Quantifying Baseline Emission Factors of Air Pollutants in China’s Regional Power Grids

Drawing lessons from the clean development mechanism (CDM), this paper developed a combined margin methodology to quantify baseline emission factors of air pollutants in China’s regional power grids. The simple average of baseline emission factors of SO₂, NO_<i>X</i>, and PM_2.5 in China’s six power grids in 2010 were respectively 1.91 kg/MWh, 1.83 kg/MWh and 0.32 kg/MWh. Several low-efficient mitigation technologies, such as low nitrogen oxide burner (LNB), were suggested to be replaced or used together with other technologies in order to virtually decrease the grid’s emission factor. The synergies between GHG and air pollution mitigation in China’s power sector was also notable. It is estimated that in 2010, that every 1% CO₂ reduction in China’s power generation sector resulted in the respective coreduction of 1.1%, 0.5%, and 0.8% of SO₂, NO_<i>X</i>, and PM_2.5. Wind is the best technology to achieve the largest amount of coabatement in most parts of China. This methodology is recommended to be used in making comprehensive air pollution control strategies and in cobenefits analysis in future CDM approval processes

Short-Lived Buildings in China: Impacts on Water, Energy, and Carbon Emissions

This paper has changed the vague understanding that “the short-lived buildings have huge environmental footprints (EF)” into a concrete one. By estimating the annual floor space of buildings demolished and calibrating the average building lifetime in China, this paper compared the EF under various assumptive extended buildings’ lifetime scenarios based on time-series environmental-extended input-output model. Results show that if the average buildings’ lifetime in China can be extended from the current 23.2 years to their designed life expectancy, 50 years, in 2011, China can reduce 5.8 Gt of water withdrawal, 127.1 Mtce of energy consumption, and 426.0 Mt of carbon emissions, each of which is equivalent to the corresponding annual EF of Belgium, Mexico, and Italy. These findings will urge China to extend the lifetime of existing and new buildings, in order to reduce the EF from further urbanization. This paper also verifies that the lifetime of a product or the replacement rate of a sector is a very important factor that influences the cumulative EF. When making policies to reduce the EF, adjusting people’s behaviors to extend the lifetime of products or reduce the replacement rate of sectors may be a very simple and cost-effective option

Dual Function of RGD-Modified VEGI-192 for Breast Cancer Treatment

Identification of endogenous angiogenesis inhibitors has led to development of an increasingly attractive strategy for cancer therapy and other angiogenesis-driven diseases. Vascular endothelial growth inhibitor (VEGI), a potent and relatively nontoxic endogenous angiogenesis inhibitor, has been intensively studied, and this work shed new light on developing promising anti-angiogenic strategies. It is well-documented that the RGD (Arg-Gly-Asp) motif exhibits high binding affinity to integrin α_vβ₃, which is abundantly expressed in cancer cells and specifically associated with angiogenesis on tumors. Here, we designed a fusion protein containing the special RGD-4C motif sequence and VEGI-192, aimed at offering more effective multiple targeting to tumor cells and tumor vasculature, and higher anti-angiogenic and antitumor efficacy. Functional tests demonstrated that the purified recombinant human RGD-VEGI-192 protein (rhRGD-VEGI-192) potently inhibited endothelial growth in vitro and suppressed neovascularization in chicken chorioallantoic membrane in vivo, to a higher degree as compared with rhVEGI-192 protein. More importantly, rhRGD-VEGI-192, but not rhVEGI-192 protein, could potentially target MDA-MB-435 breast tumor cells, significantly inhibiting growth of MDA-MB-435 cells in vitro, triggered apoptosis in MDA-MB-435 cells by activation of caspase-8 as well as caspase-3, which was mediated by activating the JNK signaling associated with upregulation of pro-apoptotic protein Puma, and consequently led to the observed significant antitumor effect in vivo against a human breast cancer xenograft. Our study indicated that the RGD-VEGI-192 fusion protein might represent a novel anti-angiogenic and antitumor strategy