Influence of fossil-fuel power plant emissions on the surface fine particulate matter in the Seoul Capital Area, South Korea

Details

• Journal Title:
  Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association
• Personal Author:
  Kim, Byeong-Uk ; Kim, Okgil ; Kim, Hyun Cheol ; Kim, Soontae
• Corporate Authors:
  United States. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ; Oceanic and Atmospheric Research Laboratories (U.S.). Air Resources Laboratory
• NOAA Program & Office:
  OAR (Oceanic and Atmospheric Research) ; ARL (Air Resources Laboratory) ; CICS (Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites)
• Description:
  The South Korean government plans to reduce region-wide annual PM2.5(particulate matter with anaerodynamic diameter≤2.5μm) concentrations in the Seoul Capital Area (SCA) from 2010 levels of 27 μg/m3to 20 μg/m3by 2024. At the same time, it is inevitable that emissions from fossil-fuel power plants willcontinue to increase if electricity generation expands and the generation portfolio remains the same inthe future. To estimate incremental PM2.5contributions due to projected electricity generation growth inSouth Korea, we utilized an ensemble forecasting member of the Integrated Multidimensional Air QualitySystem for Korea based on the Community Multi-scale Air Quality model. We performed sensitivity runswith across-the-board emission reductions for all fossil-fuel power plants in South Korea to estimate thecontribution of PM2.5from domestic fossil-fuel power plants. We estimated that fossil-fuel power plantsare responsible for 2.4% of the annual PM2.5national ambient air quality standard in the SCA as of 2010.Based on the electricity generation and the annual contribution of fossil-fuel power plants in 2010, weestimated that annual PM2.5concentrations may increase by 0.2 μg/m3per 100 TWhr due to additionalelectricity generation. With currently available information on future electricity demands, we estimatedthat the total future contribution of fossil-fuel power plants would be 0.87 μg/m3, which is 12.4% of thetarget reduction amount of the annual PM2.5concentration by 2024. We also approximated that thenumber of premature deaths caused by existing fossil-fuel power plants would be 736 in 2024. Since theproximity of power plants to the SCA and the types of fuel used significantly impact this estimation,further studies are warranted on the impact of physical parameters of plants, such as location and stackheight, on PM2.5concentrations in the SCA due to each precursor.
• Keywords:
  Management Monitoring Policy And Law Waste Management And Disposal Policy And Law Waste Management And Disposal Management, Monitoring, Policy And Law Waste Management And Disposal
• Source:
  Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association, 66(9), 863-873
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.1080/10962247.2016.1175392
• ISSN:
  1096-2247 ; 2162-2906
• Format:
  PDF
• Publisher:
  Informa UK Limited
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• License:
  https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Rights Information:
  CC BY
• Compliance:
  Library
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:3474b43d6c3688e584be092568cbd481e3c16db61e548dcb9e7b250d00141370
• Download URL:
  https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/52274/noaa_52274_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.69 MB ]