[Stoves] World’s Worst Air Has Mongolians Seeing Red, Planning Action

[Crispin Pemberton-Pigott]

Dear Friends

Seeing as we are talking about particles and air quality impact and stoves, here is a story from Bloomberg sent by Tig.

‎Frankly I doubt the numbers are anything like 'the worst'. We see on the BBC numerous pieces about 'how bad' the air is in Beijing. Beijing air is quite good these days. It suffers from fog because it is a humid place and pretty flat to the East towards the sea and south. ‎The fog is often mixed with smoke creating great 'visuals' through a telephoto lens and blamed on 'dirty fuels'. We all know what that means.

Please remember when you read this story that it has been an incredibly cold winter this season in Mongolia. The whole of Siberia has been in a cold wave for more than two months. The reason children get pneumonia may be the terrible cold while living in a tent with 2 to 4 layers, not the terrible air pollution. Also note the difference between 'respiratory problems' from air quality and from pneumonia. It is confusing if the two are spoken of as one.

The number mentioned, about 2000 micrograms per m^3, is less than half what it used to be before the stove replacement program was effected. The several tens of thousands of low pressure boilers that heat individual homes were not part of that program and have continued to be a major, or the major source of air pollution after vehicles. They have inversions that can last for several days mmaking things a great deal worse.

Another problem is that with the wind chill the feeling is in the -35 to -40 C range. Children in poor homes suffer a lot. Also in that condition people refuel their TLUD stoves without waiting for them to burn down and restart them. They also burn tires, oil, anything to keep warm-ish.  Most highly improved stoves are TLUD's. The 'mortality' is premature deaths, not 'deaths' as we have recently been discussing with Nikhil and others.

Oh, and the bit about the power stations pumping smoke into the city air is bunk. The big power station puts virtually nothing into the city air as the 250m high chimney exits into a zone above the inversion layer which forms nightly in winter. ‎Power station No3 is not as high 156 MW but is not a big player. Unfortunately many people, because of TV propaganda, believe the steam emitted from power stations is 'pollution' in the form of 'carbon' and 'smoke'.  There is some smoke from that tall skinny thing, but none from those short fat towers. That is water vapour.

People living in the district heating pipe underground tunnels are not 'living in the sewers' as some reports would have it. It is very warm down there and it sure beats freezing to death.

The bit about homes getting free electricity at night from 1 January 2017 is true. There is some spare power at night but not during the day. The grid cannot support much in the poor areas but it is something that will help a few people. The idea is to use electric power at night to store heat in high thermal mass stoves and have it largely replace fuel combustion. The Germans are behind it.

The proper comprehensive solution is to switch to the non-TLUD heating stoves as fast as possible including replacing the low pressure boilers that use about four times as much coal per day as a yurt (ger). The same models being introduced in other countries, designed in Mongolia (!) should be promoted. It would still help to remove the really old vehicles which are over 20 years old. They burn a lot of oil.

It is great that domestic energy needs are being featured as much as they are even if the storyline in the English media is not completely accurate. You can't really blame them. We are after all surrounded by misinformation and partial truths. ‎Still it is better than the silence that preceded it.

Historically the worst air days have been in ‎late Nov and December with peaks at 4400. It is comparable with cities like Harbin and Shenyang, perhaps Hohhot. Maybe we can find some numbers to compare.

Regards
Crispin
Formerly with the UB Clean Air Project via ADB and WB

World’s Worst Air Has Mongolians Seeing Red, Planning Action
Bloomberg‎

If you think air pollution in China has been bad, just look at Mongolia. Read the full story<https://apple.news/AxkJb9uDCSX-xZNucWe5OTQ>

‎.......................
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.bioenergylists.org/pipermail/stoves_lists.bioenergylists.org/attachments/20161227/91022334/attachment.html>