科学美国人Scientific American EP373 |香港如何看不见尾气排放，并把污染从路上赶走

Christopher Intagliata: Air pollution causes millions of premature deaths around the world every year, according to an estimate by the World Health Organization. And one of the most significant drivers of air pollution in cities is exhaust that comes out of tailpipes from cars, trucks and buses. 


In an effort to tame its air pollution, the city of Hong Kong has deployed a system that can sense when a high polluting vehicle drives by. 


John Zhou: There are more than 150 sites for monitoring of vehicle emissions in Hong Kong, so that high-emitting vehicles can be identified quickly and enforced for repair.


Intagliata: John Zhou is an environmental engineer at the University of Technology Sydney. He's co-author on a new analysis of the program, in the journal Science Advances. [Yuhan Huang et al., Rapid detection of high-emitting vehicles by on-road remote sensing technology improves urban air quality.]


He says the system works like this. Sensors at road level shoot beams of light across the road, to a reflector. The sensors measure how much light is absorbed by pollutants, and roughly calculate emissions from passing vehicles. The system simultaneously reads license plates, and sends notices to big polluters. 


Enforcement began in 2014. In the following four years, the program pulled 16,000 vehicles off the road—mostly taxis, but also private cars and buses. Government subsidies helped fix up 96 percent of those vehicles, and ensured they passed smog tests. 


Zhou: You know hopefully from the publication of this research we can raise awareness about the effectiveness of getting the heavy polluting vehicles off the road.


Intagliata: The repairs cut pollutants like carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides from the city's air. And that spared people from breathing them in. But the repairs had another effect too. 


Zhou: By reducing pollution from the tailpipe, we're also simultaneously increasing the performance of fuel combustion in vehicles. So it's indirectly contributing to the reduction of fuel. And therefore, the reduction of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide.


Intagliata: By cleaning up its air, Zhou says Hong Kong has cut carbon emissions too. That's a win-win for people in the city—and beyond. 

【参考译文】

克里斯托弗-英塔利亚塔。根据世界卫生组织的估计，空气污染每年在全世界造成数百万人过早死亡。而城市中空气污染的最主要驱动因素之一是来自汽车、卡车和公共汽车尾气管的废气。


为了控制空气污染，香港已经部署了一个系统，当有高污染的车辆驶过时，该系统可以感知。


约翰-周。香港有150多个监测车辆排放的地点，这样就可以迅速确定高排放车辆，并强制进行维修。


英塔格利塔。John Zhou是悉尼科技大学的一名环境工程师。他是《科学进展》杂志上关于该计划的一项新分析的共同作者。[Yuhan Huang等人，通过公路遥感技术快速检测高排放车辆，改善城市空气质量。］


他说这个系统是这样工作的。路面上的传感器将光束射向道路对面的一个反射器。传感器测量污染物对光线的吸收程度，并大致计算出过往车辆的排放量。该系统同时读取车牌，并向大的污染者发送通知。


执法工作于2014年开始。在接下来的四年里，该计划使16000辆汽车离开了道路--主要是出租车，但也有私家车和巴士。政府补贴帮助修复了其中96%的车辆，并确保它们通过烟雾测试。


周。你知道，希望通过这项研究的发表，我们可以提高人们对让重污染车辆离开道路的有效性的认识。


Intagliata：维修工作减少了城市空气中的一氧化碳和氮氧化物等污染物。这使人们免于吸入这些污染物。但维修也有另一个效果。


周。通过减少尾气的污染，我们也同时提高了车辆的燃料燃烧性能。所以它间接地促进了燃料的减少。因此，减少了温室气体，如二氧化碳。


Intagliata：周说，通过净化空气，香港也减少了碳排放。这对这个城市的人们来说是一个双赢的结果。