China Environ Prot (EP) Industry, Technology, Solid Waste Mgt, Liquid Treat: News & Discussions

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Beijing adopts regulation on emissions control
2020-01-17 16:59:10 Xinhua Editor : Cheng Zizhuo

Lawmakers in Beijing have voted through a regulation to further control the emissions of automobiles and non-road mobile machinery (NRMM) at the annual session of the municipal people's congress which concluded Friday.

The regulation will take effect on May 1.

Yu Jianhua, deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Ecology and Environment Bureau, said coal-smoke pollution has been sharply reduced, and vehicle and NRMM emissions have become the primary source of PM2.5 in the city.

NRMM is defined in the regulation as mobile machinery equipped with engine and transportable industrial equipment used in engineering, agriculture, material handling and airport ground service.

Beijing had 6.36 million registered automobiles by the end of 2019, with about 30,000 trucks coming in every day from outside the city, as well as 40,000 to 60,000 NRMMs for long-term use.

Motor vehicles with emissions exceeding the standard level will be blacklisted, and particular makes and models with high emissions rates will be traced to their manufacturers, Yu said.

Similar regulations adopted by neighboring Hebei Province and Tianjin Municipality will also take effect on May 1.

 

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China's Solid Waste Imports to End This Year, Ministry Says

ZHANG KE
DATE : JAN 17 2020/SOURCE : YICAI

China's Solid Waste Imports to End This Year, Ministry Says

,(Yicai Global) Jan. 17 -- China aims to phase out imports of solid waste by the end of the year, the culmination of a series of steps to restrict the entry of hazardous materials that can be mixed in with scrap.

Great progress has been made since strict controls were introduced two and a half years ago, Ministry of Ecology and Environment spokesperson Liu Youbin said at a press conference yesterday. So far, China has prohibited imports of 56 kinds of trash.

The country used to be the global salvage king and was the destination for most of the world's scrap which it would recycle as a source of raw materials. But since July 2017 the country began to bar imports of certain types of waste material due to environmental and public health concerns.

Shipments of solid waste into China fell over 40 percent to 13.5 million tons in 2019 from a year earlier. That represents a 71 percent decline from 2016 before the reforms were introduced.

Regulators have also done much to sever the industry chain. The ministry has a set of policies in place to charge companies that process foreign garbage with environmental violations. It is assisting firms that previously imported waste to source locally and set up domestic solid waste recovery channels. The General Administration of Customs has also made the interception of illegally imported trash one of its priorities.

https://yicaiglobal.com/news/china-solid-waste-imports-to-end-this-year-ministry-says

 

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China Sets Timetable for Plastic Ban

ZHANG KE
DATE : JAN 20 2020/SOURCE : YICAI


(Yicai Global) Jan.20 -- China will start to ban the production and sale of ultra-thin plastic shopping bags and other plastic products from this year to enhance polymer pollution control, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Ecology and Environment said in a joint statement yesterday.

The country will also prohibit plastic products made from medical waste and bar the import of plastic refuse, per the statement.

China will slash its consumption of single-use plastics and promote alternatives by the end of 2022, per the statement.

The new policy is likely to hit the e-commerce, express and food delivery sectors especially hard.

The nation will develop and promote green and environmentally friendly plastic products, explore new models of recycling regulation and set up a basic system for the production, distribution, use and recycling to lessen the volume of plastic waste landfilled in cities by 2025, according to the document.

China has more than 100,000 plastic processing companies, with about 4 million employees. Its annual use of over 100 million tons is first in the world at about a quarter of global consumption, while per capita consumption is 82 kilograms, public data show.

Its express delivery sector burned through 24.5 billion plastic bags, 14.3 billion boxes, and approximately 430 billion meters of tape in 2018. The ranks of China's food-delivery eaters topped 400 million last year, with food take-away packages being notoriously difficult to recycle.

Beijing issued a regulation forbidding retail outlets from providing plastic shopping bags for free but allowing them for a fee in June 2008.

https://yicaiglobal.com/news/china-sets-timetable-for-plastic-ban

 

[JSCh]

Climate change may be speeding up ocean circulation
Since the 1990s, wind speeds have picked up, making surface waters swirl faster

Argo floats, such as this one being deployed in the Southern Ocean, measure water temperature, salinity and current speeds. Data from such floats suggest that ocean circulation has sped up.

SOCCOM PROJECT/CARA NISSEN/FLICKR (CC BY 2.0)


By Carolyn Gramling

FEBRUARY 5, 2020 AT 4:29 PM

Winds are picking up worldwide, and that is making the surface waters of the oceans swirl a bit faster, researchers report. A new analysis of the ocean’s kinetic energy, measured by thousands of floats around the world, suggests that surface ocean circulation has been accelerating since the early 1990s.

Some of that sped-up circulation may be due to naturally recurring ocean-atmosphere patterns, such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, researchers report February 5 in Science Advances. But the acceleration is greater than can be attributed to natural variability alone — suggesting that global warming may also be playing a role, says a team led by oceanographer Shijian Hu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Qingdao.

The connected system of massive currents that swirl between the world’s oceans, sometimes called the Great Ocean Conveyor Belt, redistributes heat and nutrients around the globe and has a powerful effect on climate. Winds dominate mixing in the surface ocean: Prevailing winds in the tropics, for example, can push water masses aside, allowing deeper, nutrient-rich waters to surge upward.

In the deeper ocean, differences in water density due to salt and heat content keep the currents flowing (SN: 1/4/17). For example, in the North Atlantic Ocean, surface currents carry heat north from the tropics, helping to keep northwestern Europe warm. As the waters arrive at the Labrador Sea, they cool, sink and then flow southward, keeping the conveyor belt humming along.

How climate change might affect this Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, has garnered headlines, as some simulations have predicted that global warming would lead to a slowdown in which could eventually bring a deep chill to Europe. In 2018, paleoceanographer David Thornalley of University College London and colleagues reported evidence that the AMOC has weakened over the last 150 years, although the question remains uncertain (SN: 1/31/19).

But the new study focuses on “the amount of swirling around of upper ocean waters due to wind,” rather than the speed of that overturning circulation, says Thornalley, who was not involved in the work.

Global warming has long been predicted to slow global wind speeds, called “global stilling.” That’s because the poles are warming faster than the equatorial region, and a smaller temperature gradient between the two zones might be expected to result in weaker winds (SN: 3/16/18). But recent studies, such as a report published November 2019 in Nature Climate Change, suggest that wind speeds around the world have actually been speeding up, at least since about 2010.

The new study suggests that winds have actually been picking up over the oceans for several decades, leading to the faster-swirling surface waters especially in the tropics. The study used data collected by over 3,000 Argo floats, which measure temperature, salinity and speeds of currents down to about 2,000 meters, in oceans around the world. Then, the team combined these data with a variety of climate simulations to calculate the change in kinetic energy —energy from the wind motion that gets transferred to the water — in that upper part of the ocean.

Each of the analyses that the team performed showed the same trend: On average around the world, there was a distinct uptick in kinetic energy beginning around 1990.

The new analyses of wind speeds come from satellite, shipboard and other data previously collected and analyzed by other scientists. The team considered one possible culprit for those changing winds: the late-1990s onset of a “cold” phase of an El Niño–like ocean-atmosphere pattern called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, which can bring stronger winds to the tropics. But, the researchers say, the observed acceleration is much larger than would be expected from natural variability alone, suggesting that it is part of a longer-term trend.

Simulations of increasing greenhouse gas emissions over the last two decades, the team found, produce a similar uptick in winds, suggesting that climate change may be speeding up the winds too.

Questions or comments on this article? E-mail us at feedback@sciencenews.org

CITATIONS

S. Hu et al. Deep-reaching acceleration of global mean ocean circulation over the past two decades. Science Advances. Published online February 5, 2020. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aax7727.

Z. Zeng et al. A reversal in global terrestrial stilling and its implications for wind energy production. Nature Climate Change. Vol. 9, December 2019, p. 979. doi: 10.1038/s41558-019-0622-6.​

Climate change may be speeding up ocean circulation | Science News

 

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Press release
Defying expectations of a rise, global carbon dioxide emissions flatlined in 2019 - News - IEA
11 February 2020

Despite widespread expectations of another increase, global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions stopped growing in 2019, according to IEA data released today.

After two years of growth, global emissions were unchanged at 33 gigatonnes in 2019 even as the world economy expanded by 2.9%. This was primarily due to declining emissions from electricity generation in advanced economies, thanks to the expanding role of renewable sources (mainly wind and solar), fuel switching from coal to natural gas, and higher nuclear power generation. Other factors included milder weather in several countries, and slower economic growth in some emerging markets.

“We now need to work hard to make sure that 2019 is remembered as a definitive peak in global emissions, not just another pause in growth,” said Dr Fatih Birol, the IEA’s Executive Director. “We have the energy technologies to do this, and we have to make use of them all. The IEA is building a grand coalition focused on reducing emissions – encompassing governments, companies, investors and everyone with a genuine commitment to tackling our climate challenge.”

A significant decrease in emissions in advanced economies in 2019 offset continued growth elsewhere. The United States recorded the largest emissions decline on a country basis, with a fall of 140 million tonnes, or 2.9%. US emissions are now down by almost 1 gigatonne from their peak in 2000. Emissions in the European Union fell by 160 million tonnes, or 5%, in 2019 driven by reductions in the power sector. Natural gas produced more electricity than coal for the first time ever, meanwhile wind-powered electricity nearly caught up with coal-fired electricity. Japan’s emissions fell by 45 million tonnes, or around 4%, the fastest pace of decline since 2009, as output from recently restarted nuclear reactors increased. Emissions in the rest of the world grew by close to 400 million tonnes in 2019, with almost 80% of the increase coming from countries in Asia where coal-fired power generation continued to rise.

Across advanced economies, emissions from the power sector declined to levels last seen in the late 1980s, when electricity demand was one-third lower than today. Coal-fired power generation in advanced economies declined by nearly 15% as a result of growth in renewables, coal-to-gas switching, a rise in nuclear power and weaker electricity demand.

“This welcome halt in emissions growth is grounds for optimism that we can tackle the climate challenge this decade,” said Dr Birol. “It is evidence that clean energy transitions are underway – and it’s also a signal that we have the opportunity to meaningfully move the needle on emissions through more ambitious policies and investments.”

To support these objectives, the IEA will publish a World Energy Outlook Special Report in June that will map out how to cut global energy-related carbon emissions by one-third by 2030 and put the world on track for longer-term climate goals.

The Agency will also hold an IEA Clean Energy Transitions Summit in Paris on 9 July, bringing together key government ministers, CEOs, investors and other major stakeholders from around the world with the aim of accelerating the pace of change through ambitious and real-world solutions.

Dr Birol will discuss these results and initiatives tomorrow at a special IEA Speaker Series event at IEA Headquarters in Paris with energy and climate ministers from Poland, which hosted COP24 in Katowice; Spain, which hosted COP25 in Madrid; and the United Kingdom, which will host COP26 in Glasgow this year. More details on the IEA event, including how to watch a live webcast, are available here.

 

[JSCh]

Mar 03, 2020
Novel desalination method with nearly perfect salt rejection and high water flux

(Nanowerk Spotlight) Nanofluidic membranes based on two-dimensional (2D) materials are promising materials for next-generation water desalination and purification. For instance, pristine and chemically modified graphene oxide membranes (GOMs) effectively block organic dyes and nanoparticles as small as 9 Å.
However, these nanomembranes fail to exclude smaller inorganic salt ions, which would be required to extract pure potable water from unconventional water sources such as, salt water, industrial waste water, and rain water.
Researchers have proposed a number of strategies to address the sieving of small inorganic salt ions, for instance by reducing the interlayer spacing down to merely several angstrom. However, one critical challenge for such physically or chemically compressed GOMs is the extremely low water flux (<0.1 Lm-2h-1bar-1) that prevents them from being used in real-world applications.

In new work reported in Advanced Materials ("Electric-Field-Induced Ionic Sieving at Planar Graphene Oxide Heterojunctions for Miniaturized Water Desalination"), researchers in China have reported a graphene oxide membrane that achieves highly efficient salt ion sieving without the need of reducing the interlayer distance.


....

https://www.nanowerk.com/spotlight/spotid=54677.php

 

[JSCh]

New tech turns toxic blue algae into protein powder
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-11 17:33:12|Editor: huaxia

NANJING, June 11 (Xinhua) -- Chinese researchers have developed a technology to turn blue algae into protein powder with high detoxification efficiency.

A research team from the Research Institute for Environmental Innovation (Suzhou), Tsinghua, in east China's Jiangsu Province, used microsecond ultrasound to explode blue algae, which achieved detoxification with an efficiency of up to 99.8 percent.

Without any addition of chemical or biological reactants, only water vapor was used as the medium in the whole experimental detoxification process, resulting in zero emissions, said Yu Zhengdao, a researcher from the team.

After the detoxification, the algal protein powder contained a much lower toxin content than that of other food-grade algal products, and can be used in the fishing industry, said the team.

Previous research indicated that the toxin in blue algae had been a major obstacle to the utilization of algal protein, while the content of the water-soluble protein in blue algae amounted to 72 percent.

The technology may contribute to the ecological management of rivers and lakes, when it is popularized in the province or even nationwide, according to the institute.

 

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https://twitter.com/x/status/1274152511289655297

 

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https://twitter.com/x/status/1272807349707816960

 

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NEWS RELEASE 29-JUN-2020
Atmospheric processes likely caused puzzling haze over China during COVID-19 shutdown
WILEY

New research indicates that significant enhancement of secondary aerosol formed in the atmosphere via gas-to-particle conversion, together with long-lasting regional transport, may be the cause of severe haze over China despite a dramatic reduction in emissions during the COVID-19 shutdown. The findings are published in Geophysical Research Letters.

During the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday between January 24 and February 10, 2020, China was in an unprecedented state of shutdown because of COVID-19, with mobility, energy demands, and industrial pollution emissions remaining far below their normal levels. Nevertheless, a high and widespread haze pollution was observed over Eastern China.

To investigate this puzzling occurrence, Yunhua Chang, Professor, of the Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Ru-Jin Huang, Professor, of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and their colleagues analyzed the chemical components of the air in and out of Shanghai before, during, and after the Chinese New Year holidays in 2019 and 2020, and they performed atmospheric transport modeling, a method to track particles and trace gases that are dispersed by atmospheric winds.

The team found that secondary aerosol formation that interacts with long-range transport likely caused the long-lasting haze during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The results highlight the need for joint management efforts and control strategies across large areas to effectively clear China's air.

"We hope our findings can inform future regulatory policies to mitigate China's haze-associated problems," said Dr. Chang.

"Additional studies are needed to pinpoint the role of atmospheric oxidation capacity--which is affected by emission reductions of air pollutants--in the formation of secondary aerosols," added Dr. Huang.

This paper is part of an ongoing special collection of research in AGU journals related to the current pandemic.


Atmospheric processes likely caused puzzling haze over China during COVID-19 shutdown | EurekAlert! Science News

 

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https://twitter.com/x/status/1287945879958298632

China Science @ChinaScience

China developed a mobile mass spectrometer to monitor pollution sources. Integrating with the geographic information system, the instrument can be mounted on vehicles to trace volatile organic compounds sources in real-time. https://bit.ly/3hF701x

 

[JSCh]

NEWS RELEASE 27-JUL-2020
Lockdown saw modest drop in China air pollution - study | EurekAlert! Science News
IOP PUBLISHING

Large improvements of air quality in China during the COVID-19 lockdown have been widely reported, but new research reveals that the two pollutants most harmful to human health, fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and ozone, were only slightly reduced.

The study, by scientists from the University of Leeds, UK and the Southern University of Science and Technology, China, analysed air pollutant concentrations from China's national network of around 1,300 monitoring stations to quantify the response of air pollution across China during the COVID-19 lockdown.

They found that the falls in some air pollutants like nitrogen dioxide (NO2) were substantial, whereas other pollutants like particulate matter (PM) and ozone pollution were only slightly reduced or barely affected.

The study is
published today in the IOP Publishing journal Environmental Research Letters.

Senior author Professor Dominick Spracklen, from the University of Leeds, said: "Although China's air quality has improved in recent years, indoor and outdoor air pollution still has serious health impacts, with 12 per cent of deaths in China in 2017 attributable to it. Understanding trends in air quality is therefore essential to assess the effectiveness of recent air quality measures and help inform future air pollution mitigation. The application of control measures during the COVID-19 outbreak enabled us to analyse the potential air quality improvements resulting from a reduction in emissions."

To understand the impact of the control measures during the COVID-19 outbreak, the researchers compared pollutant concentrations in 2020 with expected concentrations had the COVID-19 outbreak not occurred.

They used a time series of China-wide measurements of key pollutant concentrations, from January 2015 to April 2020, to isolate the changes during the lockdown period compared with concentrations otherwise expected based on recent trends, seasonality, and the effects of the Lunar New Year (the precise date of which changes from year to year).

Lead author Ben Silver, from the University of Leeds, said: "During the lockdown period in China, defined as January 23rd to March 31st, 2020, we found that the largest reductions occurred in NO2, with concentrations 27 per cent lower on average across China. The largest reductions were in Hubei province, where NO2 concentrations were 50.5 per cent lower than expected during the lockdown.

"Much smaller reductions were observed for other pollutants. PM2.5 - fine particles measuring less than 2.5 μm - had a modest reduction of 11 per cent across China, and was not reduced in north-east China. These particles are the most harmful constituent of air pollution, as they travel deep into the lungs and bloodstream and damage the lungs and heart. Ozone can irritate breathing, affect lung function and worsen lung conditions such as asthma. We found almost no change in ozone concentrations because of the pandemic control measures."

Co-author Xinyue He, from the Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzen, China, said: "Chinese NOx (nitrogen oxide) emissions are dominated by transport (35 per cent), industry (35 per cent), and power generation (19 per cent), all of which are likely to have been affected by the lockdown. Reduction in emissions from these dominant sectors and short lifetime explains the larger reduction in NO2 compared to other pollutants.

"PM2.5 concentrations in China are heavily influenced by residential emissions, which are likely to have been less affected by the control measures. The larger relative reductions in PM10 and CO (carbon monoxide) compared to PM2.5, may be due to a greater reduction in primary emission sources and the greater contribution of secondary aerosol to PM2.5. Reductions in emissions of volatile organic compounds and NOx, combined with changes in PM concentrations, resulted in little overall change in ozone concentrations."

Professor Spracklen added: "The modest improvement in air quality during the lockdown, despite very large reductions in emissions from some sources such as traffic, highlights the challenge facing China as it tries to further improve air quality. Our study provides insight into the effects of future emission reductions and can help inform development of effective air pollution mitigation strategies."

 

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Progress made in desertification control work in China's Inner Mongolia
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-12 21:40:14|Editor: huaxia

Combo photo shows an area near the Xar Moron River in Hexigten Banner, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, after the desertification control work on Aug. 12, 2020 (top, Xinhua/Xu Qin), and before the desertification control work on April 5, 2017 (Xinhua).

Aerial photo taken on Aug. 12, 2020 shows an area after the desertification control work near the Xar Moron River in Hexigten Banner, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. (Xinhua/Xu Qin)

 

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https://twitter.com/x/status/1301131508963446788

China Economy @CE_ChinaEconomy
China state-affiliated media

Carbon emissions allowances closed at RMB28.09 per tonne on Sept 1, 2.15% up from Aug 31, at China Emissions Exchange (Guangzhou), largest local carbon market in China. 164,000 tonnes of allowances were transacted on Sept 1, with a turnover of RMB3.84 mln.


8:15 PM · Sep 2, 2020

 

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https://twitter.com/x/status/1301389458604843010