Air Pollution : - Effects Of Pollutants And Public Policy Concern pot

Air Pollution Control PhilosophiesPart I Air Pollution : - Effects Of Pollutants And Public Policy Concern 2103555 Engine and Emissions Control... Air Pollution Control Philosophies• Th

Air Pollution Control Philosophies

Part I Air Pollution : - Effects Of Pollutants

And Public Policy Concern

2103555 Engine and Emissions Control

Air Pollution Control Philosophies

• The wish of all concerned with air pollution is to have a completely unpolluted environment at no cost to

anyone

• An air pollution control philosophy is a fundamental set

of ideas about how one determines what constitutes an appropriately clean environment, appropriate cost, and appropriate distribution of that cost

Air Pollution Control Philosophies

• A perfect air pollution philosophy and its implementing regulations are

– cost effective : gains maximum possible benefits

(reduced damages and discomforts) for the resources expended on pollution control

– simple

– enforceable

– flexible : enable to deal with special difficulties And, – evolutionary : enables us to utilize new information

on the effects of pollution and new developments in control technology without major overhauls of our

legal structure or major revisions of existing plants

The Four Philosophies

Most of all air pollution regulations are based directly or indirectly on these four philosophies

(a) Emission standards

(b) Air quality standards

are currently use in many part of the world

(c) Emission taxes

(d) Cost – benefit standard

Mostly been the subject of academic

publications (not had much practical testing)

Comparison of The Four Philosophies

Good.

Good Fair

Fair Evolutionary ability

Unknown Unnecessary

Fair Poor

Flexibility

Unknown Excellent

Fair Excellent

Enforceability

Terrible Excellent

Poor Excellent

Simplicity

Excellent Fair

Good Very bad

Cost effectiveness

Cost – benefit Analysis

Emission Taxes

Air quality Standards

Emission Standards Desirable

Quality

Emission Standard Philosophy

• “There is some maximum possible (or practical) degree of emission control.”

• This degree varies between various classes of emitters (eg autos, cement plants) if this degree

of control is determined, and every member is

required to limit emissions to this maximum

degree possible, then the pollutant emission rate will be the lowest possible

• THUS THIS MIGHT BE CALLED “A Cleanest

possible air philosophy”

Emission Standard Philosophy

Examples (New source performance standards [NSPS] )

as 1998 version of 40CFR60

Coal – fired power plants, may not emit the following to

the atmosphere:

1% of ash solids in the fuel, whichever is less

than 30% of SO2 that would be formed if all the

sulfer in the coal were converted to SO2

whichever is less

coals or 0.5 lb/106 BTU for sub - bituminous coal

Air Quality Standard Philosophy

• The air quality standard is logically called a

“Zero-damage” philosophy

• This is based on assumption that the true situation for most major air pollutants is the threshold value situation.

Air Quality Standard Philosophy

Flow diagram representation of NAAQS process

Emission Tax Philosophy

• Laws based on an emission tax philosophy would tax

each emitter of major pollutants according to its emission rate;

– e.g X cents per pound of pollutant Y for all emitters.

• This tax rate would be set so that most major polluters would find it more economical to install pollution control equipment than pay the taxes

• Emission taxes have also been proposed in combination with air quality standard philosophy : in this combination, emission taxes would act as an added incentive to

reduce emissions to lower levels than those required to meet air quality standards

• Air Quality Standard and Emission taxes would work in parallel

Cost-Benefit Philosophy

• This philosophy suggests that we attempt to decide in as rational a manner as possible,

– how much damage we should accept and

– how much we should be willing to spend to reduce damages to this level

Cost-Benefit Philosophy

• The idea is illustrated in Figure 12 below:

Cost-Benefit Philosophy

• The ambient air concentration can be reduced

by air pollution control expenditures

• The control cost goes up steeply as the ambient air concentration becomes small

• The Minimum occurs when the slopes of the two cost curves are equal and opposite, or.

0 ion)

concentrat pollution

air ambient (

costs) damage

Pollution costs

control (

=

+

d Pollution d