Workshop on Primary Sulfate Emissions

This article is a summary report on a workshop, Measurement Technology and Characterization of Primary Sulfur Oxides Emission from Combustion Sources, sponsored by the EPA Environmental Sciences Research Laboratory at Research Triangle Park, NC, held in Southern Pines, NC. The objectives of the workshop were: to review and discuss current measurement methods and problem areas for sulfur oxides emission with attention focused on sulfuric acid, sulfates, and sulfur-bearing particulate matter; to review and discuss emission data from various combustion sources operating under different conditions, which include various pollutant controls, fuel composition, excess boiler oxygen, etc.; to delineate and recommend areas in need of research and development effort. Scientists were invited to present the results of their studies on primary sulfate emissions. The 3-day workshop devoted one day to measurement technology, a second to characterization, and a third to critical assessment of the presented papers and development of summary working group reports on each half-day session of the initial 2 days. Thirty-one papers were presented by 29 participants on measurements and characterization. Four working group reports were developed and summarized in the last day. Highlights of the papers and reports are briefly reviewed. Workshop proceedings are available as an EPA publication.     

acid rain and environmental policy

Editor’s note: This paper by Dr. Jacobson was presented at the 74th annual meeting of the Air Pollution Control Association as part of a panel discussion entitled “Acid Rain–1981: An International Issue.” The session was held on June 22, 1981, and was arranged by APCA’s TT-6 Energy-Environmental Interactions Committee.     

Testing and Commercialization of Byproduct Dibasic cids as Buffer Additives for Limestone Flue Gas esulfurization Systems

Pilot plant (0.1 MW) tests and utility boiler full scale demonstration (194 MW) of byproduct organic dibasic acids (DBA) as buffer additives to limestone scrubbers have shown performance improvements equivalent to those achieved by the addition of pure adipic acid. Both SO₂ removal efficiency and limestone utilization increased, and no significant operating problems were observed with three of the four DBA tested. Chemical and biological evaluations of scrubber samples taken during the DBA testing indicated no detectable tOxicity or mutagenicity, and no significant environmental impact is expected as a result of DBA addition. Economic estimates indicate that substitution of DBA for pure adipic acid as a buffer additive will result in additive cost savings of 30 % or greater.     

KAPPA-G,A Non-Gaussian Plume Dispersion Model: Description and Evaluation Against Tracer Measurements

This paper presents a mixed methodology for the simulation of atmospheric disperson phenomena in which vertical diffusion is computed using an analytical solution of the K-theory equation, while horizontal diffusion is simulated by the Gaussian formula. This new formulation, while maintaining a simple analytical form for the concentration field, incorporates the effects of power-law vertical profiles of both wind speed and eddy diffusivity. The performance of this approach, which has been implemented into a full computer package (KAPPA-G), is evaluated by comparison with data from SF₆ tracer experiments.     

Dangerous climate change and water resources in Australia

Water resources in Australia are sensitive to changes in rainfall. Ongoing droughts in south-west and south-east Australia are stressing water resources in the major cities and in agricultural regions. Climate change scenarios for Australia include reasonable prospects of long-term drying, which would exacerbate these issues. The dryer scenarios would entail major readjustments and costs on natural and human systems.     

Municipal solid waste generation in municipalities: quantifying impacts of household structure, commercial waste and domestic fuel

Waste management planning requires reliable data concerning waste generation, influencing factors on waste generation and forecasts of waste quantities based on facts. This paper aims at identifying and quantifying differences between different municipalities' municipal solid waste (MSW) collection quantities based on data from waste management and on socio-economic indicators. A large set of 116 indicators from 542 municipalities in the Province of Styria was investigated. The resulting regression model included municipal tax revenue per capita, household size and the percentage of buildings with solid fuel heating systems. The model explains 74.3% of the MSW variation and the model assumptions are met. Other factors such as tourism, home composting or age distribution of the population did not significantly improve the model. According to the model, 21% of MSW collected in Styria was commercial waste and 18% of the generated MSW was burned in domestic heating systems. While the percentage of commercial waste is consistent with literature data, practically no literature data are available for the quantity of MSW burned, which seems to be overestimated by the model. The resulting regression model was used as basis for a waste prognosis model (Beigl and Lebersorger, in preparation).     

Scenario analysis of perspective change to support climate adaptation: lessons from a pilot study on Dutch river management

Climate adaptation is a complex task surrounded by uncertainty. To support climate adaptation policies, a new scenario approach is pursued to explore possible discontinuous future developments of societal perspectives on climate adaptation issues. The scenario approach was tested for a case study on Dutch river management. In a series of scenario development workshops, a select group of stakeholders explored the perspectives on the management of the River Meuse in the past, present, and future. The process was supported by an analytical perspectives mapping tool to illustrate and analyze the development of perspectives over time. The process and analytical tools contributed to insight into the drivers of perspective change for the case study at hand. Moreover, the stakeholders highlighted the potential of the approach for water management policy for creating awareness about the plurality of perspectives and the dynamics of perspective change, monitoring perspectives and perspective change as part of a flexible policy approach, and anticipating on the occurrence of shock events. Further work is required to better represent the social dynamics of perspectives change, to better empirically ground the perspective change model, and to apply integrated water models in the scenario development process to assess water–society interactions.     

Social cost of environmental pollution and application of counter measures through clean development mechanism: in the context of developing countries

The developing countries i.e., the non-Annex-I countries (parties to the Kyoto Protocol but not responsible to any reduction target yet) in the Kyoto Protocol whose economies are in transition are also allowed to reduce GHG emissions. Among these, the countries that have accepted the Kyoto Protocol may be benefited from CDM projects to promote sustainable development. The developed countries i.e., the Annex-I countries (that have signed the Kyoto Protocol & are responsible to have specific GHG emission reduction target) or the investing countries, in return, have privilege to purchase CER credits (in units equivalent to one tonne of CO₂ gas emission reduction) to meet the emission target as specified in the Kyoto Protocol. The key step in understanding about CDM is to grasp the concept of “baseline” and “additionality”. The “Baseline” is the emissions level that would have existed if a CDM project had not happened. The feature of an approved CDM project is that the planned reductions would not occur without the additional incentive provided by emission reduction credits; this concept is known as “Additionality”. According to environmental additionality concept, baseline emission minus project emission is equal to emissions reduction. “Investment Additionality,” ultimately rejected during negotiation of the “Marrakech Accords” and “Financial Additionality,” are the two important concepts. The concept of trading of CER matches to the idea of Pigovian tax (equal to the negative externality and which is considered one of the “traditional” means of bringing a modicum of market forces) in Economics, making pollution more costly to the polluter, as the polluters have negative cost since they save money by polluting; hence, there are supposed negative externalities associated with the market activity. Economic theory predicts that in an economy where the cost of reaching mutual agreement between parties is high and where pollution is diffuse, Pigovian tax will be an efficient way to promote the public interest and will lead to an improvement of the quality of life measured by the Genuine Progress Indicator and other human economic indicators, as well as higher gross domestic product growth. We can seek a level of pollution such that the marginal savings (MS) to one polluting unit from pollution (−MC) is equal to marginal damage (MD) from pollution over the entire population, since pollution is a public bad i.e., MS (x*) = ∑MD_i (x*) where ∑D_i (x) is the total damage. Though the responsibility of reduction in emission does not lie on the non-Annex-I countries, still effort of maintaining global emission balance can be expected equally from developed and developing countries. The responsibilities of Kyoto Protocol are (a) to reduce global GHG emissions, (b) to bring about sustainable development in the developing countries lie on above two groups since its effect on February 16, 2005. Different polluters have different costs of pollution control. The least costly way of controlling pollution from various sources that reflects different costs of pollution control making the set of environmental regulations to achieve the emission target at the lowest cost makes the regulation cost-effective. Though efficiency is not attainable for many regulations, cost-effectiveness is attainable.     

Radial increment of larch and pine in central Yakutia as dependent on climate change over the past 120 years

The results of studies on the radial increment of larch and pine in central Yakutia are presented. The application of dendroclimatological methods to the study of tree-ring chronologies has made it possible to evaluate tree growth response to the dynamics of climatic factors over the past 120 years. The results of analysis of radial tree increment show that the onset of the growing season has shifted to earlier dates by the end of the 20th century.     

Interaction of ant species in associations: An attempt to formalize behavioral characters

Behavioral adaptations of ant species were studied in associations of different biotopes in the Crimean Mountains. The pattern of an association was found to depend on the mode of the territorial behavior of dominant species, irrespective of their number. The dominance hierarchy was more strict in monodominant than in bidominant associations. Ant species demonstrated different behavioral strategies, plasticity of foraging, and avoidance of aggressive encounters. A method for formalizing interspecies relationships and a model describing stochastic properties of the biological system are proposed, which can be useful in solving various ethological and ecological problems.