Quantifying the Air Pollution Exposure Consequences Of" Distributed Electricity Generation
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Energy Development and Technology 005R "Quantifying the Air Pollution Exposure Consequences of" Distributed Electricity Generation Garvin A. Heath, Patrick W. Granvold, Abigail S. Hoats and William W. Nazaroff May 2005 Revised Version: November 2005 This paper is part of the University of California Energy Institute's (UCEI) Energy Policy and Economics Working Paper Series. UCEI is a multi-campus research unit of the University of California located on the Berkeley campus. UC Energy Institute 2547 Channing Way Berkeley, California 94720-5180 www.ucei.org This report was issued in order to disseminate results of and information about energy research at the University of California campuses. Any conclusions or opinions expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Regents of the University of California, the University of California Energy Institute or the sponsors of the research. Readers with further interest in or questions about the subject matter of the report are encouraged to contact the authors directly. QUANTIFYING THE AIR POLLUTION EXPOSURE CONSEQUENCES OF DISTRIBUTED ELECTRICITY GENERATION Final Report Grant No. 07427 Prepared for the University of California Energy Institute Prepared by Garvin A. Heath, Patrick W. Granvold, Abigail S. Hoats and William W Nazaroff Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering University of California Berkeley, CA 94720-1710 Original version: May 2005 Revised version: November 2005 Note Concerning Revision Subsequent to the original version of this report being made publicly available, the authors discovered an error in the model inputs of population density. While none of the qualitative results and conclusions were affected by this error, the absolute value of intake fractions and intake-to-generation ratio were overestimated by a constant factor of 2.59 (representing the conversion from square kilometers to square miles). The error has been corrected in this revised version. Contents Note Concerning Revision................................................................................................... i Contents .............................................................................................................................iii Figures................................................................................................................................vi Tables................................................................................................................................. ix Abstract.............................................................................................................................. xi I. Introduction................................................................................................................. 1 II. Methods..................................................................................................................... 11 II.A Case Selection and Background Information ................................................... 12 II.A.1 Case Selection Criteria.............................................................................. 12 II.A.1.a Existing Units.................................................................................... 12 II.A.1.b Hypothetical DG Cases..................................................................... 16 II.A.2 Location and Background Information of Cases ...................................... 16 II.A.2.a Existing Units.................................................................................... 16 II.A.2.b Hypothetical DG (< 1 MW) Cases ................................................... 26 II.B Pollutant Selection ............................................................................................ 30 II.C Modeling Tools and Input Data ........................................................................ 31 II.C.1 Gaussian Plume Model ............................................................................. 31 II.C.1.a Gaussian Plume Model for Conserved Pollutants ............................ 31 II.C.1.b Gaussian Plume Model for Decaying Pollutants .............................. 35 II.C.2 Meteorological Parameters ....................................................................... 37 II.C.2.a Mixing Height................................................................................... 37 II.C.2.b Wind Speed and Direction................................................................ 40 II.C.2.c Atmospheric Stability Class.............................................................. 47 II.C.3 Population Parameters .............................................................................. 47 II.C.4 Modeling Designations and Data Inputs for Existing Units and Hypothetical DG Cases............................................................................. 48 II.C.4.a Modeling Designations ..................................................................... 48 II.C.4.b Data Inputs........................................................................................ 58 II.C.5 Pollutant Data............................................................................................ 71 II.D Modeled Parameters.......................................................................................... 73 II.D.1 Intake Fraction .......................................................................................... 73 II.D.1.a Intake Fraction for Conserved Pollutants ......................................... 74 II.D.1.b Intake Fraction for a Decaying Pollutant.......................................... 75 II.D.1.c Intake Fraction Model....................................................................... 76 II.D.2 Intake-to-Generation Ratio ....................................................................... 76 III. Results and Discussion ......................................................................................... 77 III.A Intake Fraction Results ..................................................................................... 77 III.A.1 Conserved Pollutants Intake Fractions...................................................... 77 III.A.1.a Existing Units.................................................................................... 77 III.A.1.b Hypothetical DG Cases..................................................................... 83 III.A.1.c Comparisons Between Existing Units and Hypothetical DG Cases. 88 III.A.2 Results for Decaying Pollutant ................................................................. 93 iii III.A.3 Comparison to Previous Research ............................................................ 96 III.B Intake-to-Generation Ratio Results................................................................... 99 III.B.1 Existing Unit IGRs.................................................................................... 99 III.B.2 IGRs for Small-Scale DG Technologies (< 1 MW) and BACT-Controlled Existing Units Compared to the Existing Units...................................... 105 III.C Equalizing Exposure Burdens......................................................................... 108 III.D Summary of Results........................................................................................ 111 IV. Conclusions......................................................................................................... 119 V. Recommendations............................................................................................... 120 VI. Acknowledgements............................................................................................. 123 VII. References........................................................................................................... 124 VIII. Glossary of Terms, Abbreviations, Units of Measure and Symbols................... 132 Appendix A: Procedures for Developing Typical Mixing Height Years ....................... 140 A.1 Introduction......................................................................................................... 140 A.1.1 Input Data................................................................................................... 140 A.1.1.1 Revised Typical Meteorological Years (TMY2s)................................... 141 A.1.1.2 SAMSON Data ....................................................................................... 141 A.1.1.3 Radiosonde Data ..................................................................................... 141 A.1.2 Meteorological Preprocessors.................................................................... 142 A.1.2.1 Mixing Heights Program ........................................................................ 142 A.1.2.2 PCRAMMET .......................................................................................... 142 A.2 Methodology....................................................................................................... 142 A.2.1 Input Data................................................................................................... 143 A.2.1.1 Surface and Radiosonde Data Inclusion Criteria.................................... 143 A.2.1.2 Month/Year Pairings............................................................................... 144 A.2.1.3 Modifications Made to SAMSON Data.................................................. 144 A.2.1.4 Modifications Made to Radiosonde Data ............................................... 145 A.2.2 Candidate Months .....................................................................................