Bluer skies, and more on horizon

By Cai Wenjun and Fu Chenghao  |   2008-11-21  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

THE city's skies are getting bluer and cleaner as the result of significant improvements in air quality, the Shanghai Environmental Protection Bureau said yesterday.

Bureau measurements found top-level air quality on 93 days in the first 10 months of this year, one more than for all of last year.

In addition, there were 280 days with level one or level two air quality from January to October compared with 328 days, or around 90 percent, last year. Air quality in 2007 was the best since 2003, when for the first time 85 percent of the days were level two or above, on a five-level scale.

The data reflect the achievements of air cleanup projects launched since the first Three-Year Environmental Protection Action Plan in 2000, when the city began investing 3 percent of its annual gross domestic product in environmental efforts. The budget for air protection in the fourth action plan starting next year will be 5.5 billion yuan (US$805 million).

The new round of spending is expected to bring additional improvements to generation equipment at coal-fired power plants, tightened controls of car exhaust, stricter monitoring of construction dirt and more scientific research.

The bureau said city government will reduce sulfur dioxide emissions by 26 percent by 2010 compared with the 513,000 tons sent into the air in 2005. The reduction percentage would be the highest in the nation.

Sulfur dioxide is a major airborne pollutant produced by coal burning and can harm the health of humans.

To reach its goal, the city has started to close or upgrade electricity generators at coal-fired power plants and plans to finish the installation of desulfurization systems before 2010.

Vehicle exhausts are another key air pollutant in the city, which adopted National III emissions standards for new vehicle licensing this year and will upgrade to National IV next year, consistent with European standards of the same levels.

By the end of 2011, all local buses will at least meet the National II standard, and more than 45 percent of buses and all taxis will comply with the National III standard.

Shanghai also aims to upgrade the city's 823 gas stations by the first half of 2010, and 30 oil tanks and over 180 tank trucks by the end of 2009, by installing gasoline recovery systems to save fuel and clean the air.

Without these upgrades, tens of thousands of tons of gasoline could vaporize into the atmosphere in Shanghai annually while vehicles are being filled up.

An upgrade for a single filling station costs at least 600,000 yuan but returns its investment through fuel savings in two to three years, an official at PetroChina's Shanghai unit said.

"We have upgraded more than 10 stations in Shanghai so far, all funded by the company's own capital," said the official, "We have to do it, as this is required by environmental and work safety authorities."