Power generation equipment tends to have long lifespans, so decisions made today will affect environmental outcomes for decades. It is almost entirely other people and firms which gain the benefit of the reduction in environmental costs from the application of such technology. Reducing particulate emission from power generation is technologically easy and relatively inexpensive. Again, the problem is more difficult for dispersed emissions from vehicles and domestic sources. The high direct health costs of particulates makes particulate emission reduction a very high priority environmental issue.
Technology exists to solve the problem of acid rain, at least for industrial coal use.
If coal was cleaned and burned via up to date technology, Asian coal would have minimal environmental impact. Unfortunately, Asian plants either lack pollution control equipment or have only the most basic control of particulates. Acid rain is also the classic problem of transboundary pollution. Sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions from Northeast China fall on Korea and Japan, while emissions from Southeast China fall on Vietnam and Southeast Asia. China emits about 18 million tons of sulphur dioxide annually, about 7 million of which comes from power generation.