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China Using Drones To Spot Polluters
An anonymous reader writes "China is reportedly now using 4 drones to spy on polluting industries, according to The Guardian. The unmanned aircraft can cover 70 sqkm during a two hour flight. According to the state-run China Daily newspaper the drones have helped the ministry 'resolve' over 200 environment-linked cases. The Ministry of Environmental Protection claims that it can tell the type of smokestacks to crack down upon from the color of the smoke."
The appropriate bribes and connections are in place.
No good deed goes unpunished.
S&M at all time epidemic levels http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=pollution%20weather%20manipulate%20leaders&sm=3
Border security, drug interdiction, search & rescue... certainly a seemingly endless list of plausibly benevolent drone activities.
Now that the cat is out of the bag regarding governmental spying on its own citizens with no serious negative repercussions, I'd bet they're gearing up.
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Arguably less than the reduction in the factories it'd catch during its service life? Even if it were a pick-up truck the tradeoff is just silly.
But the thing here is that it's easier to check on a big industrial park or mining operation from the air, and a lot cheaper if the aircraft doesn't have to carry a pilot and an observer.
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The idea that China is opposed to environmental protection espoused by so many people is pretty badly informed. China's policy is and always has been that it won't needlessly set itself back - but it'll glad do what it can, because it's not like their air pollution is just CO2 and harmless to their environment.
So chances are, the whole "China is building X many coal plants per week!" is a very short-lived trend, and when they can go nuclear + renewables, they're going to do it in a big way very quickly, since the benefits aren't represented in a model, they'll be represented in breathable air. Money doesn't much help you avoid 2.5um particulates no matter where you live. Not on any sensible scale.
While in America we pass laws making that illegal. So I did wake up in an alternate world after all.
They don't throw actual gas sensors on those really expensive drones? Just visual inspection with cameras? Why even bother with drones then?
It's a lot cheaper to just look in the phone book. Look in the business section and...it's all of them.
Maybe this will not why aren't?
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Developing a drone to spot polution in China is a ridiculously low bar to hurdle.
China polution drone operation:
Turn the drone on "polution detected, polution detected, polution detected.....repeat a few hundred more times"
Police move in and arest/fine everyone doing anything industrial or mechanized within 1km.
Maybe after a couple of decades of enforcement might the job required of the drone be somewhat difficult to detect poluters.
Well, according to http://www.ipa-news.com/en/123-0-Standards-by-Region.htm, China does give a shit about emissions.
"Rapid economic growth, growing mobility and an increasing purchasing power and resulting demand for goods have made China one of the fastest growing car markets in the world.
Emission standards in China are governed by the Ministry for Environment (formerly State Environment Protection Administration - SEPA). Chinese standards are based on the European regulations, and are adopted with a certain time delay. More stringent regulations are applied in large metropolitan areas such as Shanghai and Bejing on an accelerated schedule.
China has started to implement Euro 3 standards in Bejing in 2005 and aimed at nationwide application in July 2007. Euro 3 has also become valid for light duty vehicles in 2007. Euro 4 has been introduced in Bejing in 2008 (July 2010 for the rest of the country), the year of the Olympics.
Emission standards apply for passenger cars and light duty vehicles.
Heavy duty vehicles have to meet Euro III standards since 2008. Euro IV has become applicable in January 2010 (January 2008 for the Bejing region), Euro V is scheduled for January 2012."
In large cities like Bejing, there are a couple of million of scooter users.
A scooter, especially a 2-stroker, will emit near 100 to 1000 times the crap out the tailpipe compared to a modern Euro6 or Tier 2 bin 4 or better engine on a car.
Heck, even an lawnmower is worse than than your average mega-suv.
Fuel consumption which get reduced to pure CO2 is not a pollution issue for the cities, it's the rest of the emissions.
The drone's cameras were not able to penetrate the smog.
Isn't that the ultimate oxymoron? Right up there with military intelligence
Only Beijing has strong emissions standards, sort of like California in the USA before the federal government prevented us from increasing ours as we voted to do. Now our standards are not much different from other states. I won't be surprised if that happens for China as well. Also, I can find literally zero studies on this subject which are not from the Chinese government. Now, it's not like I trust my own government, but I double-extra don't trust China's. Their answer when you ask them if they're going to do something bad again is "we killed the last guy who did it", but then it happens again. Melamine nomnomnom!
But guess what? Beijing is just the tip of the iceberg. Even if they could fix Beijing, which they could only do by caring about how much pollution comes out of their coal plants, it wouldn't really fix China.
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