Energy Futures and Urban Air Pollution

387 Pages·2008·3.46 MB·English

Committee on Energy Futures and Air Pollution in
Urban China and the United States
Development, Security and Cooperation
Policy and Global Affairs
In collaboration with
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Suggested citation: National Academy of Engineering and National Research Council.
2008. Energy Futures and Urban Air Pollution Challenges for China and the United States.
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COMMITTEE ON ENERGY FUTURES AND AIR POLLUTION IN
URBAN CHINA AND THE UNITED STATES
U.S. Committee
John WATSON, Chair, Desert Research Institute, Nevada
Dave ALLEN, University of Texas at Austin, Texas
Roger BEZDEK, Management Information Services, Inc., Washington, D.C.
Judith CHOW, Desert Research Institute, Nevada
Bart CROES, California Air Resources Board, California
Glen DAIGGER, CH2M Hill, Inc., Colorado
David HAWKINS, Natural Resources Defense Council, Washington, D.C.
Philip HOPKE, Clarkson University, New York
Jana MILFORD, University of Colorado at Boulder, Colorado
Armistead RUSSELL, Georgia Institute of Technology, Georgia
Jitendra J. SHAH, The World Bank, Washington, D.C.
Michael WALSH, Consultant, Virginia
Staff
Jack FRITZ, Senior Program Officer, National Academy of Engineering
(through April 2006)
Lance DAVIS, Executive Officer, National Academy of Engineering
Proctor REID, Director, Program Office, National Academy of Engineering
John BORIGHT, Executive Director, International Affairs, National Research
Council
Derek VOLLMER, Program Associate, Policy and Global Affairs, National
Research Council
Chinese Committee
ZHAO Zhongxian, Chair, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences,
Beijing
AN Zhisheng, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences,
Xi’an
CAI Ruixian, Institute of Engineering Thermophysics, Chinese Academy of
Sciences, Beijing
CAO Junji, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi’an
FAN Weitang, China National Coal Association, Beijing
HE Fei, Peking University, Beijing
JIN Hongguang, Institute of Engineering Thermophysics, Chinese Academy
of Sciences, Beijing
TANG Xiaoyan, Peking University, Beijing
WANG Fosong, Academic Divisions, Chinese Academy of Sciences

WANG Yingshi, Institute of Engineering Thermophysics, Chinese Academy of
Sciences, Beijing
XU Xuchang, Tsinghua University, Beijing
YAN Luguang, Institute of Electrical Engineering, Chinese Academy of
Sciences
YOU Changfu, Tsinghua University, Beijing
YU Zhufeng, China Coal Research Institute, Beijing
i
Preface
In relation to studies and understanding of broad energy and pollution man-
agement issues, the U.S. National Academies have had an on-going program of
cooperation with the Chinese Academies (Chinese Academy of Sciences and
Chinese Academy of Engineering) for a number of years. Joint study activities
date to the late 1990s and led to the publication in 2000 of Cooperation in the
Energy Futures of China and the United States. This volume was the first exami-
nation of the broad energy questions facing both nations at the turn of the new
millennium.
The Energy Futures study was followed in 2003 with a study publication
titled Personal Cars and China, which sought to provide insight to the Chinese
government in the inevitable development of a private car fleet. And, in the fall
of 2003, the Chinese and U.S. Academies organized an informal workshop in
Beijing to review progress made to date in China in managing urban airsheds.
This resulted in a proceedings publication titled Urbanization, Energy, and Air
Pollution in China; The Challenges Ahead, published in 2004.
As time has evolved it has become abundantly clear that the United States and
China are inextricably intertwined through global competition for scarce energy
resources and their disproportionate impact on the globe’s environmental health.
These realities reinforce the need for the United States and Chinese Academies
to continue to work closely together on a frequent and more intensive basis. An
underlying assumption is that China can benefit from assimilating U.S. lessons
learned from a longer history of dealing with the interplay between air pollution
and energy production and usage. Moreover, as both countries focus on energy
independence, there are significant opportunities to learn from one another and
to cooperate on issues of mutual interest.
ii
iii PREFACE
It is against this backdrop that the current study was developed. Following
the 2003 workshop which first explored the role of urbanization in China’s energy
use and air pollution, it was concluded that a full-scale consensus study should be
carried out to compare the United States and Chinese experiences. Both countries’
respective Academies established committees comprised of leading experts in
the fields of energy and air quality to jointly carry out this task. Specifically, this
study was to compare strategies for the management of airsheds in similar locales,
namely ones located in highly industrial, coal-rich areas, as exemplified by
Pittsburgh and Huainan, and others located in more modern, coastal/port and car-
oriented areas, as exemplified by Los Angeles and Dalian. It was anticipated that
a comparative analysis focusing at the local level should reveal how national and
regional (state/provincial) policies affect local economies and their populations.
Visits to all four cities by the U.S. and Chinese committee members were
organized to learn as much as possible about the experiences of each city. The
teams met with city government officials, local university and research personnel,
and with key private-sector actors. The teams toured local industrial plants, power
plants, research laboratories, transportation control centers, and air quality moni-
toring facilities. In order to understand local policy and compliance aspects, the
teams also met with local, regional, and national regulatory officials. This report
has been prepared on the basis of those visits, as well as on the basis of the pro-
fessional expertise of the U.S. and Chinese committee members and the trove of
data available on worldwide energy resources and consumption and environmental
regimes and challenges in the United States and China.
This study could not examine in detail the related and increasingly significant
issue of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and global climate change. We do,
however, attempt to highlight the fact that this will be a central issue, perhaps
the issue, in discussions of energy and air pollution in the future. We also give
attention to opportunities to mitigate GHG emissions and some of the strategies
that cities are able to and are already employing. This is an area where continued
cooperation between the U.S. and Chinese Academies will be particularly use-
ful. Similarly, we did not focus on the impacts of long-range pollution transport,
but we acknowledge that this is an important global issue, and one that links our
two countries.
As the goals and priorities of both countries evolve with respect to energy and
air pollution, it is clear that there will be a number of different strategies avail-
able, though certainly no magic bullets. This large and diverse bilateral effort was
designed to represent the different (and sometimes competing) viewpoints that
might support these various strategies; throughout the process, each side learned
valuable lessons from the other and came away with a better understanding of the
circumstances unique to each country. We hope that the resultant report is of value
to policy and decision makers not only in China but also in the United States, and
that the lessons learned may be instructive to other countries currently experienc-
PREFACE ix
ing rapid urbanization. We were honored to serve as chairs of these distinguished
committees, and we compliment the U.S. and Chinese committee members for
their efforts throughout this study process.
John G. Watson Zhao Zhongxian
National Academy of Engineering Chinese Academy of Sciences
National Research Council