Beijing Olympic Air Improves

Beijing Olympic Air Improves



August, 2008 - Beijing's air quality has improved, with

the sky clearly visible today after rains on Sunday and Monday reduced the

air pollution, heat and mugginess that made Olympic athletes, visitors and

residents uncomfortable for days.

Weather officials measured an Air Pollution Index of 32 on Tuesday, far

below the benchmark API 100 set by the Chinese authorities. An Air

Pollution Index of 50 and below is considered excellent by the World

Health Organization.

The United Nations Environment Programme's Beijing team sees this as an

indication that measures like the ones taken by the Chinese authorities

can have an impact on polluted air.

Some of the air pollution reduction measures that have been adopted by the

Chinese authorities for the Olympic Games include the closing down of

heavy polluting factories around the city and beyond, a reduction in car

traffic around the city by about half, and free use of public transport

for people holding tickets to Olympic event or Olympic accreditation.



UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said the expansion of public

transport infrastructure, creation of new parks like the Olympic forest

park, the bus transport links, and water recycling will leave a green

legacy after the Beijing Olympics are completed.

"These things not only benefit Olympic athletes but are also a legacy for

the citiz of Beijing. Most importantly, these are a demonstration of

where other cities in China and many parts of the world should strive to

move in the years ahead," he told Olympic organizers on Saturday.

Guo Hu, head of the Beijing Municipal Meteorological Bureau, said the

clearing skies are a bonus to add to the knowledge that he and his team

had protected the main Olympic venue the Bird's Nest from rain falling on

the Olympic opening ceremony on August 8.

On that day, the weather information was updated every six minutes by

Guo's bureau.

While people were enjoying the fireworks show in the evening,

meteorologists were firing rockets to disperse threatening rainy clouds

coming from the southwest. In order to keep the Bird's Nest dry, a total

of 1,104 rockets were launched.



In other Olympics environmental news, the Beijing Olympic Village

Wednesday received a LEED gold award from the U.S. Green Building Council.

LEED, which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design,

certifies that buildings have met a set of criteria for sustainability and

energy efficiency.

The LEED gold award was presented to Chen Zhili, head of the Beijing

Olympic Village, on Wednesday by U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

Chen said the presentation affirmed the cooperation between China and the

United States in clean energy technology for Olympic Games.

More than 16,800 athletes, coaches and officials of national teams are

living in the residential section of the village - in 22 six-story

buildings and 20 nine-story buildings that were constructed using

environmentally-friendly paint and other materials.

The Beijing Olympic Village uses solar cells and geothermal heat pumps to

supply energy to the buildings. The buildings feature solar heat, solar

hot water, solar thermoelectric cogeneration, and intelligent control

devices. They consume just 1/30th of the energy consumed by conventional

buildings, according to the contractor, Guoao Investment Company.

Through a heat exchange system, the Village is projected to draw 7.89

million kilowatt hours of renewable energy from the Sun during the

Olympics and slightly less in the years after the Games are finished and

the buildings are used to house other residents.

The system taps energy from Qinghe sewage treatment plant and upgrades it

through heat pump devices for winter heating and summer cooling. The

technology can save energy by over 40 percent compared with ordinary

air-conditioning systems.

In the Village, solar energy collecting tubes have been installed on

rooftop gard. The system can meet hot water demands of 16,000 users

during the Games and some 2, 000 households after the Games. The project

can save 5 million kilowatt hours of electricity a year,

The wastewater in the Village is being recycled and the 200 tons of water

recycled daily is used for landscape watering in the Village.





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