PM2.5 exposure possibly leads to 1.37M people’s premature death in China • Hacker News Board

Re: PM2.5 exposure possibly leads to 1.37M people’s premature death in China

#41

Post by yourapostasy » Sun, Oct 30, 2016, 8:27 PM UTC

memonkey wrote: post #37

adsfqwop wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to put a straight number on it, other than that "it will most likely reduce the negative effects". A standardized HEPA filter removes 99.97% of particles down to PM0.3. How much it cleans the air in the room in the end depends on many factors, but in a small room and a decent filter you can expect a significant reduction in pollution. So yes, if you want less pollution, a HEPA filter will deliver it in a th…

I just want to point out that the HEPA ratings are pretty lax on how much and what they are effectively cleaning in the air. Pretty much everybody can use the word HEPA and it not mean that much if they are, for example, using an ionizer that essentially just makes the particles 'sticky' while putting them back in the air. Source: I work at a top international air purification company.

If we cannot rely upon HEPA ratings, then what should consumers look for if we want to take air purification seriously? Short of going out to purchase industrial air purification equipment that is purpose-made for applications like clean rooms, I don't know how to evaluate and purchase for a residential application. There are lots of pollen allergy patients who would be very happy if they could live in a PassivHaus that can be made practically airtight and pass all incoming air and circulating through an actually effective air purification system.

Re: PM2.5 exposure possibly leads to 1.37M people’s premature death in China

#42

Post by XCSme » Sun, Oct 30, 2016, 8:33 PM UTC

Tbh, I thought this was about https://github.com/Unitech/pm2 . I was pretty confused.

Re: PM2.5 exposure possibly leads to 1.37M people’s premature death in China

#43

Post by et-al » Sun, Oct 30, 2016, 8:40 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #18

reasonattlm wrote: post #4

The challenge in linking air pollution to age-related disease and mortality risk lies in the confounding correlation with wealth. There are plausible physical mechanisms involving, for example, increased levels of inflammation resulting from high levels of particulate air pollution, but regions with lower levels of air pollution tend to have much wealthier populations, and it is well known that wealth correlates with…

Is clean air really correlated with wealth in China? The wealthy Chinese are generally in big cities which is where the terrible pollution is found.

With money, you can outfit your home and workplace with air filters and own a weekend villa further away from the smog. You're still exposed, but at a much lesser amount than the guard who has to stand outside all day.

Re: PM2.5 exposure possibly leads to 1.37M people’s premature death in China

#44

Post by tptacek » Sun, Oct 30, 2016, 8:55 PM UTC

piotrjurkiewicz wrote: post #39

tptacek wrote: post #27

This is unsurprising and in large part traceable to China's domestic coal consumption. When people say that coal power plans routinely kill orders of magnitude more people than nuclear plants ever have, this is what they're talking about.

Most of PM and other harmful smog components, like SOx, NOx and organic compounds, came from: 1. Transportation emissions, especially diesel engines. 2. Individual heating of buildings (using coal, oil or biomass). This is because exhaust fumes are mostly not being filtered in these cases. Coal power plants have advanced filter systems, which can reduce pollutants by more than 99% in some cases. http://i.imgur.com/ds…

China's PM2.5 output is overwhelmingly attributed to its coal power plants, so I think it's a bit of a rhetorical stretch to call what I said an "ignorant lie". Further:

* The Chinese coal industry is built out of boiler designs that are difficult to retrofit the "clean coal" stack of technologies on

* Despite aggressive investment in filtration and treatment in the US, field studies show fluctuating (at times increasing) levels of PM2.5 pollution in cities near coal plants

* Reductions in PM2.5 matching the levels stated by the coal industry documents you're providing depend not just on expensive retrofits of existing plants, but also on careful selection of (more expensive) higher-grade coal, and on expensive ongoing upkeep of consumable filtration components

I'm not opposed to clean coal, where its efficiency and effectiveness can be demonstrated and, equally importantly, regulated. But that's not the Chinese coal industry.

Re: PM2.5 exposure possibly leads to 1.37M people’s premature death in China

#45

Post by vram22 » Sun, Oct 30, 2016, 8:58 PM UTC

kurthr wrote: post #38

rabboRubble wrote: post #29

Try comparing air quality in [0] Beijing and [1] Delhi. Most days you will find Indian air pollution far worse than the air pollution in Beijing. [0] http://aqicn.org/city/beijing/ [1] http://aqicn.org/city/india/new-delhi/us-embassy/ Not letting China off the hook, but India is hardly ever mentioned and their problems are worse. India has been unable to implement effective policies and instead are looking toward gim…

If you're looking for a global view, I recommend the world-view of the AQICN forecast. You can really see where the hot spots are and how they distribute particulates to other areas. Central China (Chongqing) and Eastern India (Delhi) are particularly bad. Europe really isn't bad (even when it goes over 100... it's not 600-999) and the west coast of the US gets hit by China smog. http://aqicn.org/forecast/model/cams-…

>Eastern India (Delhi)

Delhi is in Northern India, and not much to the east, AFAIK. There is plenty of land to the east of Delhi in India, before the border. And a good amount to the west too. Google "political map of India".

Re: PM2.5 exposure possibly leads to 1.37M people’s premature death in China

#46

Post by GrumpyYoungMan » Sun, Oct 30, 2016, 9:20 PM UTC

myth_drannon wrote: post #5

Is there a way to measure it with a simple and cheap device?

It's been a while since I last researched it but the least expensive unit I've saw at the time that was reportedly accurate is Dylos DC1100 monitors for ~$200-$300, depending on the sensitivity and options desired. However, I never got around to purchasing one so I can't vouch for it personally.

Re: PM2.5 exposure possibly leads to 1.37M people’s premature death in China

#47

Post by Retric » Sun, Oct 30, 2016, 10:03 PM UTC

rockinghigh wrote: post #33

Retric wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's 1:1,000 per year so a much higher percentage of overall deaths. On the order of ~7% of all deaths in china assuming 1/1000 * ~70 year life expectancy.

Death rate in China is 7.7 deaths/1,000. So 1/1,000 caused by pollution would be closer to 13% of all deaths.

Wow, China's population must be aging really quickly.

Re: PM2.5 exposure possibly leads to 1.37M people’s premature death in China

#48

Post by seanmcdirmid » Sun, Oct 30, 2016, 10:13 PM UTC

kurthr wrote: post #38

rabboRubble wrote: post #29

Try comparing air quality in [0] Beijing and [1] Delhi. Most days you will find Indian air pollution far worse than the air pollution in Beijing. [0] http://aqicn.org/city/beijing/ [1] http://aqicn.org/city/india/new-delhi/us-embassy/ Not letting China off the hook, but India is hardly ever mentioned and their problems are worse. India has been unable to implement effective policies and instead are looking toward gim…

If you're looking for a global view, I recommend the world-view of the AQICN forecast. You can really see where the hot spots are and how they distribute particulates to other areas. Central China (Chongqing) and Eastern India (Delhi) are particularly bad. Europe really isn't bad (even when it goes over 100... it's not 600-999) and the west coast of the US gets hit by China smog. http://aqicn.org/forecast/model/cams-…

Damn, I didn't realize the Aleutians got hit so badly by Asian pollution.

Re: PM2.5 exposure possibly leads to 1.37M people’s premature death in China

#49

Post by seanmcdirmid » Sun, Oct 30, 2016, 10:17 PM UTC

piotrjurkiewicz wrote: post #39

tptacek wrote: post #27

This is unsurprising and in large part traceable to China's domestic coal consumption. When people say that coal power plans routinely kill orders of magnitude more people than nuclear plants ever have, this is what they're talking about.

Most of PM and other harmful smog components, like SOx, NOx and organic compounds, came from: 1. Transportation emissions, especially diesel engines. 2. Individual heating of buildings (using coal, oil or biomass). This is because exhaust fumes are mostly not being filtered in these cases. Coal power plants have advanced filter systems, which can reduce pollutants by more than 99% in some cases. http://i.imgur.com/ds…

> And ignorants enforce this lies, by repeating that "coal power plans routinely kill orders of magnitude more people than nuclear plants".

We can enumerate everyone who has been killed in a nuclear plant accident since the plants themselves do not emit any radiation or pollution when they are generating electricity. Nuclear power only has the problem of safety (keep bad accidents from occurring) and waste disposal, while coal plants pollute continuously, and emit much more radiation than a nuclear power plant (and even its waste).

The coal plants in China do not have any sophisticated environmental features like the ones in the west. Additionally, the burn much dirtier coal (mined in China) than the much cleaner coal that can be mined in say, West Virginia or Australia.

Re: PM2.5 exposure possibly leads to 1.37M people’s premature death in China

#50

Post by memonkey » Sun, Oct 30, 2016, 10:27 PM UTC

stephenbez wrote: post #40

memonkey wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just want to point out that the HEPA ratings are pretty lax on how much and what they are effectively cleaning in the air. Pretty much everybody can use the word HEPA and it not mean that much if they are, for example, using an ionizer that essentially just makes the particles 'sticky' while putting them back in the air. Source: I work at a top international air purification company.

Thanks. Do you have any recommendations on what to look for when buying a filter? I was planning on buying a filter labelled True HEPA from a well known company, that uses a fan and not ionization, and being sure to replace the filter as directed. The HEPA standard, ensures PM0.3 are filtered out. But this article ( http://now.tufts.edu/articles/big-road-blues-pollution-highw... ) says ultrafine particles (PM0.1) are…

It is pretty difficult to filter out ultra fine particles anyway and some of the best air purifiers can claim to do a lot. Obviously, you will be breathing that stuff every day and unless the air around you is seriously affecting your health, you don't need a high end air purifier. This is my opinion, but unless you have allergies or asthma, most top of the line air filtration systems won't have much of an impact on your day to day and I would personally suggest any $250-$500 range air purifier. This content in this article[1] does a really good job at comparing air purifiers but they suggest an ionizer which can have negative effects.

Things to look out for: - No ionizer. - No uv light. - True HEPA is fine but if they've trademarked or registered their HEPA brand (HyperHEPA, HEPASilent), I would ask them more about what that means and they should provide a pretty good answer within the context.

1. http://thesweethome.com/reviews/best-air-purifier/