China EVs reducing smog?

Not one of my approved websites

So I am free to pontificate without knowing if my thoughts are repetitious, or disputed there

I think urban air quality improvements have mostly come from moving coal power and other smoky industries out of urban areas. It gives 'rainout' and dilution chances to work, People in e.g., Beijing used to heat their apartments with coal, which was very messy.

The automotive boom in China came after catalytic converters, There are few grandfathered (4-wheel pre-cat) vehicles. OTOH, 2-wheel scooters are abundant and effective producers of pre-smog.

On the other other hand, in dense urban areas most scooters are electric.

Are we out of hands yet? Diesel trucks are just as abundant and smoky as one might imagine. Diesel city buses have mostly been replaced by hybrids and EV buses in Kunming, and I suppose that is happening as fast or faster in other cities. What happens to the old bus fleet? Steel is probably recycled, and all else landfilled. We are talking about a very large fleet.

There are more cities with >10 million people than most people elsewhere could imagine. So, there are more places for air-pollution control to be done well, or poorly.

Agricultural wastes are burned in field after drying. Most of that happens in dry season so rainout does not help much. So, urban and rural air pollution comes in two distinctly different flavors.

One summary outcome is that eastern areas have very high levels of wet and dry deposition of nitrogen. They are more densely populated, and wind typically blows 'that way'. When and if most 4 wheelers become EVs, that will be less. Maybe not a lot less, as nationwide electrical generation is still ~70% coal.

Wind and solar are being added rapidly if one counts megawatt hours, but slowly as a slice of a pie chart. I'd hazard a guess that renewables are mostly adding overall capacity rather than replacing coal. New coal plants (of which there are many) are modern and higher efficiency, but there is only so much you can do to clean up that particular starting fuel.

I am not aware of plans for large new hydroelectric, or pumped-storage facilities. The most suitable sites are mostly already done. A large new plan now might actually be effectively opposed on the basis of flooded towns and villages needing relocation, or other downsides of making big lakes that are now getting recognized.

I did say "might".

 

Also I took first ride in EV taxi recenty. Nice, smooth, and fortunately I had an aggressive driver who used the zoom zoom a few times. A typical city taxi ride is less than USD$5 equivalent, vs. $0.3 for bus. But buses are often very crowded and I seek to avoid so many lungs so closely arrayed. It is the air pollution that matters most to me.