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Honda Exports More U.S. Cars Than it Imports

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From 2010, here is the 100,000th Honda Civic produced at the Honda Manufacturing of Indiana plant in Greensburg, Ind. Honda now exports more than imports (Photo: Wieck)

DETROIT — For the first time since building its first Accord in Marysville, Ohio, Honda exported more U.S-made cars than it imported from Japan in 2013.
The automaker exported 108,705 U.S.-made Honda and Acura vehicles last year while importing 88,537 vehicles from Japan to the U.S.

With assembly, engine and transmission plants in Ohio, Indiana, Alabama and Georgia, Honda exports such models as the Accord, Civic, CR-V, Odyssey, Acura RDX and MDX to 50 countries in Central America, South America, Africa and the Middle East.

By exporting more vehicles than it imports from Japan to the U.S., Honda rebuts the argument that Japanese automakers benefit from the lower value of the yen. The growth of Asian and European automakers in the U.S. further complicates the eternal debate about what is an American-made vehicle.

“This is really a significant milestone for our North American operations — it is really one that has been 30 years in the making,” said Rick Schostek, senior vice president of Honda in North America. “For a long time our goal has been self-reliance in North America.”

Honda began manufacturing cars in Ohio in 1982 when its plant in Marysville plant opened. The automaker now operates 14 manufacturing plants in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

They are mostly supported by a U.S.-based automotive parts supply chain. Honda also makes lawn mowers and motorcycles in North Carolina.

In 2013, nearly 95% of the vehicles Honda and Acura sold in the U.S. were produced in North America, including factories in Alliston, Ontario, and El Salto, Mexico. Honda will open another plant in Celaya, Mexico, next month to make its Fit subcompact.

Honda invested $12.3 billion in the U.S. between 1982 and 2013, and employs more than 26,000 Americans.

In recent years, as the value of the yen has declined, some automakers have said Honda and other Japanese automakers have an unfair trade advantage.

After falling to more than 130 yen to the dollar in 2012, the Japanese currency has rebounded to about 100 to the dollar. When the yen is weak, the dollars Honda, Toyota and Nissan collect from U.S. sales translate to more yen, the currency in which they report financial results. But the dollars they spend on American workers and technology also raise yen-based costs.

“It is really hard for us to fathom that we have an unfair advantage,” Schostek said, because the vast majority of the vehicles it sells in the U.S are made in North America.

SOURCE:  USA Today

Foxconn in Talks With Multiple U.S. States for Manufacturing

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Foxconn’s founder and Chairman Terry Gou told reporters any U.S. investment would not be for labor-intensive manufacturing such as assembling smartphones and tablet computers. Photographer: Ashley Pon/Bloomberg

Foxconn Technology Group, the maker of Apple Inc.’s iPhone, is in talks with U.S. states including Arizona and Colorado to build advanced manufacturing facilities as part of plans to set up factories closer to its clie
Representatives from at least six states have contacted the company as they seek to get plants set up in their jurisdictions, Simon Hsing, a spokesman for Taipei-based Foxconn, said in an interview yesterday. The company is looking to open plants for making tools, molds and connectors, he said.

Foxconn, the world’s largest custom manufacturer of electronics, may expand in its largest market as clients including Apple seek to have their products made in the U.S. Its Foxconn Interconnect Technology unit has announced an expansion in Pennsylvania, which will create about 500 jobs.

Getting support and purchase commitments from customers will be a key consideration in building the plants and Foxconn is still in talks about what products clients want from U.S. facilities, Hsing said, declining to identify the customers.

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer met Foxconn’s founder and Chairman Terry Gou in November, while officials from Colorado, Texas, New York, New Jersey and Louisiana have all made contact with the company, Hsing said.

Lucy Nashed, a spokeswoman for Texas Governor Rick Perry, declined to comment on “potential ongoing negotiations.” Colorado officials declined to comment in an e-mailed response to Bloomberg News. Representatives of the other states didn’t immediately reply to e-mails.

Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. (2317), the biggest company in the Foxconn group, in November announced plans to spend $30 million in Pennsylvania through Foxconn Interconnect, a division which develops connectors used in computers and smartphones.

Carnegie Mellon

Foxconn will also invest $10 million in a venture with Carnegie Mellon University for research in robotics and manufacturing.

Any U.S. investment would not be for labor-intensive manufacturing such as assembling smartphones and tablet computers, Gou told reporters in Taipei on Jan. 26. Instead, the company would seek to build facilities that focus on knowledge and content-based skills, he said.

Liquid-crystal display panels are an example of capital intensive work better-suited to the U.S., Gou said. The company has no current plans to build an LCD factory in the U.S., he said.

Closer Proximity

Closer proximity to supply chain partners, such as Applied Materials Inc.and Corning Inc., are among the benefits of being in the U.S., Gou said.

In addition to iPhones and iPads for Apple, Foxconn also makes game consoles for Microsoft Corp., tablets for Amazon.com Inc. and PCs for Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co., mostly at its China facilities which employ more than one million workers. Foxconn also has more than 20,000 people at plants in Mexico.

Foxconn is investing in automation to convert its employees from production workers to engineers, helping the company avoid an impending labor shortage in China while boosting profit margins.

Gou said he met Tesla Motors Inc. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk this month, telling the 42-year-old that Foxconn’s background in stamping and molding can help the Palo Alto, California-based company make its electric cars cheaper.

To contact the reporter on this story: Tim Culpan in Taipei at tculpan1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Tighe at mtighe4@bloomberg.net

SOURCE:  Business Week

Not Just Patriotic, U.S. Manufacturing May Be Smart

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General Electric’s Appliance Park has been in Louisville, Ky., since 1951. But it’s putting new power behind its U.S. production.

 

The advantages to making products in the U.S. are starting to stack up — and companies are taking notice. Among them are Apple, and General Electric, which is making big investments at home.

It’s not just a matter of publicity, either. As the December 2012 issue of The Atlantic reports, companies are seeing real economic advantages to “insourcing,” a reversal of the outsourcing trends that sent U.S. manufacturing overseas.

A New Approach

General Electric opened Appliance Park in Louisville, Ky., in 1951, but lately it has been making some changes there. In August, the company announced an $800 million investment in jobs, products and the manufacturing process itself.

Back in 2008, Rich Calvaruso gathered his team at Appliance Park and told them they had to rethink the dishwasher. As a “Lean” leader, Calvaruso’s job is to figure out how to make things more efficiently. So he asked a team of factory workers, designers and marketers to put their heads together. They managed to cut down the time it takes to build the dishwasher by one-third.

The dishwasher’s orientation was the key. When it was set up a certain way, operators down the line could do their work without spending time manipulating the washer itself.

Even though it now takes fewer people to make that dishwasher, not a single person was laid off. Calvaruso tells Guy Raz, host of weekends on All Things Considered, that those employees were freed up to work in other parts of the company.

That process set in motion a company-wide re-evaluation of how GE should operate. The new philosophy was simple: It might make more business sense to have everyone involved in a product work in the same place. That thinking led to a change that couldn’t have happened if some workers were in China, others in Mexico and some in the U.S.

GE holds up another example of improved efficiency. The marketing team wanted to eliminate four visible screws to improve the dishwasher’s design. A diverse group of workers found a way to do that, making the manufacturing process quicker as a result.

With workers in different departments physically sharing the same space, Calvaruso says, these cross-interest conversations can happen more easily.

Where’s The Incentive?

Reporter Charles Fishman, who wrote about Appliance Park in the issue of The Atlantic, doesn’t think it’s a blip. He sees the four-screw story as a metaphor for this insourcing boomlet.

“To me the power of the four-screws story is no one ever would have known, in the old method, a year and a half ago, that anybody wanted the screws to disappear,” he says, “that they could have been made to disappear, that making the screws go away makes the door cheaper, easier to make and a better product.”

Fishman says companies are finally seeing the economic advantages of doing things differently.

“What I discovered is it’s not clear this huge wave of outsourcing was done for really smart, rational business reasons,” he says.

Companies started moving jobs overseas when they calculated how much cheaper the labor was, Fishman says, but they weren’t factoring in other kinds of costs.

“This stuff turns out to be really complicated,” he says. “And you have to sit down and ask a whole set of questions before you understand that you’ve been making a mistake for a year, or two years, or four years.”

One of those factors that businesses are starting to take into account is intellectual property, Fishman says. Specialized technology can make products more competitive, but if they’re made overseas, it’s easier for others to make knockoffs.

Another incentive is energy prices, he says. Manufacturing in the U.S. cuts down on transportation costs. Plus, he says, the factories themselves can run on natural gas, which is cheaper in the U.S.

All of these variables put together make the difference, Fishman says.

“I don’t think you can say just wages, or just energy prices, or just transportation time,” he says. “But when you stack them up, it really gets to be incredible.”

Re-Evaluting The Model

But U.S. manufacturing jobs aren’t exactly erupting in a boom.

“There haven’t been this few people working in factories in the United States since 1941. There were a third fewer people in the country then,” Fishman says.

However, the output of the workers that are in the industry is high.

“Because of the recession, we’re not quite at the highest dollar value the country’s ever produced in manufactured goods, but we’re very close,” he says.

And as more companies like GE make big investments in U.S. manufacturing, others could start to follow.

Fishman says the U.S. manufacturing industry won’t ever look exactly like it used to, but that different kinds of manufacturing will start happening in different places. However, he says, the notion that the U.S. will never make anything again is “dramatically overstated.”

“I think smart companies will see it isn’t an act of patriotism or charity,” he says. “It’s smart business to make stuff here.”

SOURCE:  NPR News
Original article posted December 8, 2012

As Overseas Costs Rise, More U.S. Companies Are 'Reshoring'

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Paul Gibson works on the Geo-Spring hybrid water heater at General Electric’s Louisville, Ky., plant. For many years, GE outsourced manufacturing of the water heater to a company in China. But in 2009, it decided to bring production back to the U.S. | Photo Credit: Jackie Northam/NPR
For decades, American companies have been sending their manufacturing work overseas. Extremely low wages in places like China, Vietnam and the Philippines reduced costs and translated into cheaper prices for consumers wanting flat-screen TVs, dishwashers and a range of gadgets.

But now a growing number of American companies are reversing that trend, bringing manufacturing back to the United States in a trend known as “reshoring.”

Kim Freeman, a spokeswoman for General Electric Appliances, walks into a sprawling plant in Louisville, Ky. Machine noise is thunderous in the brightly lit room. The finished product, a hybrid water heater, is not much to look at — tubby, about 4 feet tall, with a few knobs and levers. But it’s actually a high-tech, energy-efficient appliance.

For years, GE outsourced manufacturing of the water heater to a company in China. In 2009, GE did the math and, considering rising wages overseas as well as climbing transportation costs, decided to bring production back to the U.S.

The company wanted more control of the product, especially the technology that goes into it, says Freeman. To maximize savings, the appliance had to be completely redesigned.

GE ripped apart one of six massive factories at the complex in Louisville, and built a water heater assembly line. It worked out a new, lower-wage structure for employees, and brought in experts to help reduce waste and time. Everything was geared to reducing costs.

A month later, GE also began producing high-end refrigerators domestically, the type with the bottom drawer freezer. Until then, GE had produced that type of refrigerator in Mexico.

Mike Chanatry, the head of manufacturing for GE Appliances, says the decision to bring some of the manufacturing back to the U.S. was a risk — but one worth taking. He says GE faces stiff competition from LG Electronics and Samsung, up-and-comers in the world of appliances.

A Broader Trend

Other major companies — Ford and Whirlpool among them — have also brought back some of their products. But so have many smaller companies, says Harold Sirkin, a senior partner at Boston Consulting Group who has been surveying companies about reshoring.

“In the beginning of 2011, for the most part, most people thought that this was just impossible, that there would be no reshoring to the U.S., that everything was going to China, manufacturing was leaving the country and will never come back,” says Sirkin. “And I think the striking thing is how much that’s changed in the last three years.”

Sirkin says at least 200 companies have already returned, and there’s been a dramatic jump recently in the number of companies saying they’re seriously thinking about it. Sirkin says a huge factor has been rising wages overseas. Pay in China has risen at least 15 percent annually for the past few years. Wages in China are still comparatively low compared with the U.S., but there are other important factors.

“You went to China because it was just so cheap you couldn’t help it,” he says. “But if you’ve got the engineers and people in the U.S., and the customer base in the U.S., you’d like to be close to the customer. It gives you a shorter supply chain.”

Also, the cost of shipping has shot up, while domestic energy prices are low.

If this trend continues, Sirkin believes 20 to 25 percent of products that were sent offshore will eventually return to the U.S.

But the challenges in bringing back manufacturing can include finding enough skilled labor, says professor Arie Lewin, director for the Center for International Business, Education and Research at Duke University.

Harry Moser, president of the Reshoring Initiative, which helps companies figure out if it’s worth bringing manufacturing back to the U.S., agrees that making the move can be a challenge. And, he says, “There’s challenges of getting the consumer to understand that the product is made in the USA and to give a little extra preference to that product.”

Moser says Wal-Mart’s decision to put $50 billion more worth of American-made goods on its shelves over the next 10 years is dramatically important, even if Wal-Mart qualifies that by insisting those products don’t cost more than versions made overseas.

SOURCE:  NPR News

China's Moon Rover "Jade Rabbit" in Trouble

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The rover Jade Rabbit, also known as Yutu, has been exploring the Moon’s soil

China’s Jade Rabbit Moon rover is in trouble after experiencing a “mechanical control abnormality”, state media report.
The Moon exploration vehicle ran into problems due to the moon’s “complicated lunar surface environment”, Xinhua news agency said, citing science officials.

The rover landed in December as part of China’s Chang’e-3 mission – the first “soft” landing on the Moon since 1976.

It was expected to operate for around three months.

Earlier this month, the Beijing Aerospace Control Centre said that Jade Rabbit, also known as Yutu, had successfully explored the surface of the Moon with its mechanical arm.

Lunar nightThe malfunction emerged before the rover entered its scheduled dormancy period on Saturday, Xinhua reported, citing the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence (SASTIND).

Scientists were organising repairs, the news agency added, without providing further details.

The rover was due to become dormant for 14 days during the lunar night, when there would be no sunlight to power the rover’s solar panel, reports said.

The malfunctioning rover presents the first public mishap China’s ambitious space programme has experienced in years, following several successful manned space flights, the BBC’s Celia Hatton in Beijing reports.

Xinhua said the news of the rover’s troubles had generated extensive discussion on Chinese social media.

“People not only hailed the authority’s openness to the accident, but also expressed concern,” it said.

On Sina Weibo, China’s largest microblog provider, users began tagging their posts with the hash tag “#hang in there Jade Rabbit”.

Users also circulated comic strips depicting a rabbit on the Moon, and rabbit-themed pictures, while expressing their support for the rover.

User Jessica_S_AC_USK wrote: “I want to cry. Go Jade Rabbit, even if we fail this time, we still have next time – our Chinese Jade Rabbit’s goal is the sea of stars! We will not give up easily.”

Referring to a Chinese folktale about a rabbit on the Moon, another microblog user wrote: “Whatever happens, we must thank Jade Rabbit. When our generation tells stories to our children, we can confidently say: ‘There really is a Jade Rabbit on the moon!'”

SOURCE:  BBC News

Patriotic style: Team USA reveals Olympic Opening Ceremony Uniforms

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The TODAY anchors got into the Olympic spirit, dressing up in the official Team USA uniforms as Ralph Lauren’s David Lauren (center, left) made the big reveal. TODAY
The 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics are only two weeks away, and so it’s about time we got a close look at our athletes’ festive wardrobe. They’re 100 percent made in the USA — thanks to Ralph Lauren.
The all-American designer crafted the official Opening Ceremony and Closing Ceremony parade uniforms for the U.S. teams and they’re quite patriotic: The ensembles feature a classic color palette of red, white and navy. The Opening Ceremony look, revealed exclusively on TODAY Thursday, includes a knit patchwork cardigan emblazoned with stars ($598), paired with a cream cotton turtleneck sweater ($245), slim-fitting white fleece athletic pants bearing the “Team USA” label ($165), black leather boots with bright red laces ($395) and a cotton belt accented with American graphics ($75). Of course, there’s also a reindeer hat ($95).
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The official Opening Ceremony uniform, designed by Ralph Lauren, is modeled by Olympic professional ice hockey player Zach Parise. Ralph Lauren
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Olympic ice hockey player Julie Chu models the Opening Ceremony uniform, which was made in America. Ralph Lauren
The full look was modeled on TODAY Thursday by the Olympic athletes themselves — American curlers Jessica Schultz, 29, and Jared Zezel, 22, both from Minnesota — as well as the TODAY anchors, who joined Ralph Lauren’s David Lauren for the big reveal.

While the prices might seem a bit steep, it should be noted that 100 percent of the proceeds of the Limited Edition Team USA Opening Ceremony Cardigan will be donated to the U.S. Olympic Committee, an organization supporting our nation’s best athletes.

You’ll also be supporting our domestic manufacturers: Ralph Lauren looked to his home country for sources, which means the wool hails from Oregon, was spun in Pennsylvania, then yarned in North Carolina, before being knitted in California by the husband-and-wife team Ball of Cotton.

The emphasis on having the uniforms manufactured domestically came in the wake of controversy over the Team USA outfits from the London 2012 Olympic Games. Ralph Lauren was heavily criticized for having manufactured the clothing in China. The U.S. Olympic Committee announced that while it was too late to change the outfits ahead of the London Games, it had agreed with Ralph Lauren to make apparel for the 2014 Olympic Winter Games domestically.

This partnership marks the fourth time Ralph Lauren has been an official outfitter of the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic teams. Last fall, the brand revealed the Team USA’s Sochi 2014 uniforms, including wool peacoats adorned with a red banner stripe and patriotic patch, fair isle sweaters, and wool turtlenecks with reindeer and snowflake motifs.

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U.S. Olympians celebrated the start of the 100-day countdown to Sochi by showing off apparel made in America. TODAY
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Figure skater Evan Lysacek and ice hockey player Julie Chu showed off Ralph Lauren’s U.S. Closing Ceremony parade uniforms for Sochi on Oct. 29, 2013. TODAY
In addition, Ralph Lauren designed a unique collection of village wear apparel and accessories for the teams. The village collection includes a mesh polo, a half-zip mockneck pullover, a long-sleeved Team USA T-shirt, and a full-zip fleece sweatshirt.

The U.S. apparel is available online on the Ralph Lauren site and the Team USA site, as well as in select Ralph Lauren retail stores and department stores.

SOURCE:  TODAY

President Obama’s 2014 State of the Union Address

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On Tuesday, January 28 at 9pm ET, President Obama will deliver his fifth State of the Union Address.
This year there will be more ways than ever to take part in the State of the Union, including a new way to watch the speech and share exclusive graphics with your social networks, and opportunities to discuss President Obama’s remarks with White House officials immediately following the address.

If you plan on watching from home, we will be streaming an enhanced version of the speech on WhiteHouse.gov/SOTU that features graphics, data and charts that help explain policies and the issues. You can also tune in live on Facebook, YouTube, Google+ and through our mobile apps

In the mean time, here’s how to stay updated, and learn more about how you can watch, share and discuss the speech.

  • Get email updates: Sign up and make sure you’re among the first to get exclusive content before and after the speech
  • Follow us on Twitter: Make sure you’re following @WhiteHouse on Twitter for news and real-time updates before, during and after the address.
  • WhiteHouse.gov/SOTU: Officially launching early next week, WhiteHouse.gov/SOTU will be your number one resource for all things State of the Union, and the best place to watch the enhanced livestream of President Obama’s address, featuring charts, graphs, data and more to help explain the issues and policies he’s discussing alongside the remarks. 

China's Exports Linked To Western U.S. Air Pollution

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Vehicles move slowly through heavy smog in Beijing on Thursday, January 16. China’s manufacturing of exports generates pollution that harms air quality — not only in Asia but also all the way across the Pacific Ocean in the Western United States, according to a new study.

(CNN) — Pollution doesn’t respect national borders.

Outsourcing manufacturing to China may have resulted in less pollution in some parts of the United States, but other regions have lesser air quality because of U.S.-bound Chinese products, a new study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds.

“Pollution from China is having an effect in the U.S., and we need to recognize how that is affecting both our background ozone levels and also particulates that are reaching the West Coast,” said study co-author Don Wuebbles, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

In the western United States, Chinese pollution related to exports contribute up to 12% to 24% of daily sulfate concentrations, the study said.

Because of the United States outsourcing manufacturing to China, the eastern United States saw a decrease in sulfate pollution, but an increase was seen in the western part of the nation.

Because of pollution from China, the Los Angeles area and other U.S. regions violate national ozone standards one extra day per year, the study said.

U.S. consumer goods such as cellphones and televisions are often produced in China. Although Chinese manufacturing isn’t causing most of the U.S. pollution, winds called “westerlies” can send chemicals across the Pacific Ocean in a matter of days. Valleys and basins in western states can see accumulations of dust, ozone and carbon.

“We know that the efficiency of industry in China is not as it is good in the U.S.,” Wuebbles said. Higher efficiency of U.S. manufacturing, combined with controls on emissions and outsourcing, have made strides in reducing U.S.-based emissions.

Does that mean that outsourcing manufacturing to China is bad for American public health? The study suggests that for the United States as a whole, there’s a net benefit, because the population density in the eastern United States is higher than in the West.

But the West still suffers.

Sulfate concentrations went up by up to 2%, and ozone and carbon monoxide levels saw slight increases too, in the western United States in 2006, according to the study.

Average sulfate, carbon monoxide and black carbon concentrations went down by 0.3% to 0.9% when looking at population-weighted averages. But this all comes at a cost: In the western United States and populous Chinese regions, air quality went down.

Black carbon has been linked to asthma as well as diseases such as cancer, emphysema, and heart and lung disease. Rain doesn’t easily clear it from the atmosphere, so it hangs around and travels far.

Researchers found that 36% of anthropogenic sulfur dioxide, 27% of nitrogen oxides, 22% of carbon monoxide and 17% of black carbon from Chinese emissions were linked to producing goods for export.

About 21% of export-related emissions from China, for each of these pollutants, came from exports that went from China to the United States.

Production of goods for export has rapidly expanded in China, with volume growing 390% between 2000 and 2007, although there has not been as much growth since the global financial crisis. China has generally become a “large net exporter of energy-intensive industrial products,” the study said.

Behind this economic growth is a rise in combustion of fossil fuels, particularly coal, a big culprit in carbon dioxide emissions rising worldwide.

Previous research has shown the substantial carbon dioxide emissions that result from Chinese trade, but this study focused on more other air pollutants. Researchers constructed a model using data on economics and emissions.

Over the last decade, China has seen a huge increase in the use of coal-burning power plants, Wuebbles said. Coal use for generating electricity is a big part of why carbon dioxide emissions have nearly doubled their rate of growth worldwide, according to a leaked report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, obtained by CNN.

High carbon dioxide atmospheric concentrations are projected to cause a 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) increase in temperature by 2100. Agriculture, forestry, ecosystems and human health are all expected to suffer as a result of trends in climate change.

To decrease pollution from China, Wuebbles recommended increasing the efficiency of manufacturing processes and re-examining energy production. Scrubbers can reduce emissions from coal-burning power plants.

“Consideration of international cooperation to reduce trans-boundary transport of air pollution must confront the question of who is responsible for emissions in one country during production of goods to support consumption in another,” study authors wrote.

SOURCE:  CNN

US Consumers To Blame For Some Air Pollution From China

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The downtown Los Angeles skyline on December 14, 2011 (AFP Photo/Frederic J. Brown)

Washington (AFP) – Air pollution from China blows across the Pacific Ocean and ends up over the US west coast — and American consumerism is to blame for a portion of it, said a study Monday.
On some days, nearly a quarter of the pollutants in the air over California, Oregon, Washington and Portland were initially spewed into the air in China, during the making of televisions, toys, cellphones and other products for export.

“We’ve outsourced our manufacturing and much of our pollution, but some of it is blowing back across the Pacific to haunt us,” said co-author Steve Davis, a scientist at the University of California, Irvine.

“Given the complaints about how Chinese pollution is corrupting other countries’ air, this paper shows that there may be plenty of blame to go around,” he added.

The research was led by Jintai Lin of Beijing’s Peking University, along with co-authors from the United States and Britain.

The study found that 22 percent of carbon monoxide and 17 percent of black carbon emitted in China were associated with the production of goods for export.

Black carbon is a concern because it lingers in the atmosphere, doesn’t wash away with rain and can travel long distances. Exposure can raise the risk of cancer, heart and lung disease and asthma.

The study also examined sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide.

“For each of these pollutants, about 21 percent of export-related Chinese emissions were attributed to China-to-US export,” said the study, which appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

SOURCE:  Yahoo News

Made in China for us: Air pollution tied to exports

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Study finds blowback causes extra day per year of ozone smog in LA.
Chinese air pollution blowing across the Pacific Ocean is often caused by the manufacturing of goods for export to the U.S. and Europe, according to findings by UC Irvine and other researchers published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The study is the first to quantify how much pollution reaching the American West Coast is from the production in China of cellphones, televisions and other consumer items imported here and elsewhere.

“We’ve outsourced our manufacturing and much of our pollution, but some of it is blowing back across the Pacific to haunt us,” said UC Irvine Earth system scientist Steve Davis, a co-author. “Given the complaints about how Chinese pollution is corrupting other countries’ air, this paper shows that there may be plenty of blame to go around.”

Los Angeles, for instance, experiences at least one extra day a year of smog that exceeds federal ozone limits because of nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide emitted by Chinese factories making goods for export, the analysis found. On other days, as much as a quarter of the sulfate pollution on the U.S. West Coast is tied to Chinese exports. All the contaminants tracked in the study are key ingredients in unhealthy smog and soot.

China is not responsible for the lion’s share of pollution in the U.S. Cars, trucks and refineries pump out far more. But powerful global winds known as “westerlies” can push airborne chemicals across the ocean in days, particularly during the spring, causing dangerous spikes in contaminants. Dust, ozone and carbon can accumulate in valleys and basins in California and other Western states.

Black carbon is a particular problem: Rain doesn’t easily wash it out of the atmosphere, so it persists across long distances. Like other air pollutants, it’s been linked to a litany of health problems, from increased asthma to cancer, emphysema, and heart and lung disease.

The study authors suggest the findings could be used to more effectively negotiate clean-air treaties. China’s huge ramp-up of industrial activity in recent years, combined with poor pollution controls, has unleashed often fierce international debates.

“When you buy a product at Wal-Mart,” noted Davis, an assistant professor, “it has to be manufactured somewhere. The product doesn’t contain the pollution, but creating it caused the pollution.”

He and his fellow researchers conclude: “International cooperation to reduce transboundary transport of air pollution must confront the question of who is responsible for emissions in one country during production of goods to support consumption in another.”

###
Jintai Lin of Beijing’s Peking University is the paper’s lead author. Others are Da Pan, also of Peking University; Qiang Zhang, Kebin He and Can Wang of Beijing’s Tsinghua University; David Streets of Argonne National Laboratory; Donald Wuebbles of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; and Dabo Guan of the University of Leeds in England.

About the University of California, Irvine: Located in coastal Orange County, near a thriving employment hub in one of the nation’s safest cities, UC Irvine was founded in 1965. One of only 62 members of the Association of American Universities, it’s ranked first among U.S. universities under 50 years old by the London-based Times Higher Education. The campus has produced three Nobel laureates and is known for its academic achievement, premier research, innovation and anteater mascot. Led by Chancellor Michael Drake since 2005, UC Irvine has more than 28,000 students and offers 192 degree programs. It’s Orange County’s second-largest employer, contributing $4.3 billion annually to the local economy.

SOURCE:  University of California, Irvine

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