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Smog Season

Harambe

Harambe

Well-Known Member
Contributor
So, Smog season in SLC isn't all that far off. This thread is about brainstorming to find the best way out of it.

Beijjing looked for an answer. I'm pretty sure this won't really work here in Utah without a major expansion of public transportation. Moreso, it'll piss off businesses pretty bad. Beijjing will initiate these measures at 300 mcg/cubic meter, which is considerably worse than what we see(130 mcg). However, EPA says clean air is 35 mcg/meter or less.

Here's a quick video that explains it a little bit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdCm4PYyWxo

So what is a good answer? What effective answer can we come up with?

Perhaps some strategically placed wind turbines that can be altered and turned on to blow it all out of the valley in the bad times, and let flow free and capture energy in the good? Seems like it would help, but I don't know how high we'd need them to be.

Engineers, Critical Thinkers, scientists UNITE! Lets come up with a proper solution.
 
Looks like babe had a similar idea for a thread at 0139 this morning.

With his permission, might a mod be willing to merge?
 
It's actually encouraging that cities in China are measuring their smog and talking about what to do.

I remember when the Kennecott emissions were a lot worse, and gasoline had lead anti-knock compounds, and I worked in a plant with significant pollution in the local air as well. Not healthy. I was one of the people with significant effects from all that. Still true that a few days in SLC in the inversions has a noticeable effect.

The Great Basin has always had winter inversions, even without our exhaust fumes, and even in isolated valleys. "Foggy Bottoms" with temps a lot colder than the nearby hills/benches/mountaintops. CO2 is not the most important component of pollution as far as health is concerned, but it does contribute to the increased density of the cold air and increase the effects of pooling in the bottoms.

Household and business "scrubbers" would make as much difference as catalytic converters has done. Furnaces should have fans that draw exhaust fumes into a "sink" of water, which will trap the particulates and a lot of the toxic components, and which will "flush" itself into the sewer every so often. Our water treatment plants could be engineered to convert the toxics to more inert by-products. . . .

I rather suspect that the Chinese cities have a lot of working poor who use "cow chips" or even dried human poop as fuel to heat their little plywood-walled shacks, problably lacking even a cast iron "furnace" with a vent. . . . . burning actual wood might be high living over there. . . . .
 
The current generation of furnaces have "condensers" which collect the heat from the water produced in combustion, and send it down our drains. We could engineer a furnace "scrubber" that would remove/convert other more toxic components of our exhaust. The kind of "sink" I'm talking about would make our furnaces about 99% "efficient" with regard to trapping heat within the building. . . .

Higher standards/codes for insulation would make a noticeable difference as well.

While the TRAX folks would oppose "competition" we should pass ordinances which promote private van pools. . . private individuals and even shuttle businesses which could fill in all the niches where people can efficiently solve their own transportation needs (private individuals) or shuttle operators providing services to neighborhoods or workplaces which could get people to and from workplaces or malls. . . .
 
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Shanghai looking as beautiful as ever these days:

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When you've got indoor creep smog going on....you might have an issue.
 
^Dr. Brian Moench is the biggest ******* this side of the galaxy. He has no credibility outside his hysterical watchdog group and is not qualified to discuss the stuff he represents (a.k.a. makes up his own facts about) himself as a professional in.

I'm surprised the Trib interviews him anymore. Oh wait, it's the media nvm.
 
franklin said:
^Dr. Brian Moench is the biggest ******* this side of the galaxy. He has no credibility outside his hysterical watchdog group and is not qualified to discuss the stuff he represents (a.k.a. makes up his own facts about) himself as a professional in.

I'm surprised the Trib interviews him anymore. Oh wait, it's the media nvm.
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Wow. Sounds personal franklin.

I would like to see the state put up a bond to move these refineries to a more appropriate location. I know there are pipelines to consider and it would be expensive but it would be worth it, imo.
 
That's not a bad thought but it would cost the city billions while taking a couple thousand very high paying jobs away.

After getting the votes for that you would have to get an EPA exemption from five thousand pages of regulations (not going to happen) or come up with billions more to build them a state of the art refinery. Salt Lake City cannot afford it, not anywhere close.
 
Woke up to beautiful crisp, super cold air this morning. Silly SLCers...
 
Stoked said:
Woke up to beautiful crisp, super cold air this morning. Silly SLCers...
Click to expand...

Same up here. Right after snow storms the air is very clean. It's when everything stagnates for a few days, weeks or months that things get nasty.
 
The air cannot exit east over the mountains so lets bast down a section so there is one channel out of the Wasatch Front per major valley. Who knows, we might even find gold in there.
 
franklin said:
That's not a bad thought but it would cost the city billions while taking a couple thousand very high paying jobs away.

After getting the votes for that you would have to get an EPA exemption from five thousand pages of regulations (not going to happen) or come up with billions more to build them a state of the art refinery. Salt Lake City cannot afford it, not anywhere close.
Click to expand...

The refineries effect the air quality in both Davis and Salt lake county(around 40% of the population of utah) so I don't think SLC would have to fund it alone. I'm not really sure that we can afford not to. I think that a state bond that would be paid for by a tax on gasoline should be able to pay for it(total guess tbh). I think the more important question would be one of cost benefit. Can the same money have a greater effect on air quality if used differently?
 
heyhey said:
The refineries effect the air quality in both Davis and Salt lake county(around 40% of the population of utah) so I don't think SLC would have to fund it alone. I'm not really sure that we can afford not to. I think that a state bond that would be paid for by a tax on gasoline should be able to pay for it(total guess tbh). I think the more important question would be one of cost benefit. Can the same money have a greater effect on air quality if used differently?
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If you live in Utah then I hope you submitted your requests during the recent AQ public comments period. If you didn't then F U yer not American nothing worse than people like you and stuff. ;)
 
default said:
The air cannot exit east over the mountains so lets bast down a section so there is one channel out of the Wasatch Front per major valley. Who knows, we might even find gold in there.
Click to expand...

Can we give no warning to the pretentious snow boarders?
 
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