巨大空気清浄設備「スモッグタワー」稼働開始　インド首都

【ニューデリーＡＦＰ＝時事】インドの首都ニューデリーでこのほど、巨大空気清浄設備「スモッグタワー」が稼働を開始した。大気汚染の軽減を目指して建設されたが、専門家は懐疑的な見方を示している。同国では毎年、大気汚染によって早死にする人が多くいる。（写真はインド・ニューデリーの、商業地区コンノート・プレース近くにある巨大空気清浄設備「スモッグタワー」の建設現場）
　デリーでは人体に有害な微小粒子状物質（ＰＭ２．５）の濃度が日常的に安全基準の最大２０倍を超えており、特に冬季は街全体が灰色のスモッグに包まれる。
　技術者によると、高さ２５メートルのスモッグタワーには大型の送風機４０台が備わっており、毎秒１０００立方メートルの空気を送り出す。フィルターにより、１平方キロ四方のＰＭ２．５を最大５０％取り除く。
　だが、建設費２００万ドル（約２億２０００万円）のタワーをめぐっては批判もある。市内全域の空気を浄化するだけのタワーを建設しようとすると莫大（ばくだい）な公費がかかるため、スモッグの発生源対策に注力した方がいいという意見だ。
　スモッグの原因には、自動車の排ガスや重工業、小規模工業、建設業、ごみ焼却や燃料の燃焼などが挙げられる。冬季に近隣地域で行われる焼き畑も一因だ。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2021/08/31-08:44）

India's capital New Delhi opened its first smog tower on Monday aimed at reducing the air pollution blamed for thousands of premature deaths every year, but experts were sceptical.
Concentrations of tiny deadly particles in Delhi's air regularly exceed safe limits by up to 20 times, particularly in winter when its 20 million people are enveloped in a noxious grey blanket of smog.
Forty giant fans on the 25-metre (82-foot) tower will pump 1,000 cubic metres of air per second through filters that halve the amount of harmful particulates in a radius of one square kilometre (0.4 square miles), according to engineers.
Today is a big day for Delhi in its fight for clean air against pollution, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said after the inauguration near the busy shopping area of Connaught Place.
The installation is being looked at in an experimental way. We will analyse the data and if it's effective, more towers will be built across Delhi, Kejriwal added.
The tower cost $2 million and critics say erecting a sufficient number to clean the air substantially across the city would cost huge amounts of public money, and that efforts would be better directed at the sources of the smog.
These include vehicle exhaust, heavy and small-scale industry, construction activity, the combustion of waste and fuel, and in winter the burning of crops in neighbouring regions.
Let's just be clear that this is futile, an absolute waste, Karthik Ganesan from the Council on Energy, Environment and Water told AFP.
Now that taxpayers' money has been spent, let Delhi be the test case for all other Indian cities... to ensure no other city spends on such ideas which we can't afford, he added.
India has 14 of the world's 15 most polluted cities, according to the World Health Organization.
A 2020 study in the Lancet found there were 1.67 million deaths in the country attributable to air pollution in 2019 including almost 17,500 in Delhi.
In 2018 China built a much larger 60-metre smog tower in the polluted city of Xian, but the experiment has not spread to other cities so far.