Electric versus conventional vehicles: social costs and benefits in France

This article compares the social costs of electric vehicles with those of conventional, thermal vehicles for typical passenger use in the Ile-de-France region (Greater Paris), a case of particular interest because nearly 80% of the electricity is generated by nuclear power plants. A four-seat electric car is compared to a new conventional car of the same make and model; for the latter both the gasoline and the diesel version are considered because almost half of new car sales in France are diesel. These results are also compared to typical existing diesel and gasoline vehicles in the current French fleet. The methodology developed by the ExternE (External Costs of Energy) Project of the European Commission is used to estimate the costs associated with atmospheric pollution due to power plants, refineries and tail pipe emissions. Our discussion of externalities is limited to air pollution thus excluding others such as costs associated with noise or accidents. Our results imply that the external costs are large and significant, even when one considers the uncertainties. If internalized by government regulations, these externalities can render the total cost of an electric vehicle more competitive with that of currently available thermal vehicles in large urban centers if the electricity is produced by sources with low pollution. However, the current generation electric vehicles are so expensive that internalization of pollution damage would not give it a very clear advantage.     

广州市越秀区餐饮业环境污染现状调查与分析

对348间餐饮企业污水、油烟和噪声进行检测,并对检测结果进行统计。餐饮业外排污染物浓度差异较大,污水超标率超过50%,油烟、噪声超标率分别是17.6%、23.0%。污水仅采用容积较少的简易隔油池处理,治理设施运行和管理不善是造成污水和油烟废气超标主要原因;厨房风机靠近边界和未使用低噪声风机造成噪声超标,执行噪声标准不同,边界噪声超标率差异较大。要加强环保宣传和教育,并由专业公司维护污染治理设施,确保餐饮业环境污染得到控制。     

公务船舶污染水域的原因与对策

本文分析了政府公务船、军用船舶的污染问题,建议有关部门应采取有效措施,对防止此类船舶的污染进行有效的管理。     

论环境污染侵权民事责任之构成及环境污染损害之救济

环境污染侵权是一种特殊的侵权，由于环境污染具有复合性、潜伏性、间接性、滞后性等特征，环境污染侵权民事责任的构成也就有其不同于传统民事责任构成的特殊性。本文以公平原则为依托，对环境污染侵权民事责任的行为的违法性、推定因果关系以及举证责任分配等进行了比较全面的分析。最后，本文对环境污染损害的救济进行了探讨，认为要区分情况，分别由有关责任人承担救济义务；救济途径要拓宽，多渠道保障受害者的权益。     

环境法律制度的经济分析

依靠政府干预和市场机制是两种基本环境法律制度,都能在一定程度上起到使环境污染的外部不经济性内部化作用,但两者各有利弊,且实施途径与经济效果不尽相同,选择适宜的环境法律制度对防治环境污染至关重要。     

The cost of convenience; Air pollution and noise on freeway and arterial light rail station platforms in Los Angeles

Light rail transit (LRT) systems constitute one of the most sustainable public transportation modes and transit agencies have increasingly constructed LRT lines along the median of roadways to reduce land acquisition costs and traffic conflicts. Despite these conveniences, few studies have examined the air pollution and noise exposures for passengers on LRT station platforms within freeway or arterial medians. In response, we monitored particle number count (PNC) concentrations and noise levels on 17 station platforms in the Los Angeles metro system in summer 2012 and assessed differences between freeway and arterial platforms. We visited each station on average 7 times for approximately 19 min with two teams carrying a full set of instruments. As expected, impacts were higher on green line platforms in the center of a grade-separated freeway compared to blue line platforms in the center of an arterial due to being in close proximity to greater traffic volumes. Overall, freeway-arterial platform differences were 35,100 versus 20,000 particles/cm³ for PNC and 83 versus 62 dBA for noise. This average noise intensity on green line platforms was four times that on blue line stations. We also found that PNC concentrations were significantly higher at open air monitoring platform positions compared to standing under a shade canopy (about 2000 particles/cm³ higher), but that noise levels were significantly lower at open air positions compared to under canopy positions (about 3.2 dBA lower). Results identify important factors for transport planners to consider when locating and designing in-roadway LRT platforms.     

Integrated data-driven modeling to estimate PM2.5 pollution from heavy-duty truck transportation activity over metropolitan area

Based on the national emission inventory data from different countries, heavy-duty trucks are the highest on-road PM_2.5 emitters and their representation is estimated disproportionately using current modeling methods. This study expands current understanding of the impact of heavy-duty truck movement on the overall PM_2.5 pollution in urban areas through an integrated data-driven modeling methodology that could more closely represent the truck transportation activities. A detailed integrated modeling methodology is presented in the paper to estimate urban truck related PM_2.5 pollution by using a robust spatial regression-based truck activity model, the mobile source emission and Gaussian dispersion models. In this research, finely resolved spatial–temporal emissions were calculated using bottom-up approach, where hourly truck activity and detailed truck-class specific emissions rates are used as inputs. To validate the proposed methodology, the Cincinnati urban area was selected as a case study site and the proposed truck model was used with U.S. EPA’s MOVES and AERMOD models. The heavy-duty truck released PM_2.5 pollution is estimated using observed concentrations at the urban air quality monitoring stations. The monthly air quality trend estimated using our methodology matches very well with the observed trend at two different continuous monitoring stations with Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient of 0.885. Based on emission model results, it is found that 71 percent of the urban mobile-source PM_2.5 emissions are caused by trucks and also 21 percent of the urban overall ambient PM_2.5 concentrations can be attributed to trucks in Cincinnati urban area.     

The development of a decision making framework for evaluating the trade-off solutions of cleaner seaborne transportation

The general rise in marine fuel prices in combination with ever-more stringent environmental regulations resulting from IMO conventions and EU Directives have become the main industry drivers for seaborne transportation to become cleaner and more energy efficient. Compliance with existing and soon-to-be-enacted regulations requires evaluating the trade-off between often-conflicting options to select the best available technology or fuel source. Although the traditional way of dealing with this issue has been to apply a cost benefit analysis, this kind of analysis does not adequately consider the complexities of the problem, such as incorporating linguistic preferences or interrelations amongst attributes, experts and their preferences.The challenge in such an analysis corresponds to that of a multiple attribute decision-making problem in which a finite number of alternatives are assessed with regards to a finite number of attributes and experts and ranked from the best to the worst.In this paper, a comprehensive and holistic decision-making framework is proposed to overcome the barriers of cost-benefit analysis techniques, facilitating the inclusion of all possible combinations of decision-making parameters and their discrete values, which will eventually help the industry achieve cleaner seaborne transportation.To demonstrate the applicability of the proposed framework, this paper focuses on a real-life study case involving an environmental compliance problem in the Port of Copenhagen, Denmark, in relation to a particular EU Directive. In conclusion, the proposed framework can be applied as a generalised decision-making model to similar compliance issues encountered within other modes of transportation such as rail and road.     

大气颗粒物对人体健康影响研究进展

近年来,越来越多的流行病学研究表明,大气颗粒物浓度水平与健康效应终点呈正相关关系。本文对大气颗粒物污染对健康影响的急性和慢性作用的研究进展进行了综述,并分别对颗粒物阈值、质量浓度和计数浓度对人体健康影响以及贫困在颗粒物污染健康影响中的作用这3个热点问题进行了讨论,最后提出了今后的研究方向。     

Roadway determinants of bicyclist exposure to volatile organic compounds and carbon monoxide

Few studies have quantified relationships between bicyclist exposure to air pollution and roadway and traffic variables. As a result, transportation professionals are unable to easily estimate exposure differences among bicycle routes for network planning, design, and analysis. This paper estimates the effects of roadway and travel characteristics on bicyclist exposure concentrations, controlling for meteorology and background conditions. Concentrations of volatile organic compounds (VOC) and carbon monoxide (CO) are modeled using high-resolution data collected on-road. Results indicate that average daily traffic (ADT) provides a parsimonious way to characterize the impact of roadway characteristics on bicyclists’ exposure. VOC and CO exposure increase by approximately 2% per 1000 ADT, robust to different regression model specifications. Exposure on off-street facilities is higher than at a park, but lower than on-street riding – with the exception of a path through an industrial corridor with significantly higher exposure. VOC exposure is 20% higher near intersections. Traffic, roadway, and travel variables have more explanatory power in the VOC models than the CO model. The quantifications in this paper enable calculation of expected exposure differences among travel paths for planning and routing applications. The findings also have policy and design implications to reduce bicyclists’ exposure. Separation between bicyclists and motor vehicle traffic is a necessary but not sufficient condition to reduce exposure concentrations; off-street paths are not always low-exposure facilities.