The status of household heating in northern China: a field survey in towns and villages.

Household heating in China has been ignored in the formulation of national energy plans until concerns with severe air pollution emerged. The government has started to implement the clean heating with ambitious targets. However, the specific heating status is not clear, especially in rural areas, thus leading to significant obstacles to policy formulation and air pollution control. In order to understand the current heating conditions and heating behaviors of households in more detail, we conduct a field survey of household heating in towns and villages across northern China from December 2017 to March 2018. The survey results show that more than 75% of rural households still rely on traditional heating methods, such as coal, firewood, kang, and a simple stove. Household income, awareness of using heating fuels, and government subsidies may have a certain impact on heating fuel choice. In addition, approximately 34.6% of rural households do not use any housing insulation measures, which is also of concern when focusing on the heating quality. Lastly, considering the huge cost of rural household clean energy transition, we suggest that only a few regions are encouraged to turn to electricity or natural gas for heating, while most other regions transition to using clean coal and attach more importance to improving the quality of heating stoves.

Cooking fuel decision-making and family structure: a field study in China.

Household air pollution caused by solid fuel use for cooking is prevalent in rural China and generates various environmental and health problems. Various potential impact factors on cooking fuel decision such as income, education, modern energy, and infrastructure are examined. However, the role of family structures has been ignored. A survey on household energy consumption pattern interrelating socio-economic and demographic factors was conducted in ten villages in Northern China using stratified random sampling technique. The number of family member eating together influences households' cooking fuel decision-making significantly. The numbers of school-age children and family members under 6 and above 60 years old have no significant influence on the household's cooking fuel decision-making respectively. Compared with families with neither child nor the elderly, those with no child but at least an elderly member have 0.103 lower probability of choosing clean fuels as their primary cooking fuel. Hence, the elderly owns a heavyweight in the household fuel decision-making process in rural China, and the government should formulate policies more in line with the background of the times to deal with rural energy issues.

Role of carbon quantum dots in titania based photoelectrodes: Upconversion or others?

Carbon quantum dots (CQDs) were synthesized by a facile and green pyrolysis method. The as-prepared CQDs show wide light absorption, tunable downconversion photoluminescence (PL) properties and excellent "upconversion" luminescence properties. CQDs were used to design the TiO2/CdS/C photoelectrodes for photoelectrochemical hydrogen evolution. The role of the CQDs was investigated based on the TiO2/CdS/C photoelectrodes. The results reveal that CQDs can enhance light-harvesting efficiency and improve their charge separation and transfer properties when coupled with conventional QD-sensitized photoelectrodes. Nevertheless, the contribution of "upconversion" luminescence of CQDs to the enhanced photoelectrochemical performance is negligible.

Solid fuel use for cooking and its health effects on the elderly in rural China.

Indoor air pollution is mainly caused by solid fuel use for cooking in developing countries. Many previous studies focused on its health risks on the children and in specific local area. This paper investigates household energy usage and transition for cooking in rural China and the health effects on the elderly. A national large-scale dataset CHARLS (China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study) covering 450 villages and communities is employed. Logit regressions were used to quantitatively estimate the effects, after controlling for some factors such as income, demographic, and geographical variables. The results robustly show that compared to non-solid fuels, solid fuel use significantly increases the possibility of chronic lung diseases (30%), exacerbation of chronic lung diseases (95%), seizure of heart disease (1.80 times), and decreases self-evaluated health status of the elderly (1.38 times). Thus, it is urgent to improve clean energy access for cooking in rural China.