long term health impact of particulates

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120417221835.htm However, these short-term studies left unclear how many extra admissions occurred in the long run, and only included people who live near air pollution monitors, typically located in cities. No studies of long-term exposure to fine air particles (over the course of a year or two years) and rates of hospitalizations had been done. Our study found that long-term rates of admissions for pneumonia, heart attacks, strokes, and diabetes are higher in locations with higher long-term average particle concentrations. These particles, such as soot from vehicles, and other particles from power plants, wood burning, and certain industrial processes, are a significanthealth riskwhen they lodgein the lungs, causing inflammation there and in the rest of the body, and contributing to lung and heart disease. For every 10-µg/m3 increase in long-term PM2.5 exposure, the researchers found a 4.22% increase in respiratory admissions, a 3.12% increase in cardiovascular disease admissions, a 3.49% increase in stroke admissions, and a 6.33% increase in diabetes admissions. "Particulate air pollution is one of the largest avoidable causes of death and illness in the United States, and unlike diet and exercise, does not require behavioral change. Off-the-shelf technology can be retrofitted onto sources of pollution at modest cost, with a large health benefit. ========== [PDF] A Glance at Outdoor Air Quality and Human Health in Waterloo Region chd.region.waterloo.on.ca/en/.../resources/Outdoor_Air_Report.pdf File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat 2 Jun 2005 – and particulate levels with a variety of negative health impacts ... Fine particulates (PM2 . 5) refers to a ... Waterloo Region's Outdoor Air Quality: ... D - what a gem! Where images are from. D - cars don't just kill by hitting pedestrians. They kill simply by being used. Your right to throw your fist stops at my nose. Your unfettered right to drive a car ends at a similar point- before my LUNGS. Unless you wish to direct all those exhaust fumes into your passenger compartment. Of course, that'd be suicide. This is a slow and more broad and random version of the same. Criminal negligence causing death. I stand corrected. The Car is King was mantra of mine. Now it's a murderous dictator. Proof's in the puddin'.

light rail. uptown waterloo. still no bike lane

D- notice anything? Yup. Stick sux a*s for cyclists.
There is not, nor will there ever be, any place for bicycles uptown.
"Just walk it!"
Really? For how many blocks? Plus walking beside my bike occupies TWICE the width as riding it. Damned if do, or if don't.
And occupying a whole lane will no longer be an option with only one car lane each way. Though if you did so to avoid the 'door prize' now, you'd still get harrassed by cars, even though they have another lane to use. Try it sometime.

Thank GOD (sarcasm!) there will still be on-street parking for cars instead of space dedicated to bike lanes! Grr.

toronto subway fail. 2 success stories

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-drive/green-driving/news-and-notes/a-tale-of-two-cities-that-did-mass-transit-right/article2376420/

I like to use the example of Madrid, a city of comparable size to Toronto. Madrid has 293 kilometres of subway lines serving 272 stations. Toronto has 70 kilometres serving 69 stations. By that standard, Toronto should have four times the amount of underground rapid transit as it has now. It doesn’t even have a rapid rail line to the airport. No wonder Toronto roads are jammed...


With typical Swiss efficiency, Lausanne began thinking about a new subway in 2001. It held a referendum on the question in 2002, started building in 2003 and opened the doors in 2008. If you’ve seen Lausanne, you know that the place is built up the side of a mountain and the grade the subway has to climb is substantial. That’s why it went with rubber-tired trains (like Montreal’s), which can climb slopes that are a 12 per cent grade in some places.

The new subway is particularly impressive in that it is fully automated and runs entirely with driverless trains. Let’s see Toronto politicians get that one past the union.

Lausanne’s little trains of three cars each runs silently and smoothly through 14 stations and about eight kilometres of tunnels. The stations are equipped with platform screen doors and a train arrives every three minutes.

Although it’s a small city, the subway will carry 25 million riders a year. It is so convenient and pleasant that everybody uses it.

It has eliminated countless diesel buses that otherwise would be grinding their way up the hills. And because it runs underground, there are no congestion problems and it doesn’t interfere with surface traffic. Maximum speed is 60 km/h and an end-to-end trip takes 18 minutes.

Lausanne is the world’s smallest city with a subway system and the job – from concept to finished product – took only seven years. Madrid has built roughly five kilometres of new subway every year for more than 20 years. Toronto squabbles.

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D - note they talk about how CHEAP it is. If fast, competitive with driving, folks will use it.

old drivers to get tested

http://www.therecord.com/living/article/678212--turning-80-driving-test-isn-t-what-it-used-to-be

When you reach 80, and every two years after that, you are required to take a free vision and knowledge test and attend a group education session in order to renew your license. You may also be required to take a road test if they feel you might be a safety risk.

There are stiffer rules now as well for young drivers, with graduated licensing requirements over a two-year period.
Men seem to have a harder time giving up their driver’s licence. They outnumbered the women at the group session I attended and most of them appeared more confident and relaxed. The examiner told us that her oldest applicant is a 102-year-old man who has attended the sessions 12 times. He is usually the first one finished with the written test, scores 100 per cent and leaves in a hurry to get on with his busy life.

canada rates well in UBC eco2 index

http://www.globalnews.ca/ecosystems+and+economy+rankings/6442584985/story.html

The rankings

The top 5 countries:

1. Bolivia
2. Angola
3. Namibia
4. Paraguay
5. Argentina

The worst countries:

1. Singapore
2. Kuwait
3. Israel
4. Korea
5. United Arab Emirates

The G8 countries:

1. Canada (15th)
2. Russia (31st)
3. France (77)
4. United States (103)
5. Germany (119)
6. United Kingdom (129)
7. Italy (135)
8. Japan (144)

Read it on Global News: Global News | Vancouver scientists unveil global index measuring economy and ecology

D - Canada is top of G8, 3rd in G20.

Rashid Sumaila, a University of British Columbia environmental and resource economics professor unveiled his team’s rankings system Monday at the annual American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting held this year in Vancouver. UBC partnered with the Global Footprint Network, an international think tank, to compile the list.

Read it on Global News: Global News | Vancouver scientists unveil global index measuring economy and ecology

warming by burning each type of fossil fuel

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/coal-not-oil-sands-the-true-climate-change-bad-guy-analysis-shows/article2343528/

... oil sands were mined and consumed, the carbon dioxide released would raise global temperatures by about .36 degrees C.

... natural gas would warm the planet by more than three degrees.

... In contrast, the paper concludes that burning all the globe’s vast coal deposits would create a 15-degree increase.

Burning all the oil in the world would only raise temperatures by less than one degree, the paper concludes...

Dr. Weaver’s analysis only accounts for emissions from burning the fuel. It doesn’t count greenhouse gases released by producing the resource because that would double-count those emissions.

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D - there are other considerations. For example, does fracking for gas in shale cause earthquakes (see UK)? Will it contaminate ground water? These $ #s are cold, hard calculations, devoid of opinion. But the answer may not please either the green lobby or the big-energy companies. Society, however, needs to consider all holistic factors that result from the use of any particular energy source.

D - since both USA and China (followed by Russia) have vast coal reserves, we should resign ourselves to heavy exploitation of remaining coal reserves. However, let us do that as intelligently as possible.

D - the 3 ways to handle coal would be:
1) clean coal - co2 sequester at the coal (or before)
2) scrub co2 out of atmosphere
3) use various sunlight albedo schemes to offset co2 in the air.
I think a cursory look will show only 1) is viable in a cost- effective fashion, so will now simply examine "clean coal".
First of all, at present time "clean coal" is merely a catch phrase by the coal industry. It may not always be, but it is today. A handful of baby steps are being taken to test the concept.

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(wiki)
Typically, clean coal is used by coal companies in reference to carbon capture and storage, which pumps and stores CO2 emissions underground, and to plants using an Integrated gasification combined cycle which gasifies coal to reduce CO2 emissions.
Options include point-of-combustion co2 capture and syngas gasification. I'd like to look at a promising approach - leave most contaminants in the coal seam underground.

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(wiki)
Underground coal gasification (UCG) is an industrial process, which converts coal into product gas. UCG is an in-situ gasification process carried out in non-mined coal seams using injection of oxidants, and bringing the product gas to surface through production wells drilled from the surface. The product gas could to be used as a chemical feedstock or as fuel for power generation. The technique can be applied to resources that are otherwise unprofitable or technically complicated to extract by traditional mining methods, and it also offers an alternative to conventional coal mining methods for some resources.

Economics
Underground coal gasification allows access to coal resources that are not economically recoverable by other technologies, e.g., that are too deep, low grade, or seams too thin.[2] By some estimates, UCG will increase economically recoverable reserves by 600 billion tonnes.[10] Livermore estimates that UCG could increase recoverable coal reserves in the USA by 300%.[11] Livermore and Linc Energy claim that UCG capital and operating costs are lower than in traditional mining
Underground product gas is an alternative to natural gas and potentially offers cost savings by eliminating mining, transport, and solid waste. The expected cost savings could increase given higher coal prices driven by emissions trading, taxes, and other emissions reduction policies, e.g. the Australian Government's proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.

(D - better than nothing - reinject co2 or n2 to extract more oil.)

Oil displacement by carbon dioxide injection relies on the phase behaviour of the mixtures of that gas and the crude, which are strongly dependent on reservoir temperature, pressure and crude oil composition. These mechanisms range from oil swelling and viscosity reduction for injection of immiscible fluids (at low pressures) to completely miscible displacement in high-pressure applications. In these applications, more than half and up to two-thirds of the injected CO2 returns with the produced oil and is usually re-injected into the reservoir to minimize operating costs. The remainder is trapped in the oil reservoir by various means.

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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/plotting-a-road-map-for-a-low-carbon-future/article2341616/

The gathering was organized by the Waterloo Global Science Initiative, a partnership between the University of Waterloo and the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, a research centre started by Research in Motion co-founder Michael Lazardis.

Their report lays out five key areas where technologies need to be advanced and deployed commercially to achieve a low-carbon, electrified future: battery storage, enhanced geothermal, advanced nuclear, off-grid power and smart urbanization.

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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-news/air-pollution-hazardous-to-chinas-economic-health/article2279684/

Pollution costs China, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, hundreds of millions – perhaps billions – of yuan annually. It also threatens the ability of the world’s second-largest economy to evolve into a fully developed, first world country from its current industrializing state.

“There’s no way they can grow to high income levels with the levels of pollution they have,” said Carter Brandon, environmental co-ordinator for the World Bank in Beijing.

The World Bank estimates that, in 2009, the effects of air pollution were equivalent to about 3.3 per cent of China’s gross domestic product. The impact on health alone, including premature deaths, amounted to about 700 billion yuan ($110.2-billion U.S.) in 2009.

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D - food for thought. Economic growth that masks pollution costs is false growth. It does not contribute anything, yet still contributes to inflation, as well as immediately impacting on productivity by way of health complications. Wage increases in China are rapidly pricing them out of the less-developed nation work market. Pollution that is not addressed contributes to this - it makes them uncompetitive. Any economic growth policy that does not vigorously address pollution is as damaging as a national policy that does not keep inflation in check directly. A wise nation would implement strong anti-pollution safeguards simply as a long-term economic policy.

no incentive for fuel economy

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-drive/new-cars/auto-news/are-consumers-to-blame-for-stagnation-in-fuel-economy/article2340647/

“I find little fault with the auto manufacturers, because there has been no incentive to put technologies into overall fuel economy,” says Knittel. “Firms are going to give consumers what they want, and if gas prices are low, consumers are going to want big, fast cars.” And between 1980 and 2004, gas prices dropped by 30 per cent when adjusted for inflation.

Aha, so it’s cheap gas that’s to blame. Yes. And gas is cheap, notes Knittel, because politicians are too cowardly – not his exact word, but mine – to take the one, foolproof and overwhelmingly simple route to nailing down outstanding fleet-wide fuel economy and the lower tailpipe emissions that come with it: raise fuel taxes. Want to suppress demand for gas guzzlers? Make them prohibitively expensive to drive.

“It’s the policymakers’ responsibility to create a structure that leads to these (fuel-saving) technologies being put toward fuel economy” rather than building the bigger, faster, more powerful vehicles consumers will buy if fuel is cheap, he says.

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D - funny. The gov't is forcing fuel efficiency standards that consumers don't care about. They don't care since the actual cost of gasoline (and driving cars) is not built into the price at the pump. The cost of oil rig-to- atmosphere is not built in.
We would not need big-gov't regulation of vehicle standard if we had smaller-gov't 'incorporated negative externalities' in the gasoline price in the first place. Ditto the health cost of accident due to cars in the car price.
But in the absence of this Mills-ian tweaking of supply and demand via this reality-based 'sin tax' in the gas/car pricing, we need the much more onerous and heavy-handed car MPG standards.

Over the course of a car's lifetime, the new fuel efficiency standards typically pay for themselves TWICE over. But this seems negligible and distant to a new car buyer.

See my earlier blogs on the real cost of cars.