On Scale of 0 to 500, Beijing’s Air Quality Tops ‘Crazy Bad’ at 755 | Hacker News Reader

On Scale of 0 to 500, Beijing’s Air Quality Tops ‘Crazy Bad’ at 755

nytimes.com

190 pointsmactitan109 comments

I was in Beijing for Chinese New Year for a couple weeks in 2009, and when I flew in, I couldn't see the enormous city at all from the sky. It was completely hidden in a cloud of smog. There was some of the worst air quality of the year at that time from all the fireworks plus being the coldest time of year (so everyone is burning coal fires), and a ton of debris in the air from a 44 floor skyscraper that burned to the ground down the street (video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hSPFL2Zlpg)

I never really knew what coal burning smelled like before. Even in the city it isn't allowed, but once we left and went to a smaller town outside Beijing that's when I really got it. It is the heat source for 99% of the population, plus it powers most of the factories. There were days where we were told we shouldn't be outside unless absolutely necessary (which was, since my husband had to commute to his job at Microsoft). At night if you blew your nose your tissue would be grey. If you took a shower, the water would run grey from dust wherever your skin had been exposed. Your clothes would be dusted in a thin layer of gray that never really went away. We tried to combat this by changing out of our clothes just inside the front door and putting them straight into the wash, but it never really went away.

I grew up in a household with harsh winters and coal as the only heating source. As such I can state, that coal is a pretty inconvenient heat source. You have to carrie all the coal you burn from the basement, it requires time to start up, needs permanent oversight and it's almost impossible to adjust the heat to the exact level you want. So my hope is that, as China becomes wealthier, they will abolish coal as a heating source, just for convenience.

It's a little more convenient in at least most of the cities in China. There are coal burning plants every so often in the city, they heat up the water and pipe it through to the nearby apartment buildings. So the average citizen doesn't have to handle the coal.

Of course, this means you don't get to control your heat, and it never heats up that much, just keeps you from freezing. And if winter comes early, you still have to wait for November 15 for when the heat gets turned on.

Why doesn't it heats up much? Is this specific to China?

I live in Russia, we have the same system (coal and gas plants generating not only electricity but heat for homes) and this system is perfectly capable of delivering +28C inside when it's -30C outside. It varies from house to house, but "keeps you from freezing" is not the default.

My guess, from the houses I went into, is their construction. I have to emphasize these are not houses like any first-world person would think of, as soon as you leave the big city there is very little that is modern about China - they're hapharzardly made with found objects, mud that has been packed and dried, thick layers of grasses woven and turned into sheets of ceiling tiles. Everything is handmade, and I have to imagine they are constantly searching for sources of heat loss and patching them. A lot of people also were burning dried animal waste, which was the worst smelling thing I can imagine enduring 24/7. I would be willing to bet if you are really poor you are also getting third rate coal, with lots of fillers that reduce its caloric output of heat (and it is cheaper).

I doubt they have central heating in hand made houses. It's usually limited to apartment blocks in cities.

Right, they have a coal stove in the room heating the space.

> if winter comes early, you still have to wait for November 15 for when the heat gets turned on.

This happens in the first world, too. In Minneapolis (where I currently live) landlords are, on paper, required to provide at least 68°F starting October 1st. In my experience they turn on the heat a week or two after that, whenever they get around to it, basically. You have nothing for the cold late-September days. You don't control your heat in multifamily buildings, and sometimes it's more like 60° or below and you have to nag the landlord for a week to turn it up. There was a week right around Christmas where I could practically see my breath.

I imagine you can buy your way out of this by paying (a lot) more to rent a nicer, more modern place, but for many, of course, that's not an option.

I don't know about Minneapolis, but in MA you can withhold rent if the landlord isn't meeting their obligations. (Downside is making the landlord-tenant relationship more adversarial.)

Yup, MN has that, but the more you complain and fight with a landlord, the more likely they nail you on some technicality, and there goes $100+ of your security deposit on move-out. Then, even if their claim is clearly bogus, a court victory's far from assured and the filing fee would be almost as great as the amount you lost.

Maybe I've just been unlucky but the housing law story in MN seems extremely unfavorable to tenants. Washington, DC was much better. I heard it has tenant-friendly laws but I never had to test that.

NYC is about as first world as it gets, and they still use the steam system from the 1800's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_steam_system

I'm sorry, but NYC isn't about as "first world is it gets". From the power, to the plumbing, to the buildings and sewers, and even city-scaping, it's decidedly antiquated compared to many Western Eurpean and Asian countries.

I live in a newish apartment building with good insulation. I always have to open a window because it gets so hot (after the turn on date of course, which was early this year).

Think of the poor college students in southern china who don't have heat at all in their dorms (the government, in their wisdom, said heat isn't needed south of the Yangtze). Every year more than a few of them die in fires using some haphazard electrical device to try and stay warm.

I saw the pictures taken in Pittsburgh in the 1950s, where they had to have street lights on at noon in winter. I also saw the soot-incrusted facade of the Pittsburgh Carnegie Library before it was sandblasted clean in the late 1980s.

(By then, the steel mills, and the respective steel-worker housing, were a heartbreaking ghost town for miles along the Monongahela river.)

There are also the stories of the London "fogs" (really bad smogs) in the late 1800s. Coal is better than no power, but it has nasty consequences. Getting past it is tough, and it takes time and investment.

London fogs continued into the 1950s, notably the "Great Smog" of 1952, which was ultimately thought to have killed some 12,000, and sickened 100,000 more. Visibility was a poor as 1 meter, or worse.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog

I lived there in '08 and '09. You cannot believe it until you have seen it. The difference during the Olympics was stark. For example, my apartment in Shijingshan had a view of a mountain (~5 mi) and a comm tower (~1 mi). I lived in that apartment for a month before I ever saw either of them. The 'Jing rarely gets full sunlight, rather there is this kind of yellowish lambertian light source in the white-ish gray sky. People who espouse environmental deregulation should go check it out.

I heard that the change during the Olympics was remarkable. How come the actions they took to clean up didn't stick? You would think that when everyone saw the difference, there'd be a lot of support for fixing the underlying problems.

They even shutdown many factories temporarily before the games. Guess many are back on.

Also, the city (an many others) grew a lot since 2008. Lots more traffic, heating, etc.

Not defending the government, but the problem has also grown bigger.

It required them to shut down a lot of industrial production. A temporary pause in production was a reasonable sacrifice for the Olympics. After the games were over, they worked overtime to catch up. Beijingers have lived with it their whole lives, it is normal for them.

They had the Olympics in August, which normally isn't that bad. If you ever want to visit Beijing, come in fall, and avoid winter.

> People who espouse environmental deregulation should go check it out.

This is a very interesting comment. Right now in Canada, we have a Conservative majority government that is absolutely hell-bent on environmental deregulation. Their supporters almost exclusively bring up China as the primary reason why environmental deregulation is so important to them ("if we kept our existing regulations, our economy would tank since China would make so much more money").

I very much doubt seeing the skies in Beijing would change anything, but I wonder. Perhaps a campaign in Canada to show images of what China is like would make a difference; on the other hand, the supporters of the environmental deregulation are not the type of people to care about air quality. They value a "strong economy" and money above absolutely everything else, and think that Canada needs to pollute more and more, as much as it can in fact, in order to be a reasonable country in the future.

Air pollution control tends to be extremely cost effective. The benefits from reducing childhood asthma and friends tend to more than pay for remediation technology.

Also, people are weird. In the last few decades, there was a huge push to reduce American coal burning plants SOx emissions because of acid rain. It was surprising how much people responded to lakes dying.

> Air pollution control tends to be extremely cost effective. The benefits from reducing childhood asthma and friends tend to more than pay for remediation technology.

that is only true if it is taxpayers who foot the bill for the technology/equipment. If you were a plant operator, you wouldnt want to install expensive air scrubbers to reduce polution, but which won't actually net you any extra profit.

The gov't has to create incentive schemes - otherwise, the rational actor will use the path of least resistance to profit, and i suspect that path won't include pollution reduction measures.

The cost-benefit ratio changes hugely depending upon the economic development of the country. In a country where individuals are highly-educated and produce a lot of economic value, sure, better health outcomes can be very prudent investments. In a country like China where educational levels are lower, economic value produced by individuals lower, then the numbers are completely different. Lives are unfortunately cheaper there.

They are not hell bent. That is an exaggeration. If all of their policies were enacted we'd still be much, much more like Canada than China.

This isn't a case of regulation or no regulation-- most of the worst polluters in China are state-owned enterprises. Just cutting off national and local government subsidies for industry would do a great deal to stop the pollution.

How does privatizing the companies make them more inclined to use more expensive, cleaner technologies?

It causes the factories that are operating at a loss but being supported by subsidies to shut down, the cleanest technology of all.

Getting rid of the agricultural price supports in the US would probably help the runoff situation in the Gulf of Mexico, too.

And this is the problem with analyzing things in isolation.

Tell me, what do you think the next step will be after they shutdown?

People need that energy after all - it's not like people will just shrug and go "oh well, no heat for me".

You will actually end up making things worse, under the guise of making things better. Just like a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, an analysis in isolation is worse than useless - it can actually cause you to promote actions that result in the diametric opposite of what you want.

You have good company: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5051285 did the same as you and was rightly skewered for it.

Efficient power plants produce less pollution for the same energy output. So replacing old power plants often reduces pollution even when that's not the goal.

Most industrial sized power plants have pretty similar efficiency levels. Maybe you'll get an extra 10% for a really good model, but the difference is not dramatic.

Pollution controls cost money, and some energy. They will only be installed if customers (or customers via the government) demand it.

Don't forget that's ~10% thermal efficiency so your really talking about 30% increase in power from the same coal. On top of that they they go for a more complete burn which reduces things like CO and NOx which would otherwise produce smog.

I'm not following your math of 10% suddenly becoming 30%.

I pulled the 10% number out of thin air, so I'm kinda curious how you decided that was thermal efficiency.

Who is this "they" that goes for a more complete burn? Power plant operators will go for the cheapest unit that works reasonably.

Ahh, I did not think you where pulling numbers from thin air so I just parced it as thermal efficiency so the numbers worked out.

Average coal power plant in the US has ~32-33% thermal efficiency with plenty in the sub 30% range. The best singe cycle coal power plant has 42% thermal efficiency so saying there is a 10% difference is a good ballpark a for thermal efficiency. X thermal energy times (0.3 + .1) is ~30% more than X thermal energy times 0.3.

PS: I do find it hard to be clear when doing lots of efficiency calculations using %'s.

State agencies may be immune from prosecution for environmental crime and have no incentive to account for payment of legal damages. Additionally, they may be immune to demand shocks and have no incentive to account for consumer boycott over harmful business practices.

Small changes in incentives have large effects:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/09/09/129757852/pop-quiz...

A lot of the SOE's aren't economical and flat-out wouldn't exist in a private marketplace. Further, many times, the most wasteful, old, and inefficient equipment is also the worst polluting.

As should people who believe that strong central governments are likely to make wise long-term decisions. See also: Chernobyl.

Hum, late summer/fall in Beijing is usually pretty good, so there wasn't much risk during the Olympics (it was easy to mitigate). Now winter is an entirely different problem, I'm just waiting for spring to come.

Why do people move there?

Because it's better than the place they left?

This has two parts, one part is the externalization of pollution by the rich countries to developing countries, the second is the speed with which China is increasing its energy consumption due to an increase in local consumption.

Their fuel of choice (coal) doesn't help and in many ways what is happening there is comparable to what the industrial revolution did to England not all that long ago.

In 1952 (long after the start of the industrial revolution but before the end of major emissions in the UK) this culminated in the 'great smog':

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog

Which in turn led to the clean air act.

I don't think the industrial revolution comparison is correct. Pretty much all coal pollutants can be easily dealt with using air pollution control technology (except CO2, but that won't make anyone sick in the short term). The problem is that Chinese energy producers aren't interested in using that technology. Chinese officials know exactly how much of a difference electrostatic precipitators or fabric filters could make for their air quality and they know exactly how much it would cost; they just don't want to spend the money.

My father designs those systems and travelled to China in the late 80s to early 90s; China bought a little but had no interest in outfitting all of its coal-fired plants.

> I don't think the industrial revolution comparison is correct.

And then you go on to prove the point...

The industrial revolution was all about generating profits, the Chinese are doing just that, without much regard for the consequences. They won't be able to do that much longer by the looks of it. Extrapolating from the effects of the 1952 incident to Chinese scales is scary.

During the industrial revolution, people did not fully understand the health effects of air pollution. Nor did they have the technology needed to eliminate it without also eliminating the industrial revolution. Neither of those facts are true today.

I think that the fact that your father designs such systems means you're a bit more informed than the general public, in particular more informed than the general Chinese public.

As far as I can see this is just history repeating itself, until the problems are acute nobody will give a damn about the longer term consequences.

You're definitely right about that.

On the other hand, I don't think I'm any better informed than Chinese policy makers or technologists in the energy sector. I mean, the technology we're talking about really isn't rocket science: a precipitator is just a pair of plates charged to high voltage with dirty air forced through.

Moreover, Chinese elites certainly travel to the US and Europe and Hong Kong (indeed, many attend colleges abroad) and they get the differences in air quality very well. I would be very shocked if said elites never went back home and inquired as to the difference and what it would take to eliminate it.

My guess is that they could substantially reduce power plant emissions for an increased electrical cost of at most a few percent. On the other hand, I think China uses coal with a much higher sulphur content than is typically used in the US and they have substantial non-power-plant coal burning....

Just assume those Chinese elites you mentioned don't care other people's health (since it's costing them money). But how about _their_ (or their family's) health since they also share the same air?

They move _their_ own family out of china as much as possible. I assume that those elites (like the elites in other countries) would also not care about the wellbeing of others, especially if it costs them money and gains them no profit. It's just the way the world is.

They're not spending their own money, they're (ostensibly) allocating state funds like any other bureaucrats.

In China the trend is for wealthy people to buy home air purification systems. They breath the same air as everyone else when they go out, but at home it's top shelf.

A friend of mine sells building-scale air purification systems in Asia and this is definitely the case. The nicest new buildings in wealthier Chinese cities have seriously heavy duty air filtration systems and are built with heavy duty windown and door seals.

The urban middle class buys portable air filtration systems, it's a huge market.

My understanding is that for China the number one priority is more power, ASAP. So they opt for cheaper power plant designs because they want as much immediate generating capacity as they can get for their limited funds (a lot of capital yes, but spread across a very large population.) unfortunately this means skimping on investments like more efficient and lower-emitting technologies, which might save money in the long run, but cost more up front.

There may be an incompetence factor but it sounds on paper rational. Between freezing and coughing what would you pick?

Well It's time to try another sales pitch. If anything could cause a revolution you'd think this would be it.

This is just why people like me with experience in living in east Asia (Taiwan from 1982 through 1985, followed later by 1998 through 2001) were appalled that China and India were granted an out from the Kyoto Protocol international convention rules on greenhouse gas emissions. I understood as well as anyone from my experience in Taiwan that China would need time to produce as little pollution per unit of primary energy as the United States does, but not setting up any system of incentives to bring that about seemed like madness to me at the time, and still does. The United States did more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the last year (by substituting natural gas for coal in electric power generation) than China ever has since the Kyoto Protocol was signed by many countries.

>The United States did more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the last year (by substituting natural gas for coal in electric power generation) than China ever has since the Kyoto Protocol was signed by many countries.

I was going to say that the US was the largest contributor to CO2 emissions, so it would be fitting if they were also the quickest to take measures to reduce them. But this page shows otherwise:

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/global.html#fo...

That's surprising. I didn't realize China was #1 in aggregate CO2 emissions. Of course... per capita, the US is still like 3x China from the look of it.

> per capita, the US is still like 3x China from the look of it.

For now. Check the relative growth of both countries.

China growing at 13.9% pa puts it as doubling CO2 output every 5 years.

The US's 7% decline is likely an artifact of the coal -> natural gas transition, but if sustained would see the country halving use in a decade.

Per $ of GDP and per capita GDP, China is far worse. That's a far more important forward looking measure.

It was hard to find up to the minute data, but the Guardian has a slick infographic and list of quick facts using 2009 data: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jan/31/world-ca...

I'm surprised that India emits so much less than China, since the Kyoto discussions made it sound like China's per capita pollution was absolutely necessary for development.

Also shocked that Gibraltar produces 158 tons per capita (for comparison, the US is the highest per capita emitter among large economies with 18 tpc). Gibraltar is mediterranean, I wouldn't expect they'd need much heating and cooling. Maybe they're making a lot of extra power for export?

China uses a lot more energy for heating. Things may change once AC becomes more common in India, but that's still a long way off. Also, IT is a larger portion of India's GDP, which takes far less energy than manufacturing.

Face it, China and India are abusing this process. Per Capita is meaningless when a significant portion of your population has no means to contribute to the numbers other than to reduce the perceived impact.

I would love to see China's numbers when the population numbers are reduced to those who are living within the major population centers and not counting those in outlying areas who may not even have electricity.

So count people who have homes which are on the grid or its equivalent.

Smog != C02 People keep treating the two as if they're the same. They point at Beijing and think global warming.

Having more efficient power-plants, catalytic converters on cars, filtration, less use of coal, and more advanced engines in general leads to more complete combustion and less smog (less CO too).

I'm sure Beijing has lots of cars and people, but so does for instance NYC , and they don't have the same smog problems.

A third factor is airborne sand/dirt blown from from the Mongolian desert, which ends up mixing with everything else: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_Dust

> what phrase is appropriate to describe Saturday’s jaw-dropping reading of 755 at 8 p.m., when all of Beijing looked like an airport smokers’ lounge?

I was there. The truth is, it doesn't just _look_ like an smokers' lounge.

Yea, when you step off the plane and get that first taste (yes, taste) and smell of Beijing air, ick.

I dodged this one by a single day, ha. Literally the day after I left it went from a week of sun (unheard of) to <30m visibility. Can't really be too happy, because I'm still sick with a sinus infection right now.

I live here, and I have to say this, the air even tastes awful!

It's weirdly interesting to look outside and to see the streets almost empty and the darkened sky at noon.

It was worse from Friday to Saturday, but is still pretty bad. People were warned to stay inside and some schools won't function tomorrow.

According to the weather forecast it will only get better around Wednesday; when it will get a bit windy.

I was there last week, and still can't believe how bad it is. How can China allow this level of pollution? It is not the cars, but the coal that is doing it to the city. I hope China can find a way to create energy and produce goods without such bad pollution. Beijing, and China, would be a much better place to live it only had clean air to breath on a regular basis. Here is to clean energy!

It's not just Beijing. According to the polution ratings I follow, right now (it varies a lot during the day, it's 2AM here now) Beijing is ranked 16th among the ~50 cities that the government rates. The rating right now is also the same as the one posted by the US embassy here.

From what I understand, much of the pollution comes also from other industrial cities and accumulates in this general area of the country (someone that knows more about it please correct me if this is wrong).

The government seems to be taking some actions, but it is hard to know how hard they're tackling the problem.

Also in Beijing. Just in case readers don't know, the Chinese ratings are produced as a daily average, based on equipment outside the city center (i.e. near the airport), while the US ratings are produced hourly from right downtown.

So sometimes the figures are the same, but that usually only happens when coming down from the peak of a particularly bad day, when the average from the previous day's readings are pulling up the official Chinese numbers while the US figures have already fallen to reflect current conditions.

> How can China allow this level of pollution?

The tradeoff between economic growth driven by energy use (for production) and pollution.

"The environmental Kuznets curve is a hypothesised relationship between environmental quality and economic development: various indicators of environmental degradation tend to get worse as modern economic growth occurs until average income reaches a certain point over the course of development.[12] Although the subject of continuing debate, some evidence supports the claim that environmental health indicators, such as water and air pollution, show the inverted U-shaped curve.[1]

It has been argued that this trend occurs in the level of many of the environmental pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, lead, DDT, chlorofluorocarbons, sewage, and other chemicals previously released directly into the air or water."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuznets_curve

Funny you should bring up taste. I spent some time living in Buenos Aires, Argentina--another city shrouded in a perpetual smog--and had the misfortune of discovering this sooty, dusty flavor for myself. I noticed that the dry beans and grains I bought from one particular shop always had a particular off flavor to them. When rinsed, they left behind a grayish water. I finally realized that what was unique about this store (apart from the taste of their products) was that they stored everything in large open sacks and left the large doors to the store open to the street. Stores that stored their goods in closed bins and left their door to the street closed had better-tasting grains and beans.

As i arrived in beijing today, i looked out the window and saw the sky completely gray. Having spend two years in Beijing, this site is not uncommon. I remember in the summer of 2010 some days the air was so thick you could not see a half mile.

But today, the air is really bad and even in my apartment now, i can smell it. The best i can describe the smell is that of a campfire.

EDIT -> A campfire that someone threw a plastic bottle into.

This is good news, in a way. China's pollution is being carried around the world every day-- now that local weather conditions are forcing Beijing to bear the full brunt of their poison, hopefully the Chinese government will take action.

They had taken action. They knew how to. They're just not doing it.

In just a year before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, they reduced Beijing's pollution levels to "enough to see the blue sky", in time for international visitors to arrive.

They have a billion citizens. Their livelihoods cost nothing. Nothing except their face ("public image") will make them improve living standards for the masses.

They had 1 billion people 30 years ago. Now they're at 1.3 billion. That is, the United States plus 1 billion. It'll be interesting to see what happens in the next 20-30 years. Even with their problems, it's starting to look like the century of China.

It is the USA, Canada, the European Union and all of Latin America combined.

Haven't they always had more people than most other countries?

Actually China is facing a demographic decline-- from growing wealth and the echo of the "one child" policy. If demographics are all that matter, the next century will belong to India, the Middle East, and Africa.

I am not sure i would consider this good news and if the past 50 years are any indication, China is not going to take action based on the will of the outside world

The problem is daunting but I would say fracking might be the lesser of evils. (I'm curious about these huge emmisions & the these past 2 U.S.winters warm spell)

China planning 'huge fracking industry' Chinese plans to expand fracking for shale gas prompt fears over local water and international climate impacts

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/nov/27/china-plan...

I found Beijing to have poor air, but not nearly as bad as other places in China. Travel out west to Xi'an, and for much of the year it seems as though you can't even see the sky. I heard it told that living there is equivalent to smoking two packs of cigarettes per day. I don't know if that's true, but anecdotally, spending a few weeks there and I was coughing up some of the nastiest stuff I've ever seen from breathing bad air.

Keep in mind that a couple weeks from now, the Western outcry about this news will die down, but their air will still suck! When I was in Beijing, I felt so terrible for the infants I saw on the streets. My lungs felt worse than ever for the 3 days I was there, but they will likely breathe that air for their entire lives! When are Chinese people going to realize that they can't live in a giant cloud of smog?

From an email three days ago from a friend who's a teacher in Beijing:

Pollution levels were at super high, stay inside or die today. I can now predict the pollution levels by "how bad the air tastes". Copper is one. If zombies were to come walking down the street here, I would not bat an eye. I live in an apocalyptic /hyper capitalistic waste land.

> Wang Shu’ai, told American diplomats to halt the Twitter feed, saying that the data “is not only confusing but also insulting,”

Insulted by just reporting the data. Maybe shamed is the better word.

Apropos: http://www.theonion.com/video/china-celebrates-its-status-as...

A good friend of mine was there last year. He said he was constantly bleeding out of his nose during the entire stay because of the foreign particles in the air. Insane.

Same road in Beijing, Jan 9 vs 12, showing difference in visible air quality.

http://twitpic.com/buocrx

visual proof of how bad Beijing air is

http://ww1.sinaimg.cn/mw690/4aa0c35bjw1e0quzqeexrj.jpg

credit to the author on the watermark.

Why isn't china switching to natural gas faster?

They have 886 trillion cubic feet and the USA only has 750 trillion of it.

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/138597/aviezer-tucker...

NG would require a substantial capital investment; running pipelines everywhere is not cheap. It might still be cost effective if the environmental costs of coal burning could be internalized so that coal-burners paid a price, but China seems very far from a Clean Air Act, let alone a cap and trade regime.

No one yet knows if the geology is suitable for extracting the gas. Testing is just beginning. Just because there is gas does not mean it is economic right now. Fracking technology is very new.

Every country that needs more energy will turn to the same proven sources of energy the 1st world used, until a cheaper energy generation solution is available that has the same reliability as coal and oil. This is going to happen in Africa as their energy needs pick up. Solar and wind are not currently the replacements (otherwise China would use them instead).

To all those commenting on Beijing pollution: have you ever been in other Chinese cities? I have been in Shijiazhuang, Chengdu, it can be much much worse. I would like to see air quality index from these places...

But anyway Saturday was nasty in Beijing, it I have no idea if it is psychosoma or real, but I still have the smell in my nose, and headaches.

From what I have read, USA was kinda similar, especially int he pre-EPA days. I have to wonder if today's cancer rates are in large part from that, seems like everyone has /has had a relative with cancer.

After moving from California to Beijing, I would have never imagined a country that could allow this much pollution. In my apartment in the city, I can see the pollution particles collect over the past few days on the balcony. Simply amazing.

"Crazy Bad" is not exaggerated... http://brainchronicle.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/air-quality-ana...

what's the difference between PM10 and PM2.5? I mean, I know one is 10micron vs 2.5 micron, but i can't find info contrasting them.

for example, i'd expect a PM10 number to always be higher than PM2.5.... is that true? I can't find both numbers reported together to verify. :(

Smaller particles are much more damaging to your health.

Is it all just from vehicles? Quick fix would be subsidised electric vehicles.

I am sure cars contribute, but I believe the majority comes from factories outside of the city and from homes, which primarily burn coal to keep warm. Beijing is downwind from a lot of that.

> I am sure cars contribute

I doubt it. At the insane particulate levels they're discussing the air should be a lot cleaner coming out of the car than it was going in. Even if they don't have catalytic converters (anyone??) they've at least got _air filters_.

How are those electric vehicles powered, by coal? Coal is the only cheap and viable short & medium term energy resource solution for China, and a substantial problem (though only not the only source) for causing the pollution currently around Beijing.

No, free energy machines, silly! :)

Coal can be burned fairly cleanly, but requires modern equipment not the likely Soviet designed plants they have.

> Quick fix would be subsidised electric vehicles.

No, that would be an 8-lane highway straight into unintended consequences territory.

Why is there no chmod joke in here? I wish I had the understanding of unix permissions to come up with one myself =(

because this is not reddit or slashdot?

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