduce the heavy pollution caused by the high number of cars and it should lead to a decrease in traffic jams.

Hopefully, it will also encourage the residents of the Chinese capital to rely more on alternative-energy, environment-friendly vehicles. Officials also hope that the new congestion charge will inspire Beijing residents to start using public transport more than personal vehicles.

However, the reports did not mention how the fees would actually be collected or any other specific details regarding the manner in which the authorities plan to implement the measure. The plan encourages nevertheless the use of the so-called new energy cars, such as electric vehicles, as an environmentally-conscious alternative to cars which use fuel.

Unspecified incentives to buy new energy vehicles will also be provided. For the same purpose, the plan pledges to build more electric-vehicle charging stations and to upgrade the equipment in the already existing ones.

Measures to reduce traffic pressure have been introduced since the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, when car owners could use their vehicles only on certain days, depending on the number of the license plate. However, the measures have not had the desired impact and traffic jams continued to remain a problem.

In January 2011, Beijing began capping new car registrations at a price of 20,000 per month, available through a lottery. That has not slowed the increasing traffic to a significant extent, however, it has deprived tens of thousands of hopeful car owners of the possibility of  buying a car.

Beijing also continued to raise parking fees, expand its subway system and build parallel roads, all in an attempt to relieve its heavy traffic. There are voices saying that the measure will probably not have the expected effects, due to the complexity of the problem. “Neither traffic restrictions nor congestion fees can end traffic jams, because they fail to address the essence of the problem,” said Zhang Chang Qing, a traffic law expert at Beijing Jiaotong University.

“Although the plan does not clarify the exact road sections the government is going to charge tolls on, it is simple logic that if it is the Second Ring Road only, people will swarm to Third and the Fourth Ring Road and cause traffic congestion there. Currently, all the rings are already seeing heavy traffic, so I believe the government will have to set up tolls everywhere.”

In 2009, China became the world’s largest auto market, which has led to a constant growth of car ownership. By 2012 the already heavily-trafficked Beijing is expected to have a total of 7 million vehicles on the road.
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