Canada will spend C$120 million to fight pollution

A team of US researchers has created a new class of molecular cages, called the Sandia Octahedral Molecular Sieves (SOMS) that can capture radioactive chemicals in a sea of hazardous wastes and a variety of valuable metals from industrial effluents.

SOMS act like a sponge that sucks up divalent cations into its microscopic pores and snares them at negatively charged bonding sites that have been vacated by ions with weaker charges by a process known as ion exchange.

SOMS are picky about the ions it captures because of the sizes of openings on their surfaces. By varying the sizes of these openings, different ions or molecules could be captured. They are also extremely selective for strontium-90, a radioactive material prevalent in liquid hazardous wastes.

A demonstration at the 6^th Annual National Ethanol Conference held in Las Vegas showed that the ethanol-blended diesel, or e-diesel, was cleaner than traditional diesel fuel.

E-diesel is a mixture of 5 to 15 percent ethanol, 1 to 5 percent fuel additive to prevent separation, and standard diesel fuel.

E-diesel is found to dramatically reduce particulate matter emissions by 30 to 40 percent. It also greatly reduces visible smoke, oxides of nitrogen (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO) and air toxics.

A project, supported by the European Commission, has succeeded in developing a combustion engine with very low nitrogen oxide emissions and high fuel economy potential.

The project, known as 4-SPACE (4 stroke powered gasoline auto-ignition controlled combustion engine) was completed in Dec 2000 after 36 months of work by six partners, namely IFPO (Institut Francais du Petrole), Brunel University, GIE PSA Peugeot Citroen, Ruprecht-Karls-Universitat Heidelberg, Ford Motor Company Ltd and Daimler Chrysler AG.

The project's main objective was to demonstrate that CAI (controlled auto-ignition) could be applied to automobile gasoline engines without any engine redesign.

The Environment Ministry's Report on the State of the Environment said that major cities in Italy, such as Milan, Bologna, Florence and Turin suffer from air pollution caused by heavy motor vehicle congestion, and face higher-than-average rates of leukaemia. It estimated that if no action is taken to address traffic congestion and the pollution associated with it, an average of 10 people per day will die of leukaemia over the next 75 years.

The New Zealand Minister for the Environment has announced that the government would be setting more stringent ambient air quality guidelines.

The new guidelines propose to tighten the maximum ambient concentration values for particulate matter (PM10), nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide and lead.

The guidelines also propose to add new contaminants to the list of air pollutants, namely PM2.5, benzene, toluene, xylene, 1,3-butadiene, formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, benzo(a)pyrene, organic and inorganic mercury, chromium VI, other forms of chromium, and inorganic arsine arsenic.

97% of Connecticut's citizens breathe air that is considered unhealthy by the US Environmental Protection Agency.

According to a comprehensive report on the impacts of the state's vehicle emissions testing program released by the American Lung Association of Connecticut, the current emission testing program is essential to ensure clean air and public health in Connecticut.

Vehicular emissions contribute over one-third of Connecticut's ozone pollution and over half of the state's toxic air emissions. The emissions testing program tests 1.2 million cars in Connecticut each year to ensure proper emission controls and maintenance. The report shows that the emissions testing program will eliminate approximately 50,000 tons of smog-forming pollutants from Connecticut's air in 2002 alone, cutting down on 23% of the NOx and 30% of the VOCs and 23% of toxic compounds that would otherwise enter Connecticut's air.

Canada has pledged to spend C$120 million over the next 10 years to cut emissions from automobiles and industrial plants, under an agreement signed in Dec 2000 with the United States.

The Federal government's anti-smog plan calls for regulations to cut smog-causing nitrogen oxide emitted from cars and trucks to one-tenth of 1999 levels.

Some C$48.4 million will be used to align Canada's auto emission standards with the more stringent US standards by 2004. Another C$29 million will be spent over the next five years to improve its pollution monitoring and reporting network across the country.

The Federal government also plans to spend C$19.8 million over five years to cut industrial emissions, especially in the sectors of electricity generation, oil refining and industries producing or using large amounts of solvents.