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Suggestions To Rome City Council To Avoid Pollution
Ugo V. Rocca
RESIT Srl
www.resit.it ugo.rocca@resit.it
Abstract
The pollution in urban areas, like in Rome, is linked with fuel burning for heating homes and for local transportation by thermal motors means. In order to avoid that pollution it is mandatory to avoid fuel burning in the city.
The main source of pollution in the city is fuel burning, with pollutant emissions, in both cases of urban heating and local transport means. In November, when pollution by transport means is added to pollution by urban heating in many cities, like in Rome, the City Council suggests a massive reduction of private cars transport through
“alternate number plate use” order, a completely useless practice.
The suggestion also of Government Authorities to change fuel from petroleun to gas, maintaining the fuel burning in the city, is useless too, without real structural change and without important results.
Many pollutants are originated in the burning phase by the air ; nitrogen composites , NOx , for example, are produced when high temperature is reached during the combustion , independent of the specific fuel utilized.
To avoid pollution in the city we have to avoid fuel combustion in the city. The first slide demonstrates that solution. It is a very old slide utilized more than 30 years ago to support the suggestion.
The most utilized fuel, for example in Rome, is gas in diffused burning points. Gas may be utilized in a
power plant out of the city in order to produce energy, thermal energy and/or electric energy, and then energy may be utilized in the city for urban heating and for transport means.
This way it is possible to eliminate pollution in the city by fuel burning.
In Italy there are many historical cities and it’s important to preserve monuments and buildings from chemical deterioration due to pollutants.
Public health also is to be safeguarded.
The actual situation for example in Rome is not acceptable. There are at least 1,5 million burning points for urban heating and about 2 million fuel burning cars in the city.
The availability of public local transport is poor : subway network in Rome is not sufficient, only two lines are available and a third line is under construction. Public local transport is based essentially on bus transport and also the number of public cars, taxis, is poor in comparison with other cities. On the contrary, too many private cars presence is tolerated by Authorities, convinced that it is normal to park cars in the streets night and day.
As far as urban heating, it is often realized by diffused fuel burning, very often burning imported
2 gas coming from 5.000 km away, without taking
into consideration the pollution, safety issues, danger in local distribution and in managing gas in the houses. Authorities present that solution like a “green” solution , not evaluating the problems of a gas extraction, transportation for 5.000 km , distribution and final combustion, problems that require constant monitoring by a dedicated independent safety organization not present actually in Italy, for the most important and diffused energy vector in the country . Greenhouse effect is strongly depending on pre- combustion phases of gas utilization, whereas very often only final combustion is considered for the pollution evaluation. As far as leakage problems it is to be considered that a molecule of gas CH4 is considered equivalent to 21-30 molecules of CO2 for greenhouse effect.
The possible recourse to renewable energies faces opposition from the economic interest of importation of too great quantities of fossil energy sources.
The large opportunity of utilization of surface geothermal heat available in Italy, see slide, is not considered as due. Rome is located on an important geothermal area but that heat is not utilized in order to save fuel importation and fuel burning. Heat pumps may be utilized for better exploitation of geothermal heat.
The network of gas distribution in Rome is about 5.000 km long , leakage and blowups happen statistically overall in November/december when heating systems restart after a long stop time. For safety reasons, some organizations like
“Assoedilizia” suggests suppling electric heating systems to elderly people.
Accidents happen also in locations and flats not supplied by gas , as a consequence of gas leakage in to the sewerage systems (the two networks , gas
and sewerage, are very often parallel along the street) and so bathrooms may be reached at ground level of the buildings , with danger of explosions, also in absence of contracts for gas supply.
It is clear that a network of hot water pipelines is safer for the city and also more indicated to avoid pollution.
In the city of Rome the district heating is already active in one zone, “Torrino” district. Some problems arise in cities with warm average temperature, like in Rome, where the heating season is not so long as in cities located in North Italy, for supply of sanitary water in the summer season. The suggestion may be to supply sanitary water through electric systems (also with heat pumps) or to encourage the summer air conditioning by heat supplied by heating network (absorption systems). To supply only sanitary water by district heating may be not cost effective.
The extension of district heating in some districts in Rome, like EUR or Roma Nord, it would be interesting and easy and would eliminate pollution problems.
As far as public transport in the city, it is important to reduce the number of private cars, to increase the taxi numbers and public transport means, possibly electric means, in order to eliminate the pollution problems.
A suggestion may be to build a subway from
“Villaggio Olimpico” to “Testaccio” district, along the left side of the river Tiber, in the bank of the river , an earthwork built less than 100 years ago , following the suggestion of Gen. Garibaldi, as member of the Italian Parliament.
It is clear that severe opposition may arise to change in both transport and urban heating strategies.
Petrol Companies and Insurance Companies may
3 object to reduce pollution through change in
transport strategies with electrification of public transport means, such as tram, trolleybus and subway. Electric transport implementation means that less petrol will be required by private cars and also car insurance revenue will decrease (40 Million cars in Italy, 1.250 Euro as average car insurance revenue means about 50 billion Euro each year, a vesy significant amount).
The enormous network of car maintenance industry, body car shops, electric and mechanical shops, tyre and components suppliers, may resist to switch from thermal motor cars to public electrified transport means. Time is needed and many difficulties will arise in both changes, in transport means and in urban heating systems.
Probably the network of installation bodies could be not really adverse in the case of district heating, they may not be involved in significant financial loss. In any case, it is necessary to modify the structure of transport and urban heating for eliminating pollution and also to avoid the Rome streets permanently occupied by parked cars.