China's sulfur dioxide emissions in 2005 totalled 25.5 million tonnes, the highest volume of any country in the world in 2005, according to Li Xinmin, Deputy Director General of the Department of Pollution Control under the State Environment Protection Administration (SEPA), who was speaking at a press conference in Beijing on August 6.
Far from reaching its goal under the 10th Five Year Plan (FYP) to reduce SO2 emission by 20% between 2001 and 2005, Li said SO2 emissions actually increased by 27% over that period. The target for the 11th FYP is to reduce SO2 emissions by 10% to 22.95 million tonnes.
Half of China's SO2 emissions are attributed to burning coal, Li said. SEPA hopes to accomplish the 10% reduction through new desulphurization technologies. As of 2005, only 14 percent of the thermal generating facilities in the country had installed desulphurization equipment, and 40% of the completed desulphurization projects are idle because of technical problems and lack of oversight.
This informational gem, not available in most stores or local newspapers, comes to us from the Environment, Science, and Technology Update which is regularly issued by the EST Section at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. They do a good job keeping track of new developments in China in these areas. You can subscribe to their email bulletin and updates (and check the archives) here. (Your tax dollars actually at work.)
On a personal note, I am off to Ambon, the Banda Islands, and West Papua in a week, mainly taking photographs of fish (for fun). I will be out of email/web contact from 9 October until early November. Everyone play nice!
Comments
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bookerly Posted 12:03 pm
01 Oct 2006
This is discouraging, but not surprising. If it has proven impossible for developed (wealthy) countries to reduce emissions, how much harder is it for developing countries?
We should all remember that one of the provisions of the Kyoto treaty calls for the transfer of technology from developed to developing countries to help them address just this kind of problem (and not just to China, to all developing countries!).
China is, of course, the most advanced of the developing countries so it hitting the big numbers first (as well as being the largest), but India will be coming along and Brazil and others.
Chinese numbers always look large because of it's size (imagine comparing the US to Monaco (grin)).
We need to find ways to address our issues as global problems. If we can work together and help each other, we will all be better off.
If.
patrick
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caniscandida Posted 4:55 pm
01 Oct 2006
sorry to digress from the serious issues of this post. I know nothing about coal technologies, or the burning of coal with older and less efficient equipment, or what kind of solution gasification might mean with regard to SO2 and CO2 emissions, or whether that would be at all appropriate for China's needs, or what kinds of options China and other developing countries practically have. Hopefully others will join Patrick in commenting.
But I do want to wish you a happy month, on what sounds like an unimaginably spectacular trip.
No doubt you will be taking many beautiful images of our wonderful fishy cousins. But if a turtle should swim into your ken, or a fetching crustacean, I hope you will not be reluctant to get its picture, and add it to your album. And presumably the plan is to display everything that passes muster online?
Hopefully you have by now taken care of getting and sending in your absentee ballot? You too, Patrick.
In response to your parting imperative, "Everyone play nice!," there are a number of things one might say. E.g.: "What do you mean?! We always play nice!" Or, "It's not my fault! He started it!" Or, more devilishly, "Play nice? What would be the fun in that?"
As it happens, our poor pal Patrick has just been slapped for not playing nice on the "Ishmael" thread. A bit of over-sensitivity on JFK's part, I think, who perhaps does not yet appreciate Patrick's rich sense of humor. But whatever. We may be confident that all will be resolved peacefully.
Anyway, while I trust we shall manage to get by in your absence without killing one another, please know that you will be missed.
Bon voyage, have fun, God speed, and "soave sia il vento."
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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bookerly Posted 6:45 pm
01 Oct 2006
I applied in August, but thanks for the reminder, I will check with my family and try to find out if it has been sent yet!!!
Did I get slapped in Ishmael?? LOL. It's not me who's complaining (grin).
Am I not playing nice? Compared to the rough stuff on the animal welfare/rights threads, I am the soul of gentility (if I do say so myself (grin)). (ROFLMAO).
Anyway I rarely find friends marching in the anti-immigrant crowd, and I remember getting threats during Prop 187 in CA. I am as likely to make peace with them as you are with Fred Phelps (hmmm, I'm not likely to make peace with him either!).
But I hope Robert has a good time. It's National Day holiday here and my last real break before ALL of my classes start!
pace,
patrick
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Robert Delfs Posted 8:44 pm
01 Oct 2006
Just because someone doesn't have a backbone doesn't mean they don't have a heart, or that they can't feel, or be hurt, or get crushed into an icky paste if you're not careful and accidentally put something heavy down on top of them. That's why it sometimes pays to be a crustacean or - if you're a mollusk - to have a good hard shell, But nudibranchs and holothurians still rock.
Not all inverts are shy, retiring, or small. Tridacna gigas (below) is the biggest bivalve mollusc species in the world, and this one, at Melissa's Reef in Raja Empat, is the biggest individual I've ever seen. Longways, it measured about 1.7 meters. The non-mollusk is Mark Heighes, who I will be diving with on this coming trip as well.
http://www.tabula-international.com/UW/UI/RE/dscf6331_F.jpg
And my ballot's in the mail. But I do regret that I'll probably miss all the Thomas Foley jokes that I'm sure are about to hit the net-osphere.
Robert Delfs
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robertmacelvain Posted 12:07 am
02 Oct 2006
In the year 1905, Nobel physicist, Albert Einstein, published his E=mc² EQUATION, which opened the door to THE WORLD OF THE PROTON GENIE, the door to all of the abundant energy that Earth will ever need. But, nobody looked or listened except the Energy Cartel, which stood to loose its enormous wealth and power if Einstein's EQUATION should ever become implemented.
Many have attempted to implement Einstein's EQUATION, but even the most promising successful efforts are routinely thwarted.
In brief review, "E=mc²" provides the basis for extracting and fusing PROTONS from ordinary, pure water, which will ultimately make everybody on Earth so idly rich and content from the benefits of this clean, virtually-free, and inexhaustible energy supply that nobody should ever again have to worry about pollution, war, or poverty, and Mother Nature will once again regain total control of any Climate Changes.
The Atomic Doomsday Clock reads, "7 minutes until Doomsday, and counting!"
Is it too late? Or, will some ordinary, individual Tinkerer (maybe just an average high school student) rise to the occasion, connect the dots, and construct a simple physical demonstration of Einstein's EQUATION so that the entire World Population can become enlightened to the prospect of a new future of peace, contentment, and prosperity? Anything less will fail to uncork the PROTON GENIE for the benefit of mankind because "The Special Energy Interests" have sufficient resources to block any individual efforts to provide Cheap Power.
Please encourage your correspondents to link to this blog, and help spread Einstein's great-inspired VISION, "A Free-Energy Paradise On Earth."
http://howtosavecivilization.blogspot.com/
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