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Kraków, Poland in top 5 worst air quality worldwide

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Re: Kraków, Poland in top 5 worst air quality worldwide

#91

Post by eru »

Gravityloss wrote: post #39
lm28469 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They burn all kind of shit in very inefficient stoves, modern wood burning stoves are pretty clean

I wonder how expensive it would be to get widespread usage of better stoves, heat pumps or co-generation + district heating with centralized gasified burning. Everything could be locally built. I don't know about electricity prices there either. Gas for heating is something every European nation should steer clear from, for strategic reasons.

> I wonder how expensive it would be to get widespread usage of better stoves, heat pumps or co-generation + district heating with centralized gasified burning. Everything could be locally built.

Do you want cheap and efficient, or do you want locally built?

Re: Kraków, Poland in top 5 worst air quality worldwide

#92

Post by Moldoteck »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #80

We got a whiff of that in Berlin a few weeks ago when we got some cold wind from the east. Really noticeably bad air quality when I went outside to enjoy the snow and the cold. When I checked the map, I saw that we are basically getting Poland's pollution blowing our way. Most of the time the winds blow from the west and it's fine. Berlin has a bit of traffic but not a lot of coal plants or industry. It would be bett…

Baseload doesn't characterize power plants but demand. For PP the relevant terms are firm power/firming and modulation. Firm power is anything from hydro to thermal plants. But modulation capacity and costs are different. Hydro is extremely good in both regards. Nuclear and gas are about on par in terms of modulation speed (depends on models on both sides) but gas is cheaper to use as peaker. On the other hand gas, esp LNG is expensive and will become even more so with CO2 tax increase. Coal is slower to modulate, but very cheap to operate without co2 tax and very expensive with tax enforced. That's why coal is going away- co2 tax is making even lng cheaper than some coal units to run

Ren per unit are cheap but transition will still cost a lot, incl all relevant infra around them. Some countries can afford going faster, like Germany, others will go slower. It's hard to say now how things will pan out due to increasing geopolitical instability which can cause funds reallocation for say military or other sectors

Re: Kraków, Poland in top 5 worst air quality worldwide

#93

Post by harmonics »

IQAir has shit coverage. I live in Kazakhstan in a city at the eastern part of the country, near the border with Chinese Xinjiang, where PM2.5 levels regularly exceed 1000 µg/m³ (that's right, it's not a typo). The highest concentration I've seen this winter is 1900 µg/m³ just a couple of days ago.

SO₂ pollution is also extreme, with levels of 1000 µg/m³ being exceeded on a regular basis, and 5000-8000 µg/m³ not unheard of. Yes, I am sure of these numbers, it's not a typo.

Right at this moment there's some wind and the pollution has somewhat subsided, but it won't last: it's an exception. For example, the average PM2.5 concentration over the last month is around 250 µg/m³, depending on the exact place.

We have extensive network of air sensors, but it's not currently public (it only started working a couple of months ago and is in the process of being made available to the public). I can only recommend looking at https://aqicn.org, which has much better coverage than IQAir, and speaking of our country specifically, it collects data from our old sensors provided by the government.

Disregard anything that looks suspicious (some of the sensors are not working and show zero levels of pollution -- they're simply broken).

My city is the worst one, but actually most Central Asian cities have terrible air quality due to harsh winters and outdated heating methods with zero emission control. Much, much worse than anything in Poland or Europe generally. You won't see them on IQAir because AFAIK they mostly collect data through their own sensors, which are expensive and not used here.

Re: Kraków, Poland in top 5 worst air quality worldwide

#94

Post by eru »

unglaublich wrote: post #34

Fossil fuel heating is _extremely_ polluting, and really costing the population months, up to years of their life. But it's a silent killer, so let's dramatize fantasy nuclear accidents instead.

And burning wood ain't any prettier for the local air. And not all fossil fuels are equal: natural gas is burns fairly clean, coal is a nightmare.

(Note: I specifically say for the local. I'm not talking about global CO2 levels here. That's a different topic.)

Re: Kraków, Poland in top 5 worst air quality worldwide

#95

Post by SSLy »

scyzoryk_xyz wrote: post #50
exitb wrote: post #26

Few years ago Kraków has forbidden the use of solid fuels which improved the situation significantly. Days like today are happening much less often since then. Moreover, Kraków has probably one of the densest network of pollution sensors in the world, which is why we talk about it at all. There are places in Poland that are much worse off, but there's not that much data to back it up.

My understanding is that the problem is exacerbated by the shape of surrounding terrain and atmospheric conditions. I.e. the city is in a cavity and on cold days there is a mass of high pressure that pushes all the smog down. But you are correct I believe (hailing from Wro here) - there have been many countermeasures implemented and cities are packed with sensors. Only so much can be done.

also the neighbouring municipalities are still burning solid fuels, and the city can't do anything about that.

Re: Kraków, Poland in top 5 worst air quality worldwide

#96

Post by ansgri »

ErroneousBosh wrote: post #85
unglaublich wrote: post #34

Fossil fuel heating is _extremely_ polluting, and really costing the population months, up to years of their life. But it's a silent killer, so let's dramatize fantasy nuclear accidents instead.

It depends what you're burning and how you burn it. If you're burning gas, you're burning it either at the perfect fuel/air ratio or maybe just a little lean. You only get water vapour and carbon dioxide out. If you're piling up coal in a stove you're getting all sorts of crap out of the chimney, including radioactive dust. It's one of the reasons that cars have been fitted with catastrophic converters. These remove…

Gas-powered cars are indeed much cleaner, they are very popular in Armenia because of favorable pricing compared to petrol. And while air in cities here may not be very clean, it's generally not because of cars: people burn trash in winter and there are a lot of dust in the summer.

Thankfully many new cars are Chinese EVs and most people are installing solar panels, and it doesn't seem to be environmentally driven at all, just economics.

Re: Kraków, Poland in top 5 worst air quality worldwide

#97

Post by TeMPOraL »

asdff wrote: post #41
egorfine wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite government incentives and regulations some people burn garbage in stows. It's a local cultural thing and the state seemingly is powerless to do anything about it despite being the 20th economy in the world.

Are people not aware that is absolutely terrible for their health?

Freezing to death is even more terrible for their health. It's also much more immediate. And so is being poor.

Breathing dust and smoke is a minor inconvenience in comparison. Any negative health effects will become noticeable in decades if at all. Doesn't help that most of the people responsible likely remember themselves or their parents breathing even worse stuff most their lives, with no ill effect being seen.

Hell, it's one reason I myself considered air quality issues to be overblown - I don't perceive smog. I couldn't tell you whether it's bad or good air day in Kraków - I could only tell you when the air is too clean because I get sore throat then. I no longer consider air quality to be an overblown fad, but that's because I have small children and they start coughing non-stop when the air gets bad.

Re: Kraków, Poland in top 5 worst air quality worldwide

#98

Post by Moldoteck »

shevy-java wrote: post #84
jillesvangurp wrote: post #80

We got a whiff of that in Berlin a few weeks ago when we got some cold wind from the east. Really noticeably bad air quality when I went outside to enjoy the snow and the cold. When I checked the map, I saw that we are basically getting Poland's pollution blowing our way. Most of the time the winds blow from the west and it's fine. Berlin has a bit of traffic but not a lot of coal plants or industry. It would be bett…

That's completely made-up. And also - nobody "smells" pollution from Poland in Berlin. Even AI would not generate this erroneous claim. > Maybe with some nuclear here and there (expensive but clean). And that's also made up. What is "clean" here? Radioactivity? Also if you refer to carbon cost, you have to calculate in EVERYTHING including mining and transport. So no, it is not clean - that is a lobbyist dream to cla…

Nuclear requires least mining and materials over lifecycle vs any alternative so in this regard it's clean.

It has low land footprint as a bonus point

It outputs comparable or even smaller waste volumes vs alternatives per kwh over lifecycle. Both nuclear and renewables do create toxic waste over lifecycle. For eg ren do use much more copper both internally and for the grid. Copper mining is associated with arsenic and other dangerous chemicals that must be isolated forever, otherwise you get nasty spills like recently in Africa.

To sum it up, yes, nuclear is as clean as any good ren alternative

Re: Kraków, Poland in top 5 worst air quality worldwide

#100

Post by mykowebhn »

harmonics wrote: post #93

IQAir has shit coverage. I live in Kazakhstan in a city at the eastern part of the country, near the border with Chinese Xinjiang, where PM2.5 levels regularly exceed 1000 µg/m³ (that's right, it's not a typo). The highest concentration I've seen this winter is 1900 µg/m³ just a couple of days ago. SO₂ pollution is also extreme, with levels of 1000 µg/m³ being exceeded on a regular basis, and 5000-8000 µg/m³ not unhe…

A Kazakh city in the eastern part of the country, near the border with Xinjiang. That's Almaty, right?
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