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Pollution over India and China will increase this 2012.
The satellite data of tropospheric pollution over Asia shows that there has been a rise in nitrogen dioxide (NO2) level over India and China. It is due to usage of more fossil fuel. At the same time, there is a decline in the level of nitrogen dioxide in Europe and US, said Andreas Richter, senior scientist, University of Bremen, Germany.
He was speaking at the Indo-German workshop on ‘challenges and opportunities in air pollution and climate change’ organised by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune on Monday.
A new study from a senior researcher at the National Center for Atmospheric Research challenges the conventional wisdom that shifting from coal to natural gas would help slow the rate of global warming. The findings suggest that a partial worldwide shift to natural gas could actually accelerate climate change through at least 2050, even if without methane leaks from gas production.
Methane is a potent heat-trapping gas and it’s unclear how much methane is released during natural gas production. The picture is further complicated by the fact that coal combustion also releases large amounts of sulfates and other particles that tend to cool temperatures by blocking incoming solar radiation — as bad as those byproducts may be for the environment.
“Relying more on natural gas would reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, but it would do little to help solve the climate problem,” said researcher Tom Wigley, who is also an adjunct professor at the University of Adelaide in Australia. “It would be many decades before it would slow down global warming at all, and even then it would just be making a difference around the edges.”
Wigley’s study attempts to take a more comprehensive look at the issue by incorporating the cooling effects of sulfur particles associated with coal burning and by analyzing the complex climatic influences of methane, which affects other atmospheric gases such as ozone and water vapor.
By running a series of computer simulations, Wigley found that a 50 percent reduction in coal and a corresponding increase in natural gas use would lead to a slight increase in worldwide warming for the next 40 years of about 0.1 degree. The reliance on natural gas could then gradually reduce the rate of global warming, but temperatures would drop by only a small amount compared to the 5.4 degrees of warming projected by 2100 under current energy trends.
If the rate of methane leaks from natural gas could be held to around 2 percent, for example, the study indicates that warming would be reduced by less than 0.2 degrees by 2100. The reduction in warming would be more pronounced in a hypothetical scenario of zero leaks, which would result in a reduction of warming by 2100 of about 0.2-0.3 degrees. But in a high leakage rate scenario of 10 percent, global warming would not be reduced until 2140.
‘Reverse osmosis’ can create expensive disposal problem for cities.
A new treatment system that produces cleaner drinking water also could cause pollution problems for several central Ohio cities.
“Reverse osmosis” forces water from streams and wells through membranes that filter out even microscopic bits of minerals and dirt. Columbus is studying it. Delaware and Marysville plan to use it.
It’s one way to meet tougher state and federal drinking-water mandates. But for every 10 gallons of water run through such systems, there’s as much as 2 gallons of “reject water,” which contains pollutants that didn’t get past the filter.
This reject water contains so much organic matter and minerals that the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency fears it could kill fish and other aquatic wildlife if it’s dumped into streams.
A factory in the eastern province of Anhui operated illegally for years a few feet away from homes. In 2010 they nine cases of lead pollution were officially recorded. The government is in trouble, as evidenced by the conviction of the activist who exposed the scandal of melamine-tainted milk.
Another pollution scandal in China, and in this case the victims are children: 24 children aged between nine months and 16 years were hospitalized for lead poisoning. About 200 children in the town of Gaohe in the eastern province of Anhui suffer from an excessive concentration of lead in their blood. This is the latest in a long series of incidents of pollution, often with heavy metals, which have affected the provinces of Shandong, Hunan, Shaanxi, Jiangsu and Guangdong in the past two years.
The county government accuses Gahoe Boru battery factory for the pollution. The factory has been operating illegally since 2007 in the immediate vicinity of a residential area. The authorities said that the plant was closed last month, when the first case of pollution was discovered. But residents say that the factory was still active until January 5. And complain that the authorities have not closed another battery factory nearby, which they consider to be another major source of pollution. Both plants are a few dozen meters away from the houses, and residents say they have lived for years in fear of being poisoned.
China will step up its controls over the mining of rare earths and release new industry standards to cut pollution, a minister and media said on Friday, after the world’s biggest supplier cut export quotas for the minerals.
China, which produces about 97 percent of the global supply of the vital metals, slashed its export quota by 35 percent for the first half of 2011 compared with a year earlier, saying it wanted to conserve reserves and protect the environment. [ID:nTOE6BT00S]
China will “strengthen the supervision and management of mineral resources mining … and deepen control over rare earth mining capacity and extraction”, Minister of Land and Resources Xu Shaoshi said on a webcast on the ministry’s website (www.mlr.gov.cn). He did not elaborate.
Xu added that China’s campaign against illegal rare earths mining and effort to better manage the industry had achieved “notable results”.
Meanwhile, new environmental standards, described as “stringent” by an expert who helped draft the rules, would limit the amount of permissible pollutants in each litre of waste water, the official China Daily said.
Under the rules, expected to pinch rare earths miners with raised environmental protection costs, levels of ammonia nitrogen would be cut from 25 milligrams to 15 milligrams per litre, and radioactive elements and phosphorus emissions would be reduced.
A world leader in advanced engineering solutions for the optimization of combustion systems and emissions control in utility and industrial applications, today announced receipt of air pollution control (APC) orders in China, for a variety of its technologies, totaling $2.7 million.
The largest of these orders was the award of an ASCR(TM) Advanced SCR project for two industrial coal-fired units near Shanghai. Each of the units incorporates Fuel Tech’s combined Low NOx Burner (LNB), Over-Fire Air (OFA), NOxOUT(R) Selective Non-Catalytic Reduction (SNCR) and Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) technologies. The ASCR process is a multi-stage system that offers advantages over full-scale SCR systems, including fuel flexibility, staged NOx compliance, and lower capital costs driven by reduced catalyst sizing, limited footprint and lower infrastructure requirements, while delivering similar nitrogen oxide (NOx) reductions. Equipment deliveries for this project are scheduled for the third quarter of 2011.
Pakistan is the most vulnerable country to the atmospheric depletion of Ozone layer due to inadequate resources to overcome the effects of environmental degradation.
It is high time to change behaviour towards environment by creating awareness among the masses, said Federal Minister for Environment Hameed Ullah Jan Afridi while addressing “Workshop for Awareness on Ozone Layer and Montreal Protocol Activities in Pakistan” organised by the Environment Ministry in collaboration with the UNDP, UNIDO and UNEP here on Friday.
“Ozone layer depletion has been a world-wide concern for last two decades. Almost 196 UN member countries have signed the Montreal Protocol which shows the commitment of the entire world to tackle the problem of ozone layer depletion, which is essential for sustainable life on this Planet, said Afridi, adding that Ozon layer, which is so essential for life on earth, is unfortunately being depleted due to a few man-made chemicals.
Afridi further said that Pakistan is fully committed to its international obligations towards protecting the earth. Referring to COP 16 at Cancun, Mexico, he said that scientists and environmentalists had laid special emphasis on promoting activities to minimise Ozone depleting substances by establishing multilateral fund.
ISLAMABAD: Minister for Environment Hameedullah Jan Afridi on Saturday said that Ozone layer depletion in the atmosphere had been a worldwide concern for the last more than two decades.
He was addressing the ‘Workshop for Awareness on Ozone Layer and Montreal Protocol Activities in Pakistan’ organised with the collaboration of UNDP, UNIDO and UNEP.
As many as 196 member countries of the world have signed the Montreal Protocol to tackle the problem of the depletion of ozone layer, which is essential for sustainable life on this Planet, he said.
Afridi said that it was time to change the behaviour towards environment by creating awareness among the masses because Pakistan was the most vulnerably country and did not had adequate resources to over come the effects of environmental degradation.
The minister said that it was encouraging that world community had decided to face this challenge, collectively. He said Pakistan was fully committed to its international obligations towards protecting the earth. Referring to COP 16 at Cancun, Mexico, The minister said that scientists and environmentalists had laid special emphasis for promoting activities to minimise Ozone depleting substances by establishing multilateral fund.
Afridi said that global community especially the developing countries were facing the challenge for elimination of Hydro-chlorofluorocarbons (HCFC) in foam and refrigeration industry. “It is a second kind of Ozone depleting chemical substance which although has low Ozone Depleting Potential (ODP), yet it possessed high Global Warming Potential (GWP),” he said.
بلدية دبي / حماية طبقة الأوزون / مواد التبريد / ندوة .
دبي في 7 ديسمبر / وام / نظم قسم الدراسات والتخطيط البيئي التابع لإدارة البيئة في بلدية دبي ندوة حول استخدام مواد التبريد والسياسات التنظيمية تجاه مقررات منظمة الأمم المتحدة لحماية البيئة “يونيب” .
حضر الندوة عدد من منسقي الدوائر الحكومية وأصحاب الوكالات التجارية الكبرى في دبي المستخدمة لمواد التبريد وكان ودار موضوع الندوة حول شعار اليوم العالمي لحماية طبقة الأوزون / حماية طبقة الأوزون والحوكمة والامتثال في أفضل أشكالهما /.
وأدار الندوة المهندس أحمد عبد الله الجسمي رئيس قسم الدراسات والتخطيط البيئي الذي اكد التزام البلدية المتواصل والقوي بتعزيز التواصل مع كافة فئات المجتمع والالتزام بالمعايير البيئية التي تشكل جزءاً رئيسياً من واجباتها .
فيما قام المهندس نارسيسو زاكارياس الأخصائي في إدارة البيئة بإطلاع المشاركين في الندوة على أحدث جدول زمني للتخلص التدريجي من المواد المستنزفة للأوزون والإجراءات التي اتخذتها إدارة البيئة تجاه التخلص غير السليم من عبوات التبريد الفارغة وطرق التحكم من التسرب لأجهزة التبريد أثناء عمليات الصيانة وآلية الحد من هذه المخالفات..
The Cuban Ozone Technical Office (OTOZ) ratified in Havana the banning of the imports of six kinds of harmful gasses for the ozone layer, in accordance with the Montreal Protocol of 1987.
A specialist from OTOZ, Inés Sanchez told ACN that the banning to eliminate the buying of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) 11, 12, 13, 113, 114, 115, as well as Carbon tetrachloride came into effect since January.
CFCs are non-poisonous odorless gasses and, as well as Freon, are used as dispersant agents in aerosol sprays.
On the stratosphere, they destroy the protective layer of the atmosphere which is about 15 and 50 kilometers from the earth.
The manufacture of these gasses, refrigerants, aerosols, plastic foams and fire prevention systems began to be eliminated gradually by the end of the 80’s due to the threat they represent the ozone layer.
OTOZ coordinates and controls the national program of the Montreal Protocol, signed on September 16, 1987, aiming at eradicating these so harmful substances for the planet in the country.
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