WAR ON SMOG

BY DAVID DAWSON

WAR ON SMOG

BY DAVID DAWSON

When Premier Li Keqiang, at the opening of China’s National People’s Congress in May said, 2014 that China would declare war on pollution, he presumably meant it. But he was perhaps being a little more literal than one might expect, as the announcement came days before China tested what Reuters called an “anti-smog drone”.

The drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), are produced by a subsidiary of a state-owned corporation and spray a mysterious substance local media are calling a “chemical catalyst” to“freeze” smog particles and bring them to the ground. The test wasn’t actually the fi rst time China had used aircraft to bring pollutants to the ground; planes and less sophisticated UAVs had actually been carrying out anti-smog as well as agricultural operations, at greater cost, for

The weird and wonderful inventions in China’s battle for blue skies大到空气穹顶、移山凿洞、吸霾大厦，小到各色面罩、雾霾戒指，在对抗雾霾的战斗中，人类的创造力又上了一个新台阶several years before the test fl ight. The UAVs are just one invention among a wide array of outlandish attempts to bring air pollution under control.

In something that seems straight out of science fi ction, architectural group Orprojects early in 2014 suggested the creation of giant domes to protect parks in Beijing. The domes would fi lter air and control temperature and humidity. Simpler, smaller scale versions of the project are already in effect; the International School of Beijing has already installed a fi ve million dollar “dome” of sorts over its playing fi elds to ensure students can breathe clean air—all at a cost of around $150,000 per year.

But, stepping outside domes, there are other suggestions. Part art exhibit, part invention, Dutch artist Daan Roosegaarde generated quite a buzz with a creation that fi rst started making waves in 2013. The invention essentially consists of copper coils which would generate an electromagnetic fi eld to draw smog particles to the ground. The idea is that this would make them easier to clean up. The artist tested the project on a small scale himself. He is currently working on a “Smog Free Park” in Rotterdam in the Netherlands which is expected to be completed mid-2015. Roosegaarde and the mayor of Amsterdam have since held meetings with the Beijing mayor with a view to bringing it to China’s capital.

He said, however, that he ultimately thinks the solution to smog should be more long-term, practical measures, such as reducing pollutants, and that his project is more about raising awareness than a large scale solution.

Beijing authorities are also following up on other ideas. One possibility that has been on the drawing board for several months has been construction (or perhaps destruction) to create “wind corridors” in major cities that would allow the wind to blow away smog.

The Beijing News reported that cities including Shanghai and Hangzhou have been considering these measures, and in July, 2013, Beijing put the wind corridors on the planning agenda. If implemented, the six wind corridors would become part of the city’s urban planning documents, and would affect areas including the CBD as well as the city’s iconic Gulou alleyway district.

The plan would involve limiting building heights, as well as their density and confi guration. But scientists and meteorological experts still need to weigh in. And often, once the science of large projects such as these is scrutinized, planners realize their diffi culty.

The Washington Post reported that Lanzhou—in westernChina’s Gansu Province, a city with some of the worst air in China—had attempted to launch a project to dig into the massive dunes and mountains surrounding the town, or perhaps removing them altogether, to change wind patterns. The enormity of the project ultimately made it tough to implement.

But Lanzhou’s scheme to literally move mountains seems downright modest compared to a mind-bogglingly huge plan to build the tallest skyscrapers in the world in Wuhan, Hubei Province. At a staggering one kilometer in height, the plan for the dual towers, by UK architecture fi rm Chetwoods, claims their “innovative technological features and symbiotic relationship will work to recycle and clean water and air to actively contribute to a reduction in local pollution”.

Coated with special photocatalytic substances to absorb smog, the buildings, which would be above a lake, also incorporate wind turbines and thermal chimneys to create power and purify water. At present, the plans for the 1.2 billion-pound project are awaiting approval from the mayor of Wuhan.

If the project does get the go ahead, it won’t be the fi rst time buildings have been built with smog-reduction capabilities. The surface of the Manuel Gea Gonzalez Hospital in Mexico City has been eating smog since it was fi nished in April, 2013. Similarly, the Palazza Italia Pavilion, which will be unveiled at the Expo 2015 in Milan, uses “biodynamic cement” to absorb smog. Dutch scientists have even created photocatalytic roads that attempt to solve the same problem.

Perhaps surprisingly, one plan which has drawn more skepticism online seems to be one that already seems to work: rain. However, signifi cant questions surround the feasibility of generating rain to combat smog. There have been a variety of techniques to harness the rain to combat smog, some more practical than others. One proposal by geoengineering researcher Shaocai Yu involved placing giant sprinklers on the top of skyscrapers in an effort to wash away low-lying smog, but this was obviously of limited applicability.

The authorities of Xi’an, Shaanxi Province in May, 2013 attempted a similar idea from ground level. Trucks with “fog cannons” on their trailers were sent to roam the streets, fi ring off massive quantities of water vapor in an attempt to moisten dust and smog particulate matter and bring them to the ground.

The Beijing News reported in November, 2013 that the capital’s authorities had a larger scale plan in the works. The plan indicated that in 2015 the authorities would have the technical capability as well as permission to reduce smog using cloud seeding—a process where substances such as silver iodide are used to “seed”clouds, forming ice crystals inside them and prompting rain. China is no stranger to the technique, having used it in the past in its parched Hebei region to bring rain to the capital’s desperately dry reservoirs, and of course to clear the skies before the all-important 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

Using it to combat smog however, is a different idea entirely. The New Scientist cited Monash University cloud-seeding expert Steven Siems as saying that part of the diffi culty lies in the fact that smog already contains particles that generate the same reaction within clouds. Essentially, fi ring rockets fi lled with silver iodide at exhausted clouds that have already been exposed to chemicals in smog that generate these ice particles may be of limited use.

On a smaller scale, a number of inventions have focused on combating smog for individuals rather than entire cities or parks. Nose-plug masks and cheap, cardboard air fi lters for apartments have been among recent inventions gaining popularity, though in terms of outlandishness, they are outclassed by the creation of British expat Matt Hope, who built a bicycle that uses pedal-power to fi lter air for the rider and pumps it through to an attached mask.

Perhaps though, the strangest invention’s practicality is drawn from its symbolism. Another of Roosegaarde’s creations is a “smog ring” which has an unusual jewel mounted on it. Inside the ring is encased one cubic millimeter of smog-turned-compressed-soot, representing a cubic kilometer of air that has been purifi ed.

In cold seasons in the Chinese capital, clear skies are the exception, not the norm. But, despite the seemingly endless supply of short-term solutions, a panacea for Beijing’s smoggy skies is far from forthcoming, and no one really expects there to be one. For example, at the recent APEC meeting, residents cheered the suddenly blue skies before somewhat cynically creating the term“APEC blue” to refer to something artifi cial and fl eeting.

For now, there is certainly no shortage of solutions and blue-skies thinking. In July, China Daily reported that the authorities planned to cut smog to internationally recognized safe levels by 2030. This came on the heels of an announcement in April, 2014 that the government would set up a state-of-the-art lab in Hebei Province—which surrounds Beijing and has infamously dirty steel industries—to research smog related issues. But, for residents of cities like Beijing, they won’t be holding their breath, even though they very probably want to.