China has 350 million electric two-wheelers, 20 million EVs. China reduced air pollution from transportation by 80% in a decade. Delhi: 442. Lahore: 334. Beijing: 16. These are the levels of PM 2.5, one of the principle measures for air pollution, on November 19. How China cleaned up its air pollution – and what that meant for the climate: https://theconversation.com/how-china-cleaned-up-its-air-pol...
Children's stunted lungs show recovery in ultra low emission zone
311–320 of 426 posts
Re: Children's stunted lungs show recovery in ultra low emission zone
#312Earlier quoted context omitted.
Doctors used to prescribe a "change of air" in the 18-19th centuries. Maybe they still should.
Since Eastern Europe is relatively poor and sensitive to energy prices a lot of households invested into insulation, new windows, etc. Last 20 years there was also a huge boom for heat recovery ventilation. Such a simple and inexpensive device that provides so much. Should be first item in every household to invest into. Funny part is that locals here are absolutely scared of any sign of draft or direct aircon. All w…
I have always been and am still baffled by this. My whole family loses their minds if there is even a slight draft or AC, whether in the house or car. When my brother visits he incessantly closes car vents and windows. Parents constantly nag to put on warm clothes and avoid drafts etc., and when we inevitably get sick a few times a year mostly from school transmitted cold viruses they gloat about it.
Maybe it's a cultural thing from times without good heat/insulation where drafts meant an actual freezing house, which, yes that would actually have an impact on health.
Re: Children's stunted lungs show recovery in ultra low emission zone
#313Earlier quoted context omitted.
I support solar. Democratize energy, everyone should have the right to produce and store energy. 1) Plug-in solar and batteries are plug-n-play. This is the first step to teach everyone energy literacy and numeracy. 2) Vertical panels immediately add 3 - 4 hours. Vertical panels have zero real estate cost and no need to build costly and slow transmission infrastructure. Every building in a city can produce energy. 3)…
What source of energy will provide energy at night or bad weather? I would like to note that batteries at end of life are chemical waste and have to be disposed properly. "End of life electric vehicle batteries in China to 2060 and related resource management implications" https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-026-03555-3 "The EOL batteries contain a wide range of toxic and hazardous materials that can leach into th…
Redwood recycles end-of-life batteries to recover lithium, nickel, cobalt, and copper — creating one of the largest domestic sources of these critical materials: https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/
Re: Children's stunted lungs show recovery in ultra low emission zone
#314Earlier quoted context omitted.
Living very close to busy highways is known to generate poor air quality. I recommend anyone in those locations buy an air purifier for their kids' rooms. I bought a couple reasonably priced HEPA purifiers and I change the filters on schedule. Replacement HEPA filters are very cheap. Also watch out for things that we do indoors that can generate bad air quality. I had a friend who bought a VOC meter and noticed very…
HEPA filters are counterproductive in standard air purifiers. Air purifiers pump their cleaned air directly into the dirty air of the room. It doesn't matter if that cleaned air is extremely clean, because it's immediately mixed with dirty air. What actually matters is how much clean air you produce: the "clean air delivery rate" (CADR). The more effective the filter the more it restricts airflow. If a filter is only…
Re: Children's stunted lungs show recovery in ultra low emission zone
#315Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't need to seperate the clean and dirty air. Mixing them isn't as efficient but it should still be roughly 63% efficient (1-1/e).
The point isn’t that the HEPA filter won’t work under those conditions, it’s that if you can get away with not separating the clean and dirty air, you can achieve better filtration overall with a higher flow, lower resistance filter at a lower noise level. HEPA filters shine in use cases where you need single-pass filtration, like vacuum cleaner output filters or clean room air filters. If you don’t separate clean an…
Re: Children's stunted lungs show recovery in ultra low emission zone
#316Europe should hurry up adopting ULEZ in every dense urban area. It's completely worth it in terms of health, neurological development, noise and quality of life, and has practically no downsides but "boohoo" from those who make everything into a culture war. A good start would be to immediately ban all two-stroke mopeds aka "super polluters" (emitting 50x as much PM2.5 as a truck), and then follow up with Diesel truc…
Re: Children's stunted lungs show recovery in ultra low emission zone
#317Earlier quoted context omitted.
I support solar. Democratize energy, everyone should have the right to produce and store energy. 1) Plug-in solar and batteries are plug-n-play. This is the first step to teach everyone energy literacy and numeracy. 2) Vertical panels immediately add 3 - 4 hours. Vertical panels have zero real estate cost and no need to build costly and slow transmission infrastructure. Every building in a city can produce energy. 3)…
What source of energy will provide energy at night or bad weather? I would like to note that batteries at end of life are chemical waste and have to be disposed properly. "End of life electric vehicle batteries in China to 2060 and related resource management implications" https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-026-03555-3 "The EOL batteries contain a wide range of toxic and hazardous materials that can leach into th…
As far as countries like the US is concerned we need to mirror our policies with lead acid batteries. Recycling chains need to be setup and monetary penalties for not recycling a battery when buying a new battery. Ideally I think this should be for lithium batteries from BEV & Home Storage, all the way down to disposable vapes.
Re: Children's stunted lungs show recovery in ultra low emission zone
#318And yet we’ve still got people cutting down the enforcement cameras with angle grinders at night
Re: Children's stunted lungs show recovery in ultra low emission zone
#319Earlier quoted context omitted.
HEPA filters are counterproductive in standard air purifiers. Air purifiers pump their cleaned air directly into the dirty air of the room. It doesn't matter if that cleaned air is extremely clean, because it's immediately mixed with dirty air. What actually matters is how much clean air you produce: the "clean air delivery rate" (CADR). The more effective the filter the more it restricts airflow. If a filter is only…
> It doesn't matter if that cleaned air is extremely clean, because it's immediately mixed with dirty air What matters is the gradual removal of particles from the air. The HEPA purifiers I have move enough air that everything gets scrubbed. It works. My house has a separate central air system with a non-HEPA air filter with a decent MERV rating for the bulk filtering. The HEPA air purifiers do the scrubbing of finer…
You have an air purifier in your kid's room. If this is a fairly large apartment or a house, and you have central air running, how much purer is the air in that room? If your central air system is modern and continuously circulates air throughout the house at a low fan speed, you're effectively trying to purify your whole house with that low-output room-sized HEPA filter. Have you done measurements to see if it does anything?