Keywords: Heating services in southern China hotly discussed, Beijing's tap water quality under discussion
Heating services in southern China hotly discussed
Rain and snow will hit most parts of southern China over the next five days, according to meteorological authorities on January 9, heating up another round of debate over whether to install a public heating network there as their northern counterparts.
Most of the country's southern regions, including areas along and south of the Yangtze River, are expecting icy weather, according to the National Meteorological Center.
The geographical line that separates the country into north and south along the Qinling Mountains all the way to the Huaihe River is also the line that separates areas with two different heating services, according to a policy in the 1950s.
The average indoor temperature in the south, where housing is not equipped with heating services, is around 7 C, with the lowest hitting 2 C, compared with the average 15 C in northern cities, according to a survey conducted in 10 southern cities by People's Daily.
The survey also indicated that the average indoor temperature of government offices in the south is around 20 C.
The paper held that most families in the south will resort to other heating facilities even if there is no public collective heating service to keep warm.
"The total consumption of energy from private heating facilities used by tens of thousands of southern families would probably be the same as, or even more than, a public heating network," the paper held.
Accordingly, it urged civil servants in their warm offices to hold a determined attitude to address the indoor chill in winter for most southerners.
Governments in southern China should also make it a priority to solve the financial problem of middle and lower class families coping with the cold, Chongqing Morning Post said in its report on January 9.
"Even if the aforementioned families could afford to buy an air conditioner to keep warm, they cannot afford the expense of using it," the paper held, further calling on authorities to provide some subsidies to them and lower the temperatures in their own offices to save energy.
Similarly, Workers' Daily suggested the government adopt either a distributed energy supply mechanism in line with actual household needs or a heat and power cogeneration model to better save energy.
Technology for clean resources, such as solar energy and water, could also be developed for energy conservation and emission reduction, said the report.
In addition, the paper suggested changing the current insufficient heat insulation designs in most of southern China's buildings, which have single-layer window glass.
In contrast to the support from most media outlets for installing a public heating service in the south, the Shanghai-based Wenhui Daily held that the southern areas should not adopt such a collective heating network for the sake of energy saving.
If the government set up a public heating network in the south, the total energy consumption of China's urban buildings would increase by 4 percent, according to Jiang Yi, a professor with Tsinghua University and an academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Jiang further pointed out that even northern areas should improve their methods of providing public heating services with coal, as they are neither as clean as natural gas nor efficient for generating heat.
Wang Ruzhu, an expert in heating services from the Shanghai Jiao Tong University, told the paper that southerners could lower their air conditioners to keep their feet warm.
Most air conditioners are installed near the ceilings of many houses in Shanghai, leaving the heat to linger in the upper parts of the house and making people feel cold even in an air-conditioned room, Wang explained.
Wang also suggested southerners install floor heating facilities that could heat water pipes under floors to around 30 C and warm up the room.
Beijing's tap water quality under discussion
Beijing's water supply company said on Monday that the city's tap water quality is the best among Chinese mainland cities and safe enough to drink, following a media report that some residents in the capital do not drink tap water for the sake of their health.
The couple said their personal choice doesn't mean tap water is not safe, adding that they do it to maintain their health.
The water group's announcement triggered Chinese media discussions over the city's actual tap water quality and public supervision over the water.
The Shandong-based Dazhong Daily held in a report on Tuesday that even mineral water could not be regarded as totally safe as there could be pollution from microorganisms and water processing.
China News Service held that good protection of water sources, sound processing technology and good water quality management makes tap water in Beijing safe, quoting Liu Wenjun, a former director of the Institute of Water Safety from the Tsinghua University.
However, Liu said that it does not mean the quality in Beijing is necessarily the best in the nation.
Liu further explained that some people's worries over tap water that tastes sweet show their lack of knowledge of water quality standards.
"How tap water tastes normally has nothing to do with water quality."
The city's water group announced that people will be able to find water quality information on their official website from January 15, which includes 42 regular quality indices that are compared to the national standard.
In an interview with the Beijing Times on Wednesday, Fu Tao, an expert on water-related issues from Tsinghua University, said that making the water quality indices public is far from sufficient.
Related services, including the publication of water sources, water pressure and services for changing water meters should be published on their official website in a timely manner, according to Fu.
He further suggested involving independent water quality testing organs, such as university labs and testing departments from healthcare watchdogs, to carry out quality checks.