King Coal causes air pollution problems
Wang, A.; Zhao, D.; Liu, J.
Earthwatch 34: 6-7
1989
PMID: 12291352 Document Number: 380931
Every year, China is blanketed with some 23 million tons of particulates from smoke and dust along with 17 million tons of sulphur dioxide from the use of coal in power plants, factories, and home furnaces. Elevated concentrations of sulphur dioxide are found in cities like Chongqing and Guiyang, which are plagued by stagnant air masses during the winter months. Beijing, Shenyang, Shanghai, Xi'an, Guangzhou, Chongqing, and Guiyang all suffer from soot, ash, and dust fallout for much of the year. Northern cities like Beijing and Tianjin are also afflicted with high levels of heavy metals like lead, cadmium and even arsenic, which are bound to soot and dust particles. Hundreds of people in Xuanwei in Yunnan Province suffer from respiratory diseases and lung cancer brought on by pollution. Government studies have shown that between 1949 and 1979, cancer mortality in the Beijing area increased by 145%, with lung cancer being the most prevalent. Another atmospheric scourge that is spreading throughout China is acid rain. More than half of all rainfall events in large areas south of the Yangtze River have a pH of less than 5.6. The south-western part of China is also experiencing a forest dieback as severe as anything in Europe. For example, about half of all the pines on top of Mt. Nanshen (near Chongqing) have died, and nearly 40% of the fir forests on Mt. Emi have withered and died. On June 1, 1988, the National Prevention and Control of Air Pollution Law came into force. Acid rain research has been listed as one of the major priorities for the most recent National Five-Year Research Program, which runs from 1986 to 1990. For the future environmental protection measures must be taken into account when extracting coal; coal processing techniques must be improved: and new clean coal technologies should be introduced on a large scale.