
Chinese cities use “mist cannon” to shoot pollution from the sky - potench
http://qz.com/572954/chinese-cities-are-using-this-mist-cannon-to-shoot-pollution-from-the-sky/
======
brenschluss
Say what you will about China and its pollution, it's an interesting attempt
at a solution.[1] Could you imagine something like that implemented easily in
the US before caught within lawyer-string nets of liability?

China has many problems, but many HN readers bashing China have probably never
set foot there and are formulating their understanding based off of western
media and the socioeconomic + cultural dynamics of Chinese diaspora
communities in the west (working in low-paying jobs, less seen as
literary/communicative thanks to language barriers).

I'm not Chinese nor do I have a particular stake, but I was there for three
weeks this summer and was overwhelmed by a kind of social optimism - the
shared assumption that services are getting better, progress will happen, and
a relentless cycle of innovation (in China's own way; see 'Shanzai').

All this is to say that - pollution sucks. China needs to get its shit
together and pass clean air laws. But these devices are emblematic of a very
Chinese mode of progress and innovation that I'm not quite describing
properly.

[1] Yes, I know the technology is not completely new, and controlling
particulates by deploying other media is common - when polishing/concrete, for
example.

~~~
Htsthbjig
"I'm not Chinese nor do I have a particular stake, but I was there for three
weeks this summer and was overwhelmed by a kind of social optimism"

It is normal to fall in love when you meet a different culture.

It takes 6 months or so living on a country to start seeing caveats and "not
so good things" in any country.

"the shared assumption that services are getting better, progress will happen,
and a relentless cycle of innovation"

It is called a "bubble", I traveled frequently to Spain(my native country) and
Ireland while the shared assumption that everything was getting better was at
full power and all media was talking about those "economic miracles".

When those miracles reversed it was not(and it is not) pretty.

My father lived the Japanese "economic miracle" of Japan, the country that was
going to rule the world.

I lived 5 years in China at the beginning of the bubble. It is an entire world
in itself, but they have BIG problems. I continue traveling and doing business
in China, and it is getting worse day after day.

When I was there I could use a normal VPN without problems, and Chinese
authorities could not care less, as it was necessary for the business. But now
you have to use like 6 layers of VPN, change patterns of navigation...because
people in power is desperate to control their own people.

~~~
jewbacca
> But now you have to use like 6 layers of VPN, change patterns of navigation

Please explain further.

~~~
analyst74
Since Xi Jinping took power, the government has stepped up their internet
censorship efforts, banning many well known VPN. According to some accounts,
they also utilize some sort of dynamic filter to determine if you are
accessing censored content or using non-blocked VPN.

How exactly they do that is unknown, but the fact is, it's much harder to
visit censored websites now than before.

~~~
Laforet
The otherbl commentor was probably using OpenVPN which is easy to target.

Most other protocols continue to work well as long as your provider is not
being targeted.

~~~
TeMPOraL
You may also have problems if you're connecting through corporate firewall. I
won't name a certain Chinese well-known corporation using certain McAfee
shitware that managed to block ExpressVPN and VyprVPN within a week for me,
making it _significantly_ more difficult to do my job there.

~~~
gozo
If you are flying in through HK get a china unicom hk cross border SIM.
Somewhat expensive data but a life saver in those situations since there is no
firewall.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I did for the second half of the stay. Absolute lifesaver.

------
seanmcdirmid
Looking out my window right now at 2am in the morning, all I see is misty fog
where I would usually see a city here in Beijing. I really don't see how more
mist would help. They need a big giant freaking fan to create wind...powered
by coal, of course, just for purposes of irony.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Aren't they building nuclear plants now?

~~~
seanmcdirmid
A few, not enough to make a dent in coal usage. And I'm not sure how many
self-heated homes in the villages can be converted from coal to nuclear
(electric heating is too inefficient...but maybe they can use a waste core
like they did in the Martian?).

~~~
TeMPOraL
Electric-powered heat pumps are much more efficient than any kind of coal
burning - they run at 500%+ efficiency (they move heat around instead of
generating it).

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Seems like a nice solution for the future...efficient heat pumps are kind of
new technology.

Also, more insulation would be nice. China housing is very substandard in the
villages.

------
contingencies
It's 6:30AM here in the Chinese city of Kunming. I just returned from a 5AM
trip to a market to buy some herbs for Christmas dishes. On the way I passed
one of our many street cleaning water-tank trucks, which basically drive
around all Chinese cities spraying the road and nearby traffic with water and
a fine mist (just what you want at 5AM on an e-bike in the winter morning!).
While they most operate in the early mornings and are no doubt targeted at
dislodging and collecting road-top detritus, they have been about for ages and
are very much ubiquitous. A separate fleet of trucks drive about spraying
water on roadside gardens, which in some kind of cuddly holdover from
socialist central planning are in fact very numerous compared to most western
cities (with the exception of the center of older French cities, perhaps).
Despite the construction boom going on, it's all Himalayan blue skies here! I
pity the poor people in those polluted east-coast cities, and those in the
north with their wintery outlook, and particularly those in the northeast like
Beijing where not only do you have _both_ problems, but the time dedicated to
negotiating traffic every time you leave your house is soul-crushing...

------
Etheryte
Doesn't this simply remove some of the symptoms instead of working with the
root cause?

~~~
drzaiusapelord
Autocratic governments aren't exactly known for their forward seeking vision.
Problems come up and half assed solutions come down. There's no democratic
element to demand a higher level of service, say with how the US had its
environment movement which led to many laws protecting the land, air, and
water and ultimately culminated into several state agencies, federal
guidelines, the EPA, etc. These are large holistic changes brought about by
the democratic process in Western states. Autocratic states don't have this
mechanism so its a lot of basic face saving moves because politically this
issue isn't that important and/or interferes with the CCP's ability to grow
its economy. This creates a real victimization of innocents who don't have a
voice because they're governed without consent.

Birth defects have increased about 70 percent in China over the past two
decades, now reaching about 900,000 per year, according to the country's
Ministry of Health.

[http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soot-and-smog-
put-...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soot-and-smog-put-chinas-
babies-at-risk/)

Study Links Polluted Air in China to 1.6 Million Deaths a Year

[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/14/world/asia/study-links-
pol...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/14/world/asia/study-links-polluted-air-
in-china-to-1-6-million-deaths-a-year.html)

Air pollution is killing about 4,000 people in China a day, accounting for 1
in 6 premature deaths in the world's most populous country, a new study finds.

[http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/air-pollution-
kill...](http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/air-pollution-
killing-4-000-china-day-us-study-finds-n409516)

A "mist cannon" isn't helping with this.

edit: I have made fair cites and laid out my argument. Driveby downvotes just
show how biased HN is towards China.

~~~
DanBC
Per capita the US is still pretty lousy.

[http://www.wri.org/blog/2014/11/6-graphs-explain-
world%E2%80...](http://www.wri.org/blog/2014/11/6-graphs-explain-
world%E2%80%99s-top-10-emitters)

The US is still in the top "energy use per capita" countries.

~~~
refurb
_The US is still in the top "energy use per capita" countries._

Of course it is, the US is responsible for a huge percent of the world's
output. How could you create things without energy?

~~~
DanBC
But that's not what parent claimed; parent claimed that US democracy mean the
US wasn't a passive polluter.

But since you're here: what's the US GDP per capita, compared to other less
polluting countries?

~~~
oldmanjay
Presuming no stealth edits, what the parent claims is

> There's no democratic element to demand a higher level of service, say with
> how the US had its environment movement which led to many laws protecting
> the land, air, and water and ultimately culminated into several state
> agencies, federal guidelines, the EPA, etc.

So you've very effectively slaughtered that strawman detailed in your claim
about the original claim.

------
thrownaway2424
It's a real-life ATSHCME air displacement effectuator. David Foster Wallace
would be so pleased.

~~~
roymurdock
I assume the toxic waste catapults aimed at Tibet would be next.

------
coldcode
Wouldn't spraying water into air with sulfur oxides just create acid rain?

~~~
kragen
Sure. With the mist, you get dilute sulfuric acid settling on buildings and
streets and attacking the concrete, or maybe being washed away. Without the
mist, the dilute sulfuric acid forms in the noses and lungs of your citizens
instead, damaging their sense of smell and ability to absorb oxygen. The mist
sounds like an improvement.

But this is mostly aimed at particulate pollution, not sulfur dioxide.

------
ihsw
Why do the cities pay for them? Why aren't the coal-burning energy utility
companies paying for them, out of pocket?

~~~
JadeNB
> Why aren't the coal-burning energy utility companies paying for them, out of
> pocket?

Because no-one has the power to make them, I think. If it's easier (and
probably cheaper) to take measures to address the problem yourself than it is
to force compliance, then that's the sensible way to go.

~~~
jsprogrammer
Their customers stop sending them money? Would probably shut down most
operations pretty quickly.

~~~
mistercow
Why would their customers do that?

~~~
jsprogrammer
So that less coal product is emitted into the atmosphere? I thought that was
the premise.

~~~
scott_karana
I think he wasn't being literal, and meant, "why wouldn't they want
electricity?"

~~~
jsprogrammer
Well, if the production of your electricity kills or otherwise significantly
harms you, you may not wish to have that electricity.

~~~
scott_karana
I agree, but it's not necessarily an obvious (or easy) choice to make for
someone who's poor, for example...

And that's even if they can correlate them properly.

------
reuven
I'm in Beijing this week. The pollution here has to be seen (and felt, as you
breathe) to be believed. I'm not surprised that all sorts of technical
solutions are being discussed, just because it's so crazy terrible. Whether
such proposals (such as a mist cannon) is a real solution is a good question,
but it's worth trying lots of stuff.

------
tokenadult
It occurs to me, after reading this story a second time and reviewing the
latest comments posted to this thread, that this is a science story that
wasn't reported by a science journalist. It's not at all clear--only a company
spokesman is quoted on the point--that the machine even WORKS. It's also not
at all clear, even if the machine is effective at reducing air pollution
(where is the independent evidence?), that it is as good for that or as
inexpensive for that as other measures that might be taken to reduce air
pollution. The town I grew up in has much less air pollution today than it had
when I was young. The newly industrialized countries of east Asia (I am most
familiar with Taiwan, but the fact is the same in other countries in the
region) have less air pollution today than they had in their worst years.
There is a lot known about technology and a lot known about effective
regulation for reducing air pollution. This story really needs an experienced
science reporter, not a rookie in international reporting, to tell the
accurate story about what's the best thing to do to handle China's horrific
problem with air pollution.[1]

[1] "Study Links Polluted Air in China to 1.6 Million Deaths a Year" ( _New
York Times_ 13 August 2015)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/14/world/asia/study-links-
pol...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/14/world/asia/study-links-polluted-air-
in-china-to-1-6-million-deaths-a-year.html)

Chinese version of story: "研究称中国每年有160万人死于空气污染"

[http://cn.nytimes.com/china/20150814/c14pollution/](http://cn.nytimes.com/china/20150814/c14pollution/)

Other recent QZ articles about China, by other authors:

[http://qz.com/on/chinas-transition/](http://qz.com/on/chinas-transition/)

------
banjobob
Reducing pollution in the air, by polluting the water.

~~~
kctess5
It's going to land eventually... Just the water seems better than the water
AND people's lungs

------
shanev
I wonder if a bigger version of this could be built to inject a cloud of ash
into the atmosphere to help mitigate climate change [1].

[1]
[https://www.ted.com/talks/david_keith_s_surprising_ideas_on_...](https://www.ted.com/talks/david_keith_s_surprising_ideas_on_climate_change)

~~~
wavefunction
I think it would safer and more prudent to move away as quickly as possible
from fossil fuels as primary fuel sources.

~~~
shanev
I totally agree. The ash injection approach seems like a temporary emergency
solution.

------
jkrejci
Or you know, you can just like not pollute the shit out of the Earth. China is
the worst.

~~~
myztic
[http://www.theguardian.com/environment/datablog/2009/sep/02/...](http://www.theguardian.com/environment/datablog/2009/sep/02/carbon-
emissions-per-person-capita)

+

China 9,679.30 GHG emissions (MtCO2e)[1], United States 6,668.79 GHG emissions
(MtCO2e)[1] - population China ~1.3 billion[2], population United States ~330
million[3]

Do the math!

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenhous...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenhouse_gas_emissions)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_China](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_China)

[3] [http://www.census.gov/popclock/](http://www.census.gov/popclock/)

~~~
scott_karana
That's just CO2. What about sulphur oxides, particulate matter, and the like?

"Pollution" is a general term.

~~~
myztic
Better late than never: it's hard to get reliable data on such things, CO2
estimates are probably at least somewhat correct.

The larger point being that you have to take into account how many people live
in a country, you can't just compare countries without that.

------
buro9
Mist may be able to "catch" the visible particles and go to some length to
then putting it into groundwater, but all of the dangerous stuff is in the
small particulates that will remain in the air.

Out of sight, out of mind seems to the aim of this.

~~~
LordKano
Even small particles will be reduced by misting/spraying water.

I have worked in industrial settings and water is surprisingly effective in
reducing airborne particulates.

------
Justin_K
Excellent, they can keep polluting as long as they add more mist cannons.
Maybe gross polluters can buy mist credits!

