IBM Tries To Forecast and Control Beijing's Air Pollution

itwbennett writes Using supercomputers to predict and study pollution patterns is nothing new. And already, China's government agencies, and the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, publicly report real-time pollution levels to residents. But IBM is hoping to design a better system tailored for Beijing that can predict air quality levels three days in advance, and even pinpoint the exact sources of the pollution down to the street level, said Jin Dong, an IBM Research director involved in the project.

Comments

Down to the street level

[kruach aum]

There, that moped is doing it. That one. That little moped is why 20 million people literally cannot live off the air they breathe.

no supercomputer needed

[rubycodez]

already known that coal makes the number one pollutant of the air in in China, of the PM2.5 that makes up most the rest, 22 percent from transportation, 16 percent from industry, 17 percent from coal.....the sources are known, the percents are known. How and if they are going to clean up these known sources is the question, no need for modeling

Re:no supercomputer needed

[zlives]

yes but if we spend the next 5-20 years modeling we don't actually have to do anything real about it.

Re:no supercomputer needed

[rubycodez]

Actually it was another president long before Bush who snubbed a U.S. ally to make relationship with China so jobs and wealth production could be "outsourced". That was the start of the present day pollution problem in China

IBM....

[funwithBSD]

is protecting it's future employees, customers, and H1B visa holders.

Re:IBM....

[rubycodez]

well they have to have communist customers now that they lost their Nazi one

Always clear skies over the US embassy

[GameboyRMH]

The Chinese government HATES it when people measure and publish "unofficial" pollution level readings...you can bet that pollution controls upwind of the US embassy are especially strict.

Re:Always clear skies over the US embassy

[Savage-Rabbit]

The Chinese government HATES it when people measure and publish "unofficial" pollution level readings...you can bet that pollution controls upwind of the US embassy are especially strict.

Which is pretty amusing since it's pretty easy to design an algorith that will predict pollution levels for most major Chinese cities with pretty much 100% accuracy every day of the year:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <unistd.h>

int main()
{
    while(1)
    {
        printf("Predicted polution level for today: Very High\n");
        printf("Health hazard: Extreme\n");
        sleep(86400);
    }

    return 1;
}

Got To Be A Ritual

[JimSadler]

Anything that society can't deal with becomes surrounded by rituals. For example we can make one heck of a ritual over applying the death penalty. It is like prisons that seal off all roads within miles of the prison near the hour of execution supposedly to ward off the stampede of would be friends that supposedly will try to rescue the subject. Now pollution is getting the same nonsense. Most pollution is obvious. If it pollutes just shut it down. No need to decide which source is least or greatest at all. If it pollutes simply end it. One business may be spewing carbon monoxide or even carbon dioxide while the next spews sulpher. We need no study or debate over which is worse. If it pollutes kill it. If that happens to shut down almost every business in town then great. You have just solved the traffic problem. There is more than one way to clean up the neighborhood.

Re:Got To Be A Ritual

[Arker]

Carbon dioxide is NOT a pollutant.

It's a natural component of the atmosphere, produced every time an animal breaths or respirates in any manner (fish do it too.)

Now, focus on the real pollution for a moment and realize that there are still very real and enormous costs to your proposed policy of 'If it pollutes simply end it.'

So what are you going to use for power, Solar? Do you have any idea how much pollution you have to create BEFORE you get a PV cell ready to START producing a miniscule trickle of electricity? Hydro-electric damages the riverine ecology and there is still plenty of pollution attributable to its construction and maintenance on top of it. The latter goes for wind as well. *You cannot even construct* your "clean" power plant without polluting to do it, so electricity is out the window, welcome to the new dark ages.

Unless that is really what you want, you will have to adjust your expectations. Some level of pollution being unavoidable, the question becomes how to keep it within safe bounds.

And the answer is...

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

...please insert another $1M to continue this contract.