china's push to be electric vehicle leader

Interesting article yesterday at the top of the New York Times home page - China Vies to Be World's Leader in Electric Cars:

TIANJIN, China — Chinese leaders have adopted a plan aimed at turning the country into one of the leading producers of hybrid and all-electric vehicles within three years, and making it the world leader in electric cars and buses after that.

While it's nice to see China's electric vehicle push making headlines internationally, the article as a whole leaves me a little confused and disappointed. Although much of the article is solid reporting, at times it adopts a strangely negative and sometimes contradictory tone. For example, the author, Keith Bradsher, writes (emphasis mine):

China’s intention, in addition to creating a world-leading industry that will produce jobs and exports, is to reduce urban pollution and decrease its dependence on oil...But electric vehicles may do little to clear the country’s smog-darkened sky or curb its rapidly rising emissions of global warming gases. China gets three-fourths of its electricity from coal, which produces more soot and more greenhouse gases than other fuels.

However, this "may do little" claim is supported by the following paragraph, which directly contradicts it:

A report by McKinsey & Company last autumn estimated that replacing a gasoline-powered car with a similar-size electric car in China would reduce greenhouse emissions by only 19 percent. It would reduce urban pollution, however, by shifting the source of smog from car exhaust pipes to power plants, which are often located outside cities.

"Only" 19% is not a "little." Plus, this number will almost certainly grow as China's power sector improves efficiency and diversifies away from coal. As for pollution, the McKinsey study supports the exact goal of the Chinese government - reducing urban air pollution. Why then, does Mr. Bradsher nay say the environmental impacts of electrifying the vehicle fleet?

Moving on, Mr. Bradsher accurately describes some of the details of the program, and makes some key points about why electric vehicles may be viable in China whereas they have struggled in America:

Electric cars have several practical advantages in China. Intercity driving is rare. Commutes are fairly short and frequently at low speeds because of traffic jams. So the limitations of all-electric cars — the latest models in China have a top speed of 60 miles an hour and a range of 120 miles between charges — are less of a problem.

First-time car buyers also make up four-fifths of the Chinese market, and these buyers have not yet grown accustomed to the greater power and range of gasoline-powered cars.

(That final sentence is key, and something I'll make a note to blog on another time.)

In the final part of the article, Mr. Bradsher mentions that "rechargeable lithium-ion batteries also have a poor reputation in China," but then goes on to say, "these safety problems have been associated with lithium-ion cobalt batteries, however, not the more chemically stable lithium-ion phosphate batteries now being adapted to automotive use." Then why does he bring it up? Is there some evidence that Chinese consumers are reluctant to buy electric vehicles because of battery safety? If there is, he doesn't mention it.

In the end, I'm just not sure what to make of the article. The overall tone seems to be some combination of "lookout America, China is going to leap frog you in this promising clean tech area" and "but don't worry too much, even if they do succeed (which they might not), the impacts on GHG and air pollution reduction won't be that big."

From the perspectives of reducing oil consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and air pollution, I think almost everyone agrees that electrifying the vehicle fleet is a good thing. So good that many (including myself) see the electrification of the transportation sector as a core sustainability solution. I need to make time to prepare a longer post on this, but for now, see Joe Romm's post: Plug-in hybrids and electric cars — a core climate solution, nationally and globally.

Related news from yesterday:
- China Car Times reports that Shenzhen will become the first city to offer subsidies to private buyers, though I haven't yet found the original source material to support this.
- NEEDigest's excellent auto zone has a great comparison of companies racing to offer EV's to the Chinese market.

Related post from this blog: subsidies for energy saving and new energy vehicles

summary of beijing's 2009 first quarter air quality

Yesterday, Xinhua reported that Beijing achieved above an 80% "blue sky" rate in the first half of this year:

BEIJING, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Beijing saw 73 "blue sky days", 81.1 percent of the total, in the first three months of 2009, Beijing authorities said here on Tuesday.

The city experienced six more blue sky days than in the first quarter of last year, and 24.3 days more than the average of the last decade, said an official of the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau.

Experts at the bureau said active cold airflows had helped particulate matter to disperse.

Efforts to reduce pollution from heating systems had paid off with January having the most blue sky days since 2000, said the official.

For those who prefer original sources, here is the notice from the Beijing EPB (in Chinese).

Let's take a closer look at the data and examine what this means in terms of air quality.

First of all, as a quick introduction for new readers, China defines "Blue Sky Days" as days for which the Air Pollution Index (API) is 100 or below. For a detailed description of exactly what the API is, see this post. Past Beijing API data may be queried from MEP's datacenter, but unfortunately only in Chinese.

For this post, I queried the data for 1/1/09 to 3/31/09, and ran some quick analyses to see what interesting things I could find.

Part 1: Checking Beijing's EPB's Numbers

The Beijing EPB claims "截至3月31日，今年累计73个达标天，占监测天数的81.1%。其中一级7天，二级66天，三级15天，四级1天，五级1天。" The second sentence says that in this time period there were 7 days of Grade 1 (API 0-50) air, 66 days of Grade 2 (API 51-100) air, 15 days of Grade 3 (API 101-200) air, and 1 day each at Grade 4 (API 201-300) and Grade 5 (API 301+).

However, by my count, there were 8 days of Grade 1 (one more than reported) 64 days of Grade 2 (two less than reported), then 15, 1, and 1 days of Grades 3, 4, and 5, respectively (identical to that reported). It seems pretty basic to me that you would want your publicly reported data summary to match your public database, so I can't imagine what's going on here. This is especially true because, in this case, the data indicates Beijing did better than they claimed.

The data for one day, 2/19/09, is missing from the database. If we assume that 2/19 was a Blue Sky Day, though, then at least we do indeed have 73 Blue Sky Days for the quarter.

Part 2: Converting to Pollutant Concentrations

Because API is a unitless index, in order to evaluate air quality we have to convert back to pollutant concentrations. This is a bit tricky, because the API is only reported according to whichever pollutant had the highest daily concentration, meaning that we do not have daily raw data for every pollutant. Still, we can make a rough approximation by assuming that PM10 is the limiting pollutant on all days. (Of the 89 data points, 72 (81%) were reported with PM10 highest, 9 were reported with SO2 highest, while 8 had no pollutant data because no pollutants are listed for Grade 1 air quality days.)

In any case, given the above assumption, this graph shows calculated daily PM10 concentrations for this quarter:


These data yield a quarterly average PM10 concentration of 124 ug/m^3. This is very similar to what I calculated as last year's annual average.

124 ug/m^3 is still well above China's annual target (100 ug/m^3) and well well above the WHO's ideal target for developed nations (20 ug/m^3).

Appendix

For those of you following along at home, here is an Excel formula for converting API to PM10 concentration (in this example, the API would be in cell E9):

=IF(E9<51,e9,if(e9<201,(e9-25)/0.5,if(e9<301,(e9+300)/1.429,if(e9<401,(e9+225)/1.25,e9+100))))

This is based on equations presented at the bottom of this post.

comparing international standards

One of the most important first steps in an air pollution control strategy is to set air quality goals. Here, I will explore from a standards perspective how China's air quality targets match up to the rest of the world's. I'll be looking at three sets of standards - China's, the United States', and the World Health Organization's.

Let's start with sources:

China air quality standards: The target for ambient air in urban areas in China is the National Grade II Standard, which is specified by National Standard GB 3095-1996, first issued in 1996 and then updated in 2000 (surprisingly, the update actually created less stringent air quality targets for certain pollutants).

United States air quality standards: The US EPA specifies air quality targets in the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS).

WHO air quality standards: International WHO air quality guidelines were issued in 2005, replacing the European-focused standards published in 2000. The 2005 WHO guidelines include both ideal targets as well as interim targets for developing countries. For comparison, I have included here both the final targets and the Interim Targets 1.

Pulling numbers from each of the above sources, I created the following table:


Observations:

1) China lacks an 8-hour standard for Ozone as well as any standards for PM2.5, though monitoring and reporting of these is supposedly going to begin this year.

2) Although the US EPA's PM10 standards do not appear very stringent, this is because the US EPA has prioritized limiting PM2.5 concentrations (which cause greater health impact) instead.

3) China's air quality standards are not as stringent even as the WHO's suggested Interim Targets 1.

These targets are proposed [by the WHO] as incremental steps in a progressive reduction of air pollution and are intended for use in areas where pollution is high. These targets aim to promote a shift from high air pollutant concentrations, which have acute and serious health consequences, to lower air pollutant concentrations. If these targets were to be achieved, one could expect significant reductions in risks for acute and chronic health effects from air pollution. Progress towards the guideline values should, however, be the ultimate objective of air quality management and health risk reduction in all areas.

I have heard a rumor that China will revise its air quality standards this year; if and when they do, I am curious to know how aggressive the new targets will be.

3-21-09 api missing

I'm not sure why, but Saturday's API was never reported.

In 2008, there were two days for which the API was not reported. There were no missing days in either 2007 or 2006.

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Update 3/31/09: The API for 3/21 has been added to the database.
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subsidies for energy-saving and new energy vehicles

Earlier this year, China announced new subsidies for energy-saving and new energy vehicles, including hybrids, EVs, and fuel cell vehicles. The announcement was covered widely in the media / blogosphere, for example Xinhua, Reuters, and China Car Times. I didn't get a chance to post about this last month; although I'm late now, I still think it's worth providing some commentary and more information.

First of all, since I like to reference original sources whenever possible, I was able to find relevant info posted both on the MOF website as well as MOST's. The MOF notice is only a brief summary, but the MOST page seems to be the complete announcement.

The lead of the Reuters story is an accurate and concise summary of the program:

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China's central government will subsidize purchases of clean-energy vehicles for public fleets in 13 cities to help the automobile industry develop green technology, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

The trial scheme will promote the use of electric, hybrid and fuel-cell vehicles by public transport operators, taxi firms and postal and sanitary services in cities such as Beijing and Shanghai...

A key point here is that the subsidies are for public fleets only. As far as I can tell, Chinese consumers are not eligible to receive these subsidies, although both the Xinhua and China Car Times stories describe them as such. Unless I am misreading the MOST announcement or there is another subsidy program that I am not aware of?

In any case, some technical details of the program are as follows:

- For small passenger cars (乘用车) and light-duty commercial vehicles (轻型商务车), the subsidies start for new energy vehicles which have at least a 5% fuel economy improvement as compared with traditional vehicles.
- For buses (客车), the subsides start at 10% improvement.
- The actual amounts of the subsidies (per vehicle) are given in Appendix Tables 1 and 2, which I have translated here:



One huge question I still don't know the answer to: how much is the total program worth? (No total is given in the MOST document.) The Xinhua story includes this paragraph:

China is keen to encourage the use and manufacture of new energy vehicles as its fast growing vehicle population is putting high pressure on environment protection and energy-saving targets. The central government pledged to provide 10 billion yuan (1.46 billion U.S. dollars) in the next three years to auto makers to help upgrade their technology and develop alternative energy vehicles.

But this is confusing - is this 10 billion RMB for this program? Or another program (I'm thinking the 863 program)? More details as I learn them.

greenpeace china beijing api widget

Greenpeace China has generated a cool new Beijing API website widget that supposedly updates automatically every day:

Looks good!

For a general introduction of API, see this post.

dust storm blowing into beijing?

Stay inside today; Beijing's API currently stands at 268 (PM10 concentration 397 ug/m^3). This is considered Very Unhealthy. (More info here.)

I thought this was a dust storm blowing into Beijing, but now I can't find any media references to one outside of this article from Sunday. (FYI, Sunday's API peaked at 119).

This is the second day this year with an API above 200. The first was the day of the Mandarin Oriental fire.

--
Update 3/19/09: Check out this terrific NASA image from Sunday:

Again, this was Sunday, whose API was 119. Still no word on the cause of yesterday's 268.
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looking for data biasing in 2008 blue sky data

Last year, a report by consultant Steven Q. Andrews highlighted apparent data biasing in Beijing's API data, particularly in the years 2006-2007. My take on his report (from last October) is here.

One of Mr. Andrews' core findings is that there were statistical anomalies in the frequency of Beijing's reported pollutant concentrations around the "Blue Sky Day" cut-off point. Specifically, there were too many reported values just below the cut-off, and too few just above, suggesting data manipulation to meet targets for number of Blue Sky Days. For reference, here is the excellent Figure 2 from Mr. Andrews' report:

Mr. Andrews' graph shows frequency of reported values vs. PM10 concentration, for which the Blue Sky Day cut-off value is 150 ug/m3.

With 2008 behind us, I decided to take a look back to see if a similar phenomenon existed last year. After querying Beijing's API data from MEP's datacenter, I parsed the data for each year into frequency by units of 5. In other words, I counted the number of days with API from 0 to 5, 6 to 10, 11 to 15, etc., all the way to 500. Rather than use PM10 concentration, I looked directly at API, for which the Blue Sky Day cut-off is 100. The results for 2006, 2007, and 2008 are graphed here:

Notes and Conclusions:

1) As expected, the 2006-2007 data biasing identified by Mr. Andrews is clearly visible here. In 2006, there were 50 days with API from 96-100, but only 2 days with API from 101-105. In 2007, there were 56 days with API from 96-100, and only 5 days with API from 101-105.

2) As for 2008, to be honest, I'm not sure how to interpret the data. Although there is clearly no dramatic spike in frequency of reported API values just below 100 (a good sign), there are only 3 days with API from 101-105. I do not know enough about statistics to know whether or not this is significant. (For reference, there were 16 days in the range 96-100, 9 days in the range 106-110, and 12 days 111-115). Anyone have any insights?

Related posts:
summary of beijing's 2008 air quality
beijing meets 2008 blue sky day target
problems with the "blue sky day" metric

grass mud horse in new york times

Screen capture this morning - Grass Mud Horse story is just below the lead photo

Wow. The grass mud horse made the front page of the New York Times. Although off-topic for this blog, I mention it here because a) it's hilarious, and b) the Times' story talks about the grass mud horse in the context of censorship, which I have written about occasionally. According to the Times, the recent explosion of the grass mud horse phenomenon has, "raised real questions about China’s ability to stanch the flow of information over the Internet."

More info:
Global Voices - More on Grass Mud Horse

Danwei:
Find harmony by owning your own grass-mud horse
Hoax dictionary entries about legendary obscene beasts

MEP org chart

The English-language org chart on MEP's website is outdated, so I made a new one:


Update: pdf version now hosted by CELB. (Thanks, Charlie!)

Sources: http://www.mep.gov.cn/dept/jgzn/gszn/;
MEP Organizational Rules, translated by CELB / Squire, Sanders & Dempskey L.L.P.

Note: I translated a few items differently from the CELB/SSD document. Notably:

政策法规司, CELB/SSB translated as "Legislation Department," but I used "Department of Policies, Laws, and Regulations";
科技标准司, CELB/SSB translated as "Scientific and Technological Standard Department," but I used "Department of Science, Technology, and Standards."
环境监察局, CELB/SSB translated as "Environmental Monitoring Bureau," but I used "Bureau of Environmental Supervision / Monitoring."

Comments on this?

For reference, the old, outdated org chart is here.