An Ex Post Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Nitrogen Dioxide Air Pollution Control Program in Tokyo

ABSTRACT

The benefits and costs of past nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) control policies were calculated for Tokyo, Japan, using environmental, economic, political, demographic, and medical data from 1973 to 1994. The benefits of NO₂ control were estimated as medical expenses and lost work time due to hypothetical no-control air concentrations of NO₂. Direct costs were calculated as annualized capital expenditures and 1 year's operating costs for regulated industries plus governmental agency expenses. The major findings were as follows:

(1) Using Tokyo's average medical cost of pollution-related illness, the best net estimate of the avoided medical costs due to incidence of phlegm and sputum in adults was 730 billion yen ($6.08 billion; 1 U.S. dollar = 120 yen).

(2) The best net estimate of the avoided medical costs due to incidence of lower respiratory illness in children was 93 billion yen ($775 million).

(3) Using Tokyo's average duration of pollution-related illness and average wages, the best net estimate of the avoided costs of lost wages in workers was 760 billion yen ($6.33 billion).

(4) The best net estimate of the avoided costs of lost wages in mothers caring for their sick children was 100 billion yen ($833 million).

(5) Using Tokyo-specific data, the best net costs were estimated as 280 billion yen ($2.33 billion).

(6) Using human health and productivity benefits, and annualized capital cost and operating cost estimates, the best net benefits-to-costs ratio was 6:1 (upper limit 44:1; lower limit 0.3:1). Benefit calculations were sensitive to assumptions of mobile source emissions and certain health impacts that were not included. Cost calculations were highly dependent on assumptions of flue gas volume and fuel use. For comparative purposes, we identified other studies for air pollution-related illness. Assumptions that formed the basis for most of the inputs in the present study, such as duration of illness, medical treatment costs, per person illness in children, and lost wages for working mothers, were similar to those recommended in the literature. Lost wages in sick workers and per capita illness incidence in adults were higher than numbers reported elsewhere. Further advances in cost-benefit analysis (CBA) procedures to evaluate the economic effectiveness of NO₂ controls in Tokyo are recommended to estimate impacts and values for additional human health benefits, ecosystem health and productivity effects, and nonliving system effects, as well as benefits of ancillary reductions in other pollutants. The present study suggests that Tokyo's past NO₂ control policies in total were economically quite effective.     

Air Pollution Control Philosophies

Most air pollution control programs rest on one or more of the following four basic philosophies: emission standards, air quality standards, emission taxes, and cost benefit analysis. Frequently they rest on mixtures or combinations of these four. This paper examines each of the four separately, tries to show why each is different from the others, and compares their advantages and disadvantages.     

Forecasting Air Pollution Potential: A Synoptic Climatological Approach

ABSTRACT

This paper describes the development and application of an air pollution potential (APP) forecast model based on a synoptic climatological approach in a heavily industrialized area in Durban, South Africa. The aim of the forecasting procedure, based on a system of orange, red, and all-clear alerts, was to give industry advance warning of periods of poor atmospheric dispersion so that it could take action to reduce emissions. The key meteorological parameter in accurately identifying the commencement of an APP episode was found to be negative surface pressure tendency. Wind direction was the most useful parameter in estimating the end point of an APP episode. The model was very successful in identifying periods of elevated SO₂, but there is a need for further refinement in forecasting the end point of an episode.     

Air Monitoring Reflects Air Pollution Control Activity

Air monitoring by the A.I.S.I. filter sampling device which both preceded and was concurrent with source control of particulates demonstrated air quality improvement over a ten-year period. A difference in improvement from that estimated by the pollution control agency resulted from difference in the measurement parameters.     

Engineeringand MaintainingIn-Plant Air Pollution Control

Informative Report No. 7 on the inedible rendering industry is one of a series of survey reports prepared by APCA’ TI-2 Committee on air pollution problems and control methods encountered in the chemical industry today.     

Careers in Air Pollution Control

Abstract

The destruction of parts per million (ppm) levels of volatile organic compounds in a dry air stream by high–energy electron–beam irradiation has been investigated in a pilot plant at the University of Tennessee Space Institute, Tullahoma, Tennessee. In a series of experiments, dry air contaminated with various VOCs in the concentration range of 50–1000 ppm were treated in the UTSI pilot plant to determine the extent of destruction at various electronbeam dose levels.

The destruction removal efficiency was determined as a function of the electron beam irradiation dose. The results suggest a charge transfer reaction as the major decomposition mechanism. A theoretical foundation of the process, along with a simple first–generation reaction kinetics model, a summary of the results from the pilot plant flow reactor, and a preliminary cost analysis for a fullscale detoxification plant using currently available electronbeam gun technology are presented in this paper.     

室内空气污染与控制

论述了造成室内空气污染的主要原因，分析了室内空气污染的特点及其危害，并结合房屋建筑过程以及人们日常生活的各个方面，提出了预防及控制室内空气污染的具体方法。     

Designing for Air Pollution Control

This paper was one of several presented at the Workshop on Air Pollution Control in Portland, Oregon, on May 6, 1968. The Workshop was sponsored by the Manufacturing Chemists Association and the Chemical Industry Council of the Pacific Northwest in cooperation with the Association of Oregon Industries, Association of Washington Industries, and the Environmental Committee of the Portland Chamber of Commerce. While many of the papers were of localized interest, this paper speaks to anyone designing air pollution control systems.     

A Status Report: Air Pollution Control in Australia

All but one of the Australian States now have legislation to control Air Pollution. These are similar in broad principle and rely upon the system of prior approval and the use of emission limits. At the present time Victoria is the only State with legislation providing for the recycling of crankcase vent gases on motor cars. Methods being used to control pollution and future outlook and needs are discussed. At least 65 per cent of the crude oil requirements should be met by indigenous low sulfur oil by 1975. This fact and the imminent supply of natural gas to the four major cities and to the centers of heavy industrial development should result in a marked reduction in sulfur dioxide concentrations. A major outstanding problem is the lack of air pollution considerations in planning at regional and local government levels.     

Air Pollution Control and Public Apathy

The importance of public involvement in programs of air pollution control has been stressed by a number of writers in the field, most recently by Sterner in his comments to the Third National Conference on Air Pollution.¹ As he points out, public apathy appears to be a critical barrier in the development and implementation of effective control programs. Along the same line, Dixon and Lodge, in a digest of the report of the AAAS Air Conservation Committee, state that, “The best program in the world can fail in the face of opposition or apathy on the part of the public.”² It is the purpose of this paper to take a more analytical look at this problem, particularly in the light of recent data from an opinion survey in West Virginia. If such apathy exists, effective countermeasures require that we examine it more fully and understand its sources. Collective handwringing will do little to meet the problem.     

Free Enterprise and Air Pollution Control

Abstract

Title III of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments designated methanol as a pollutant to be regulated. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), through a contract with Research Triangle Institute, has developed a method for measuring methanol emissions from stationary sources. The methanol sampling train (MST) consists of a glass-lined heated probe, two condensate knockout traps, and three sorbent cartridges packed with Anasorb® 747. Samples are desorbed with a 1:1 mixture of carbon disulfide (CS₂) and N, N-dimethylformamide (DMF). Condensate water and CS₂/ DMF samples are analyzed by gas chromatography with flame ionization detection. The MST has a practical quantitation limit of approximately 3 ppm for a 20-L sample. Samples were shown to be stable for at least two weeks after collection.

Field tests of the MST and the National Council of the Paper Industry for Air and Stream Improvement (NCASI) methanol sampling method were conducted at two pulp and paper mills. Sampling and analysis procedures followed EPA Method 301 requirements.

The sampling location for the first field test was the inlet vent to a softwood bleach plant scrubber, where the methanol concentration was approximately 30 ppm. The mean recovery of spike was 108.3% for the MST method and 81.6% for the NCASI method. Although neither method showed significant bias at the 95% confidence level, the betweenmethods bias was significantly different.

A second field test was conducted at a vent from a black liquor oxidation tank where the methanol concentration was approximately 350 ppm. Mean spike recoveries were 96.6 and 94.2% for the MST and NCASI methods, respectively. The biases of the two methods and the between-methods bias were not significantly different for the second field test.     

Certification Programs in Air Pollution Control

When the questionnaire form for Consultant Guide/1972 was published in the APCA Journal early this year, it included space for an indication of any certifications granted to a consultant by the three Boards which have established standards for professional activity in the field of air pollution control. The editorial staff, well aware of these Boards, was surprised at the number of requests received by phone and mail for information concerning the certification programs. In response to these requests we are publishing on the following three pages invited statements from principals of the three Boards outlining the procedures involved in applying for professional certification.     

The Air Pollution Control Contractorand SMACNA

Over the years JAPCA has directed its attention primarily to the scientist and engineer in their roles as industrial air quality managers, consultants, control officials, educators, researchers, and manufacturers of emission control equipment and air pollution instrumentation. Largely overlooked has been the air pollution control contractor who evolved from the sheet metal industry to become a key figure in the environmental marketplace. Let's look "beyond the flange", as it were, at this contractor, his work, his association, and the professional development opportunities being offered to him.