Performance and Potential of Solar Updraft Tower Used As an Effective Measure to Alleviate Chinese Urban Haze Problem
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Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 51 (2015) 1499–1508 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/rser Performance and potential of solar updraft tower used as an effective measure to alleviate Chinese urban haze problem Xinping Zhou a,b,n, Yangyang Xu a, Shuo Yuan a, Cai Wu c, Hao Zhang a a School of Civil Engineering & Mechanics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074,China b Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering & Earth Sciences, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA c Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, 510006, China article info abstract Article history: Due to rapid urbanization, dense haze is formed in some Chinese cities where urban heat island (UHI) Received 22 October 2014 effect is aggravated. The urban haze problem has become a touchy issue significantly affecting humans Received in revised form living and working in the cities. Solar updraft tower (SUT) is a device that can drive warm air up to high 17 May 2015 altitude under the effect of natural buoyancy. In this paper, high SUTs are proposed to be used to drive Accepted 7 July 2015 the UHI warm air containing haze up to higher altitude and help the haze disperse to farther distance, Available online 31 July 2015 thus lowering the concentration of haze effectively. This proposal can effectively alleviate the urban haze Keywords: problem and simultaneously produce clean electric power in Chinese cities. The performance analyses Solar updraft tower and cost analyses of sole SUT for power generation in a UHI are conducted. The number of 1 and 1.5 km Dense haze high SUTs only for impelling air up in UHIs of several main Chinese cities are estimated, respectively. Urban heat island & 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Effective measure Alleviation Power generation Contents 1. Introduction.......................................................................................................1499 2. Description of novel concept. 1501 3. Model............................................................................................................1502 3.1. Mathematical model for solar updraft tower performance . 1502 3.2. Cost model . 1504 4. Results and discussion. 1504 4.1. Performance. 1504 4.2. Cost ....................................................................................................... 1505 4.3. Potential . 1507 5. Conclusions . 1507 Acknowledgement. 1508 References............................................................................................................1508 1. Introduction and urban area spread. Chinese urbanization increased from 17.9% in 1978 to 52.6% in 2012 [1]. The rapid economic growth and urbaniza- In the past three decades, China has undergone very rapid tion process has been accompanied by high energy consumption, economic growth and urbanization with urban population expansion many motor vehicles, many factories, and many construction sites, resulting in severe environmental pollution. Only less than 1% of the 500 largest cities in China meet the air quality standards recom- n mended by the World Health Organization, and seven Chinese cities Corresponding author at: School of Civil Engineering & Mechanics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China. are ranked among the ten most polluted cities in the world [2].The E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected] (X. Zhou). atmospheric particulates in this country, especially in the megacity http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2015.07.020 1364-0321/& 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1500 X. Zhou et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 51 (2015) 1499–1508 Fig. 1. PM2.5 (defined as fine particulate matters with diameter of 2.5 μm or less) concentration averaged from January 1st to 5th and from January 6th to 16th, 2013. The testing data is obtained by [3] from the internet of China Meteorological Bureau. areas, are on a high level and become denser and denser [3].A dissipating the temperature inversion, blowing the smog away hazardous dense haze choking most parts of northern and eastern horizontally through wind tunnels or vertically by fans, more China covered a total area of 1.4 million square kilometers in January, effectively converting solar energy to promote upward movement 2013 (Fig. 1),andmorethan800millionpeoplewereaffectedbythe of atmospheric air to eliminate the inversion, using solar energy to heavy haze [4]. Dense haze can endanger people’s health. Environ- cause greater horizontal movement of the air, triggering potential mental Protection Agency [5] reported that a causal relationship instability by pumping water from the earth surface to evaporate exists between short- and long-term exposure to PM2.5 and mortal- the water into the air above the inversion, and reducing the ity, and a causal relationship is likely to exist between exposure to insolation for photochemical reactions to form smog. However, PM2.5 and respiratory effects. the measures have not been taken because of their high energy The urban haze problem has become a touchy issue significantly consumption and expensive expense [7]. affecting humans living and working and worsening the health of Several bold measures are now mentioned to mitigate the dense people in the affected cities. The communities nationwide have haze in Chinese cities, for example, scavenging air pollution and haze, realized that it is urgent to take effective measures to solve the exchanging the polluted air with fresh air to a large extent, enhan- worsening air pollution problem. The Chinese government has cing the dispersion of the polluted air to higher height and farther committed to spend 3.4 trillion RMByuanontheinvestmentof distance,etc.Artificial rain was proposed to be created to scavenge environmental protection engineering in the twelfth Five-Year Plan. smog [8]. An approach of spraying water (like watering gardens) into Beijing planned to invest 760 billion RMB yuan to govern the haze theatmospheretoscavengeairpollution was proposed for mitigat- and improve the air quality by 2017 [6].Inthe“Air Pollution ing the air pollution and haze problems in the megacities of China Prevention Action Plan” issued by the State Council of China in [9]. Six wind passages were proposed to be created in Beijing to September, 2013, various measures were presented to solve the air channel wind to blow away the urban air pollutants [10].The pollution problem. Some measures include acceleration of the use of proposed engineerings in the whole city will be so great and clean energy resources, acceleration of the use of clean coal, miraculous,andcanbedoneatthecostofveryhighenergy improvement of the energy use efficiency, and reduction of the consumption and much too expensive expense. Artificial rain and emissions of pollutant gases. There is also a need to enhance the spraying water can wash away air pollution more or less. However, control of emissions mainly from vehicle, factories and many con- artificial rain can be produced locally only under appropriate weather struction sites. They are beneficial to essential alleviation of Chinese conditions. Due to air circulation and existence of pollution sources, air quality in future. However, it is not easy to manage the air the air pollution will recover some time after artificial rain or pollution in Chinese cities. The need to balance economic growth and spraying water. The increase in the moisture in the air due to environmental protection determines a long-process challenge for artificial rain or spraying water is most likely to contribute to the improving air quality significantly. It is very difficult to alter the formation of new haze. Both the very high energy consumption and situation that Chinese cities are densely populated and the people are theincreaseinthemoisturemayaggravatethehazesometimelater. choked by dense haze, in the next few years unless effective Thus the approaches are not practical solutions. It is not also available measures to alleviate the haze problem are taken. in practice to exchange most of the polluted air with fresh air by Some bold measures to be used for fast mitigation of dense building wind passages in the cities. haze and fast improvement of urban environmental air quality Is it possible to enhance the dispersion of dense haze over were proposed in the world, for example, penetrating or many Chinese cities to higher height and farther distance? It will X. Zhou et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 51 (2015) 1499–1508 1501 be an unimaginable engineering to do so. Furthermore, the [11,15,16] to be reinforced concrete shell structure due to its long life unimaginable engineering used in practice should not operate at span and favorable cost amongst many possible structural designs, the cost of a great amount of energy consumption but automati- although the guyed corrugated metal sheet flue of the Manzanares cally without use of water. How can this be done? In this paper, prototype worked very well for experimental purposes. Civil engi- solar updraft towers (SUTs, also called solar chimneys) for power neers [15,16] have designed high ring-stiffened thin-walled rein- generation are proposed to drive the dense haze in cities due to forced concrete cylindrical or hyperbolic shell SUTs for commercial buoyancy to ascend to a higher height and disperse the haze to SUPPs. Intended designed service lives of commercial SUPPs are 80 to farther distance. The