WKU's China Project To Be Discussed At Washington Meeting

June 11, 2007

Bowling Green, Ky. - A Western Kentucky University project to reduce air pollution in China will be one of the topics discussed this week by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

Dr. Wei-Ping Pan, director of WKU’s Institute for Combustion Science and Environmental Technology, will be in Washington, D.C., for a presentation on the clean coal work of WKU’s China Environmental Health Project.

The commission will meet Thursday and Friday (June 14-15) at the Russell Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill for a hearing to examine the trends and impact of China’s energy consumption; the strategic and environmental consequences of that energy use for China, the United States, and the world; strategies for addressing these effects; and current U.S.-China cooperative programs on energy and the environment.

Dr. Pan will testify on Friday as part of a panel on U.S.-China Governmental and Nongovernmental Cooperative Programs in Energy and the Environment and will discuss his work with Anhui University of Science and Technology on air quality monitoring.

The goal of WKU’s China Environmental Health Project (CEHP), which receives major support from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), is to improve public health in China through activities promoting access to clean air and potable water through applied scientific research with Chinese university partners.

In the city of Huainan, the environmental health concerns stem from serious air pollution problems that have arisen from a dependence on coal, Dr. Pan said. “We want to help China overcome the pollution problems created by its economic growth,” he said.

Health problems include allergic asthma, chronic bronchitis, conjunctivitis, coryza and occupational diseases related to air toxin exposure.

In his presentation before the commission and in written testimony submitted to the 12-member panel, Dr. Pan will focus on the following four points:

1) WKU’s China Environmental Health Project is filling an urgent need in China to enhance scientific capacity to measure coal emissions, which are the leading cause of respiratory illnesses and a growing source of ecological harm within China and beyond.

2) The coal component of CEHP aims to obtain accurate data on coal-fired pollution emissions in Huainan city in Anhui Province. The key to success of this data collection, he said, is the strong collaborative partnership WKU has formed with both provincial and municipal government agencies. The collection of this information could not only help promote transparency on pollution emissions in China—supporting new laws on environmental information dissemination—but also could generate awareness among policymakers on the health dangers of coal.

3) Another key contribution the China Environmental Health Project is making is the training of Chinese researchers and students in air quality monitoring, environmental health surveys, and sampling and modeling techniques. U.S. students at WKU are also benefiting in conducting research on emission factors in China.

4) The project also is exploring carbon sequestration as a way to help Huainan power plants decrease emissions by turning them into potentially profitable and environmental safe nitrogen fertilizer.
While Dr. Pan is working with Anhui University of Science and Technology on the air quality/clean coal portion of the project, Dr. Chris Groves of WKU’s Hoffman Environmental Research Institute is working with Southwest University China (SWUC) on the karst water resources portion.

Other major project partners include the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., and the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR) in Kunming, China. The project was made possible through the support of U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

For more on the project, visit http://www.wku.edu/cehp/index.html. For more on the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, visit http://www.uscc.gov/.
               
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