Rapid change of AQI

[pprendeville]

Just noticed a huge change in AQI/PM2.5 this evening. It was hovering around the 100mark most of the day until about 6 in the evening and then all of a sudden a friend texts me and says its like its melting outside. Readings over 350AQI and 300PM2.5. It's like someone decided to just turn on all the chimneys. What gives?

[Ludens]

1 AM PM2.5 was 534, highest I've ever seen, today it's still 400+... No idea what the origin of these changes are, but it doesn't seem to be cars or home cooking.

[tysond]

Amazing isn't it... weeks and weeks of hardly any pollution, blue skies, etc then it unexpectedly appears.

[zhouhaochen]

disappearing already again, the Northwest wind is blowing it all out, should be beautiful by the afternoon.

[icebear]

Amazing isn't it... weeks and weeks of hardly any pollution, blue skies, etc then it unexpectedly appears.

 

 

Even with spikes like the one this week and the bad ones last January/February, my impression is there are far, far more blue sky days than in 2007-2008. The extremes are still bad, but the median is much better. That should further improve over the next few years as all coal fired power plants in Beijing are shut down or converted to natural gas and steel mills in Hebei relocate further inland. Good riddance.

[zhouhaochen]

So I was told by a friend who works with the Beijing government on environmental issues that they are getting very serious on pollution now, with a lot of stuff being done, but the two main things he told me:

1) getting rid all coal power plants in Beijing until 2017 and replace them with gas power plants (probably also located quite a bit further out)

2) reducing the number of new car registrations from 250000 (2013) to 150000 (2014) AND making them increasingly only available to electric cars (10,000 out of the 150,000 for 2014 increasing to 90,000 until 2017, which would then mean most newly registered cars in Beijing would be electric.

 

Now tearing down like a dozen coal power plants (those are not cheap) and forcing people to drive electrically within 3 years is pretty radical and if I had not seen this city change upside down within a few years before the Olympics (I still remember how we laughed when some minister said that within 3 years they will replace all public toilets in the city and make them international standard....and 3 years later they had re-built every single one) I wouldn't believe this stuff, but somehow anything sounds possible here if the government really means business.

It wouldnt solve all problems, but it would go a long way towards it.

 

@icebear: I agree, the air in Beijing actually got better over the years, it is mainly the reporting about it that got more negative.