Daily Dose of Air Pollution: 2014

Thursday, December 25, 2014

Air Pollution News & Alerts - December 25th, 2014

Last on November 21st, 2014

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

In Delhi - 1 in 7 Own a Car and 1 in 3 Own a Motorcycle

One out of seven Delhiites owns a car on an average while one of three persons has a bike in the national capital, as per a Delhi Government report. According to the statistical report released today, more than 24.74 lakh cars and jeeps plied in the national capital in the period between April 2012 and March 2013, and their number increased by 1.55 lakh to 26,29,343, in 2013-14. A total of 5.19 lakh new vehicles hit the city roads in 2013-14 as against 3.36 lakh in 2012-13.

As per Census 2001-2011, the population of the national capital is around 1.67 crore. "On an average, out of seven Delhiites, one person has his own car or jeep while of three persons, one city resident possesses one bike or scooter in the national capital," the report said. The report also stated that as on 2013-14, there were 78,686 taxis while 40,947 buses, including ambulances, plied in the national capital. According to the Delhi government, there are 91,840 auto-rickshaws reported till 2013-14, up from 86,838 in the previous year.

Dismayed at the increasing level of air pollution in Delhi, the National Green Tribunal had on November 26 barred all vehicles which are over 15 years old from plying in the national capital. More than 29 lakh vehicles will go off the roads following the NGT order banning such vehicles.

Read more at Economic Times

Saturday, December 13, 2014

Vehicles Idle More Than 20% of the Time in Delhi

An IIT-Delhi study has revealed that vehicles in the capital don't run but crawl for a considerable part of their travel time. The research jointly carried out by Transportation Research and Injury Prevention Program at IIT and Desert Research Institute, Reno, has used GPS logs of buses as well as speed and fuel consumption readings of two-wheelers, three wheelers and cars to arrive at some shocking findings. Cars were found to be running at less than 4 kmph for 24% of the travel time. While travelling at this speed certainly defeats the purpose of using a motorized mode of transport, it also pollutes the city's air immensely.

If one considers more than a million cars running at similar speed, they may be wasting about 2.5 lakh litres of fuel every day while idling at traffic snarls. The emissions from such long idling time are obviously massive.

For buses, the research team used GPS logs for two days (November 1-2, 2012) from 941 state buses covering most of Delhi's road network. The GPS data for buses is archived by DIMTS. A similar centralized system is not available for other transport modes, so the team collected data using a "floating car method". A mix of 10 professional car drivers, 20 professional three-wheeler drivers and three researchers using two-wheelers drove around the city with a GPS device on the dashboard between 6am and midnight. The total distance covered during the exercise was 2160 km for cars, 1,210 km for three-wheelers and 650 km for two-wheelers. Of the total travel time of vehicles, idling time for cars was found to be 24%, three-wheelers 18%, buses 37% and for two-wheelers it was 20%. The team defines idling to be the time spent by the vehicle running at less than 4 kmph speed.

Read more @ Times of India

Friday, December 12, 2014

NOx and PM Pollution Down by 30%, if Personal Vehicles are Cut by 50% in Paris

When it comes to city pollution, Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo is clearly ready for battle. Speaking to the French press Sunday, Paris’ first female mayor announced what could be the most drastic anti-pollution measures any major world city has implemented yet: By 2020, no diesel fuel at all will be burnt within Paris. Regular cars will be banned outright from its more polluted roads, which will be open solely to electric and hybrid vehicles. Meanwhile, the city’s most central districts (the first four arrondissements) will be barred to all but residents’ vehicles, deliveries, and emergency services, transforming Paris’ Right Bank core into a semi-pedestrian zone. As a counterbalance, the number of cycle lanes will be doubled by 2020, while the city will fund an extended electric bikeshare scheme to encourage more people to get on two wheels. “I want us to be exemplary” Mayor Hidalgo has declared. She seems to be putting money where her mouth is.

Paris restricts car and motorcycle use - alternate driving days based on registration number (BBC).

If these plans sound drastic, it’s because the problem is, too. Central Paris is still traffic-snarled and often overlaid with toxic fug, evidence of a pollution splurge that the French press claims reduces the average Paris metro area citizen’s life expectancy by six months. In the past year, Paris has already taken some unprecedented measures to combat the problem. During a pollution spike this March, the city went as far as banning cars with odd-numbered license plates from entering Paris proper in a bid to cut city traffic. Coupled with free public transport, this measure had a perhaps surprising effect: It actually worked, with nitrogen dioxide and particulate levels dropping hard—by as much as 30 percent in places.

Real time air quality information from European Cities.

Since coming to power in March, Hidalgo has kept on a roll with anti-pollution measures to back up this tough stance. She’s already started getting rid of city buses that run on diesel, a particular national bugaboo in France because previous state policies heavily promoted its use. Now its greater particulate and nitrogen dioxide emissions have provoked an official backlash, and Paris wants engines burning the fuel off the roads. It’s only fair to point out that by creating 25 percent of Paris’ particulate pollution, road transport is just one source of the city’s problem. Another substantial chunk—23 percent in total—comes from heating with wood fires. You might expect the city to deal with this problem first—and in fact, they have. As of January 1, 2015, all wood fires will be banned within Paris proper.

Thursday, December 11, 2014

Air Pollution at Public Places in Delhi is Getting Worse

The air you are breathing through the day may be far worse than what the government's pollution monitoring tells you. Because we often spend long hours near emission sources--on footpaths, along heavily congested roads, in an autorickshaw in peak traffic and even in parks during morning walks.
To assess what our real exposure may be like, TOI, in association with Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), spent a day monitoring hourly PM 2.5 (fine, respirable particles) on CSE's portable air quality monitoring device in front of schools, hospitals, shopping areas and traffic cop booths.

The idea was to understand what kind of air pollution levels children on their way to schools or patients outside hospitals may be exposed to. The hourly PM 2.5 averages logged at these locations were compared with the ambient air quality monitored by Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC)'s monitoring stations near the locations.

The results were very disturbing -outside Mother's International School on Aurobindo Marg, for instance, the average for 8 am to 9 am was 718 micrograms per cubic metre! While there is no official safe standard for an hourly average, the 24-hour average for PM 2.5 in India is about 60 micrograms per cubic metre. Inside All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS) campus, between 9.10 am and 10.10 am, the hourly average was 493 micrograms per cubic metre. Considering that patients with low immunity go to the hospital, they may be exposing themselves to more complications in such conditions.

Read more @ Times of India

Air Pollution Sources Analyzed Near Taj Mahal

The discoloration of the Taj Mahal, a seventeenth-century mausoleum built by Shah Jahan for his wife, Mumtaz Mahal, is caused by airborne carbon particles and dust, according to a study conducted by scientists from the Georgia Institute of Technology, the Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur, the Archaeological Survey of India, and the University of Wisconsin.

http://urbanemissions.info/comic-source-apportionment.html

Read more @ Archaeology

The scientists took air samples at the site, and placed pieces of marble near the main dome. After two months, the samples were collected and analyzed with an electron microscope. “Our team was able to show that the pollutants discoloring the Taj Mahal are particulate matter: carbon from burning biomass and refuse, fossil fuels, and dust—possibly from agriculture and road traffic. We have also been able to show how these particles could be responsible for the brownish discoloration observed,” said Michael Bergin of Georgia Tech.

The monument is routinely cleaned with clay to maintain the brightness of the marble, but until now, there had not been a systematic study of the causes of the discoloration. “Some of these particles are really bad for human health, so cleaning up the Taj Mahal could have a huge health benefit for people in the entire region,” Bergin added. To see photographs of another iconic Indian site, see "The Islamic Stepwells of Gujarat."

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Health Burden of Air Pollution from Coal-Fired Power Plants in India

The Indian government’s plans to expand its coal-based power production could result in hundreds of thousands of premature deaths by 2030 due to increase in emissions. A new report (PDF) by Mumbai-based non-profit, Conservation Action Trust, and Urban Emissions, an independent research group, estimates that in another 15 years between 186,500 and 229,500 people may die premature deaths annually as a result of a spike in air pollution caused by coal-fired power plants. Asthma cases associated with coal fired power plants, the report added, are also expected to grow to 42.7 million by 2030. That is roughly one in every thirty persons in the country. Article first appeared @ Quartz

Last month, India’s power Minister Piyush Goyal announced his ambitious plans of doubling domestic coal production by 2019 and provide 24×7 electricity to households and businesses nationwide. With such aggressive expansion plans, the report estimates that coal generation capacity is set to increase 300% from 159 gigawatts (GW) currently to 450 GW in 2030. This increase would be achieved by trebling India’s coal consumption from 660 million tonnes (MT) to 1800 MT a year, while yielding a similar jump in annual carbon emissions.

http://qz.com/308823/this-map-shows-where-indians-will-be-killed-by-coal-pollution/

Outdoor air pollution has largely been ignored in the country. A recent WHO report ranked Delhi as the most polluted city in the world, along with 12 other Indian cities in the top 20. But there seems to be little in the way of strong policy that the government is keen on introducing. The air pollutants typically includes sulphur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), carbon monoxide and particulate matter, which are categorised as PM2.5 and PM10. Particles of less than 2.5 micrometres in diameter (PM2.5) should ideally not exceed 10 micrograms per cubic metre as per WHO standards. At its worst, Delhi recorded 153 micrograms of PM2.5 per cubic metre, a staggering 1500% greater than permissible levels.

Coal-fired power generation contributes roughly 15% of the annual PM_2.5emissions and approximately 50% of the Sulphur dioxide emissions. Given India’s coal expansion plans, the emission of these pollutants is set to double, the report notes. But there is a way to control this crisis, without stifling power generation, the report suggestions. Enforcing the use of Flue-gas desulfurization (FGD) to scrub out the highly toxic sulphur during or after the burning of coal could bring down premature deaths by as much as 50% annually.

India also doesn’t have any emissions standards to limit the amount of sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides belched out by power generation units. Coupled with a lack of effective monitoring systems, power generators and other industries have had a free ride in the country so far. With the proposed dilution of environmental norms, it is hard to see if stringent emissions standards will ever be introduced in the country. The report also recommends changes in the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) of coal-fired power plants that will mandate the project proponents to consider impacts beyond a 10 kilometer radius of the site.

In monetary terms, the report estimates that, utilising FGD technology could reduce healthcare related costs by between Rs12,200 crore and Rs20,300 crore. But that it will also save thousand of lives across the country is perhaps a more urgent reason to consider its enforcement.

Britain Declares Air Pollution as a "Public Health Crisis"

Britain on Monday declared air pollution a "public health crisis" with the Environmental Audit Committee warning that air pollution in the UK kills nearly as many people as smoking does.

This has led to a recommendation that new schools, hospitals and care homes must not be built next to air pollution hotspots to help reduce the tens of thousands of deaths currently being caused by nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and particulate pollution every year. Existing schools next to busy roads should also be fitted with air filtration systems, EAC committee chief Joan Walley said.

There are an estimated 29,000 deaths in the UK from air pollution each year.

Saturday, December 06, 2014

Struggling with Smog in LA and Beijing

“Choking,” “post-apocalyptic” or just “crazy bad,” Beijing’s air pollution problem is obvious to anyone who spends more than a little time in the city. In a survey by the Pew Research Center last year, 47 percent of Chinese respondents cited air pollution as a “very big problem,” comparable to corruption and income disparity. The figure was up from 36 percent in 2012. But Beijing is also not the only city to have faced dire pollution. On a recent visit to Beijing, Eric Garcetti, the mayor of Los Angeles, reminded participants at a seminar at Peking University that America’s second-most-populous city also once wrestled with foul air.

“Our first smog attack came during World War II, and it was so bad that some thought it was a chemical weapons attack by Japanese forces,” Mr. Garcetti said. He listed rapid population growth and an increase in the number of motor vehicles as contributors to environmental woes in both Beijing and Los Angeles.

Beijing's Marathon Masked with Air Pollution !!

Another who has drawn parallels between the two cities’ fight for clean air is Chip Jacobs, an author based in Los Angeles who has written extensively about this “hazy brotherhood.” In 2008, Mr. Jacobs and William J. Kelly, a senior correspondent at California Current, an energy publication, wrote “Smogtown: The Lung-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles.” Now they have turned their attention to China in “The People’s Republic of Chemicals,” the story of how the country finds itself, in the authors’ words, “a toxified netherworld.” A Chinese edition is set for release next year by the Central Party School Publishing House. In an interview, Mr. Jacobs discussed Beijing, Los Angeles and the role of the public in battling smog:

Curbing Coal Consumption in Beijing

Without getting all statistical, a metropolis’s air pollution tends to be a direct reflection of that city’s culture. Los Angeles since the early 1900s, well before the ribbon-cutting for the first freeway, was designed for the automobile. People migrated here from the East Coast, searching for wider spaces, less vertical apartment living and personal mobility. That’s one reason Southern Californians owned more cars per capita than anywhere else, and the prime cause of smog. Uncombusted fumes from car tailpipes produce hydrocarbons that react in bright sunshine with other gases, especially nitrogen oxide, to form ozone, the chemical that aggravates breathing and causes multiple health problems. Note: Ozone, being invisible, is not what creates that gray overhang.

IBM Mapping Air Pollution in Beijing in Search of Effective Management

Now, let’s turn to China, where the bulk of the air pollution emanates not from ozone, but rather from sulfur and particulate matter spewed by coal-burning equipment, from power generators and heavy industry — cement, smelters, ironworks, hard-goods manufacturing. My concern is that while President Xi Jinping agreed for China to cap its coal consumption by 2030, the country could have 400 million cars by then, meaning that the country could be just swapping one sort of smog for another.

Local Sources are More Responsible for Air Pollution in Beijing

Already, Americans are feeling that in regular plumes of Chinese ozone uplifted onto the jet stream, aimed right at the U.S. West Coast. Some days in Los Angeles, one-quarter of our ozone was “made in China.” Think about the irony of that, given our evolving understanding that a third of China’s greenhouse gases are produced manufacturing Western goods.

Read more of the interview @ New York Times

Thursday, November 27, 2014

WHO Recommends Guidelines for Indoor Air Pollution

WHO recommendations, released today, highlight the dangers of burning fuels like unprocessed coal and kerosene in the home, and set targets for reducing emissions of health-damaging pollutants from domestic cookstoves, space heaters and fuel-based lamps.

Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves

The new "WHO guidelines for indoor air quality: household fuel combustion" stress the need to improve access to cleaner home energy sources such as liquefied petroleum gas, biogas, natural gas and ethanol, or electricity, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. These new guidelines come after WHO findings earlier this year revealed that more than 7 million deaths – one in eight of total global deaths – are due to indoor or outdoor air pollution exposure. According to the estimates, some 4.3 million people worldwide die every year from household air pollution emitted by rudimentary biomass and coal cookstoves.

The guidelines include emissions targets for different kinds of domestic appliances, for both carbon monoxide and fine particulate matter. The targets are the result of years of review of the health impacts of household air pollution emissions and careful examination of the levels by which emissions would have to be reduced in order to meet WHO guidelines for air quality.

National Biomass Cookstoves Program

The new guidelines recommend halting the use of unprocessed coal as a household fuel. Coal contains toxic elements such as arsenic, lead and mercury. The incomplete combustion of coal in inefficient stoves and space heaters can lead to severe illness and premature death. The use of kerosene as a household fuel is also discouraged amid concerns around its adverse impact on air quality and safety. Kerosene is also associated with burns, fires and poisoning.

In homes with open-burning and unvented coal or biomass stoves, emissions of particulate matter and other pollutants can be 100 times higher than WHO-recommended levels. Such pollutants are carcinogenic and cause heart and lung disease through impairing immune response, reducing the oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood, causing systemic inflammation and ischemia, among other physiological disturbances.

In order to meet the new targets, there needs to be rapid scale-up in access to cleaner and more modern cooking and heating appliances, as well as lamps, in developing country homes, says Dr Carlos Dora, WHO Coordinator for Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health.

Saturday, November 22, 2014

The State of Climate - TED Talk by Nicholas Stern

How can we begin to address the global, insidious problem of climate change — a problem that’s too big for any one country to solve? Economist Nicholas Stern lays out a plan, presented to the UN’s Climate Summit in 2014, showing how the world’s countries can work together on climate. It’s a big vision for cooperation, with a payoff that goes far beyond averting disaster. He asks: How can we use this crisis to spur better lives for all?

Friday, November 21, 2014

Tackle air pollution to kickstart climate action

Carbon Brief - Air pollution is a huge problem worldwide, killing millions of people each year. Further warming will only increase the size of the problem, according to a Nature article today. It's time efforts to curb soot, ozone and other pollutants in the atmosphere got more attention at an international level, the researchers argue. Getting serious about air pollution could provide the impetus needed to tackle climate change more effectively.

Methane, ozone, nitrogen dioxide and soot (or black carbon) all contribute to poor air quality. Air pollution is already the leading environmental cause of ill-health, leading to about seven million premature deaths each year from respiratory and circulatory illnesses. Earlier today, the European Council ruled the UK must take urgent action to address dangerous levels of air pollution. A number of major cities, including London, are lagging behind targets to reduce nitrogen dioxide to legal limits by the January 2015 deadline. The burden of ill-health is likely to increase in cities by mid century, as air pollution interacts with further greenhouse gas warming, research shows.

Tackling both at once could reap benefits, the paper explains. For example, electric cars powered from renewable sources curb air pollution in the short term, and reduce demand for carbon-intensive fuel. This kind of joined up thinking could avoid legislation in one area cancelling out progress in the other. The paper warns that some strategies to cut carbon emissions could worsen air pollution, and vice versa.

Air Pollution News & Alerts - November 21st, 2014

Last on October 25th, 2014