EPA Strengthens Air Quality Standard for NO2

The USA Environmental Protection Agency has announced a new national air quality standard for nitrogen dioxide (NO2) to "protect millions of Americans from peak short-term exposures, which primarily occur near major roads." Short-term exposures to NO2 have been linked to impaired lung function and increased respiratory infections, especially in people with asthma.

The agency set the new one-hour standard for NO2 at a level of 100 parts per billion (ppb). The EPA also is retaining the existing annual average standard of 53 ppb. NO2 is formed from vehicle, power plant and other industrial emissions, and contributes to the formation of fine particle pollution and smog. Earlier this month, the EPA proposed to tighten the nation’s smog standards to protect the health of all Americans, especially children.

The EPA is establishing new monitoring requirements in urban areas that will measure NO2 levels around major roads and across the community. Monitors must be located near roadways in cities with at least 500,000 residents. Larger cities and areas with major roadways will have additional monitors. Community-wide monitoring will continue in cities with at least 1 million residents.

Update (27 Jan)

CAI-Asia recently conducted a survey on the status of NAAQS (including any plans for revisions of their NAAQS) in selected Asian countries. Comparing the one-hour average NO2 standards in 14 Asian countries with the new one-hour average NO2 standard set by USA EPA, only Japan and South Korea have one-hour average NO2 standards equal or stricter than the USA EPA standard (Table 1). Vietnam had one-hour average NO2 standard equivalent to WHO AQG, as with the proposed air quality objectives (AQO) of Hong Kong.

The remaining Asian countries had more lenient one-hour average NO2 standards relative to the USA EPA and WHO AQG. Based on the results of the survey, aside from Hong Kong, none of the Asian countries have any plans of revising their one-hour average NO2 standards.

Vehicular Air Pollution Information System

The Vehicular Air Pollution Information System (VAPIS) is an user-friendly MS EXCEL based tool, designed to quickly analyze the emission trends for a single vehicular category for a single pollutant. The tool allows the user to start with the basic information on vehicular numbers, growth rates, age splits, kilometers traveled per day, average retirement age, and emission factors, and establish the vehicular number and emission trends for a period of 30 years, by age group.

Download the VAPIS 1.01 tool, brochure, operational manual, and the working paper (SIM 02-2008) on four ways to build vehicular emissions inventory.

Indian auto growth drives focus on cleaner technologies

Emphasising the need for governance and reforms in the automotive sector, India's Transport minister, Kamal Nath, said his ministry is carrying out a comprehensive review of the Motor Vehicles Act. "The last decade was the decade of IT. This would be the decade of Infrastructure," he said at the 10th Auto Expo in Pragati Maidan.

While complimenting India's automotive industry for its entrepreneurial and leadership spirit, the minister pointed out that an 8% GDP growth meant greater stress on infrastructure. "The biggest deficit in the country today is in the infrastructure sector and roads are at the heart of it," he added.

Speaking at the occasion, Vilasrao Deshmukh, minister of heavy industries and public enterprises, said the Indian government is committed to creating a world class automobile industry. He said his ministry had taken measures to bridge the skill gap, set up a technology development fund for the auto sector, facilitate adoption of cleaner technologies and promote linkages between global and Indian industry.

Elaborating on the tremendous progress made by India's auto industry, Venu Srinivasan, president, Confederation of Indian Industry ( CII), said, "In 2008-09, 1.82 million cars and 8.4 million two-wheelers were sold with an aggregate vehicle sale of over 11 million." He said Indian industry had fared better than the global automotive majors despite the downturn. "Driven by our own robust internal demand and an effective government stimulus package, the automotive industry even managed to grow during 2008-09," he added.

"India can emerge as a hub for the international automobile industry, especially in the Asian region. New product development is fast, appropriate and accurate. India is rapidly progressing as a centre for clean auto technologies as well, developing hybrid and fuel efficient vehicles and exploring new sources of fuel," he told the Mail Today.

Pawan Goenka, president, Society of Indian Auto Manufacturers, mentioned that growth with greater responsibility towards reducing emissions and enhanced road safety will be essential for achieving the further growth trajectories.

Modelling differences between air pollution and climate change policies

A recent study on how policies addressing air pollution and climate change interact warns that climate change measures do little to remove the main cause of air pollution (suspended particulate matter, 'PM').  Climate and air quality-driven scenarios of ozone and aerosol precursor abatement, by Rypdal, K., Rive, N., Bernsten, T. et al, focussed on how measures in one policy area affect emissions and environmental impacts related to the other policy area and quantified ancillary benefits.

Scenarios were applied to the European Union (EU), United States of America (USA) and Peoples Republic of China (PRC) and covered a range of pollutants: primary emissions of PM2.5, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, methane, VOC and carbon monoxide.

In all scenarios the starting point for the pollution reductions was the level of emissions achieved through current legislation. For Europe this largely implies the application of existing EU and national legislation on stationary and mobile sources. Reductions were attained mainly by end-of-pipe measures, such as catalytic converters and other cleaning technologies, and retro-fitted measures, such as replacing household stoves. Fuel switching, for example, from oil to gas, was not considered.

The results indicated that the cost-effective reductions in the climate-focused scenario were similar to the air quality-focused scenarios for certain pollutants such as PM2.5, VOC, carbon monoxide and methane.

For example, in the EU an additional €25 billion per year expenditure would reduce VOC by approximately 1.5 million tonnes for both the climate-focused scenario and the ozone-focused scenario. The same expenditure would reduce primary PM2.5 by about 300,000 tonnes for the climate-focused scenario and the PM focused-scenario.

The response curves are similar to those of Europe and the USA as well as in China. It is noticeable that costs per tonne reduced are generally lower in these regions, and in particular in China.

At all levels of expenditure the climate-focused scenario has only a minor importance for sulfur dioxide and low reductions for nitrogen oxides, due to their small or negative (cooling) impact on the climate. The ozone-focused scenario produced large reductions in nitrogen oxides and the PM-focused scenario produced large reductions in nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide.

Role of Meteorology on Urban Air Pollution Dispersion

Urban air pollution is a growing problem in most cities in developing countries. However there is weak institutional capacity to address the issue in an integrated manner, because (for one reason) there is little in the way of an organized knowledge base or development/application of analytical tools that may help support decision making. Most available tools are complex and data-intensive (multi-purpose) and there is a need for a new generation of tools that can be used in these cities, which takes into account the availability of information and institutional challenges.

Urbanemissions.info has recently published a new discussion paper on the Role of Meteorology on Urban Air Pollution Dispersion which questions how to assess the seasonality in air pollution and any variations in meteorology which affects the measured air pollution levels.

In order to assess the role of meteorology as a diffusing or non-diffusing agent, this paper presents a 20 year analysis. The city of Delhi, India, was considered for pilot analysis. Irrespective of constant emissions over each month, the observed concentrations are 40% to 80% higher in the winter months and 10% to 60% lower in the summer months, when compared to the annual average tracer concentrations (20yr animation).The study will be extended to 10 more cities in 2010.

Indonesian city introduces cleaner mini-buses

Indonesia's second largest city, Surabaya, will introduce a new fleet of environment-friendly three-wheeled minivans by 2011. The chief of the Surabaya Planning Agency, Tri Rismaharini, told The Jakarta Globe, that the vechicles replacing old, seven-passenger minivans locally known as bemo, will include an “air-conditioned space for passengers and the use of natural gas to power the vehicles.”

He added that the new bemo will serve as part of a feeder system for Surabaya’s transportation network and will only be used on smaller roads measuring not more than nine meters in width. He said the municipal administration was still considering whether the new bemo will be run by the government or left to the private sector.

Chinese city's buses to go 'green'

Qingdao,  a major city in China's eastern Shandong province, plans to renovate 1,208 public buses to reduce greenhouse gas emissions next year Song Chunkang, director of the municipal Environmental Protection Agency, told China Daily.

Existing buses will be converted to low-carbon emission operations through technological innovation, with a total investment of over 500 million yuan by the local government, Song said.