Development of a low-smoke Mongolian coal stove using a heterogeneous testing protocol

We report on the application in domestic stove development of heterogeneous test methods that can simultaneously quantify gaseous emissions, condensed particulates and the mass of fuel burned in real time. Such measurements can rapidly identify ideal combustion conditions by post-facto dividing the test into arbitrary segments for detailed analysis. Domestic coal stoves typically operate daily across a wide range of operating conditions. The analysis technique was applied repeatedly throughout the development of a lignite burning stove suitable for use in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, the coldest and most heavily air-polluted capital city in the world. The outcome is a natural draft chimney stove with a >99% reduction in PM 2.5 emissions and >90% reduction in CO, relative to the baseline product. Including the ignition phase, the fire emits less than 0.5 mg of PM2.5 per MegaJoule. This challenges the popular notion that high-volatiles ‘low quality’ coals are inherently smoky

Determinants of the Cost of Electricity Service in PCE Eligible Communities

This report is one of two companion reports ISER prepared for the Alaska Energy Authority. The other report, “True Cost of Electricity in Rural Alaska and True Cost of Bulk Fuel in Rural Alaska,” is dated October 26, 2016. That report estimates the full costs of providing electricity in rural Alaska, including the costs of subsidies provided to lower the price consumers pay. This second report assesses how the costs of electric generation in Power Cost Equalization (PCE) communities are or might be affected by three factors that are not related to the differences in electricity generation costs. Those three factors are the organizational structures of utilities, postage stamp rate design, and managerial information available on energy subsidy programs. 1. Organizational Structures of Utilities Electric utilities in PCE communities are organized as cooperatives, are run by local villages and municipalities, or are investor-owned utilities. The scale of these utilities varies widely, and includes regional utilities that manage separate electric grids in multiple communities. A review of those organizational structures indicates that: 1.1. There are significant differences in distribution, customer service, and general and administrative costs (DCG&A) across utilities. These differences are correlated with the utility size and organizational structure, with the smallest utilities having significantly higher DCG&A costs per kWh. 1.2. Small local utilities that have merged with larger regional utilities have benefited from reduced costs and professional management. Incentives to encourage small local utilities to join larger, more efficient regional utilities should be considered. 1.3. The cost of borrowing for large local and regional electric coops remains low compared with that for stand-alone local villages, municipalities, and investor-owned utilities. 1.4. The state government should consider allowing a return on equity as an allowable expense within the PCE cost of service [AS 42.45.110(a)] to enable utilities to build equity, enhance debt coverage and facilitate the expanded use of private capital, and reduce dependency on limited public capital resources. This private capital may take the form of investor capital for investor-owned utilities or member capital for cooperatives. 2. Postage Stamp Rate Designs 2.1. Postage stamp rate designs—a single rate for electricity for some set of customers—can help reduce costs and improve affordability in smaller, remote communities through an implicit cost subsidization from customers in larger communities. 4 2.2. The subsidies in postage stamp rates may decrease incentives for utilities to manage their costs, because higher costs may be subsidized by postage stamp rate-making. 2.3. The increase in cost in subsidy-providing communities risks inefficient bypass by large commercial or government users. This could increase the total cost of electric service and leave the remaining customers with higher rates and diminished affordability. Separating communities into rate groups according to their cost structure may mitigate, but not eliminate, the risk of self-generators bypassing the local electric utility. 3. Efficiency in Governance of Energy Subsidy Systems 3.1. To assess whether the PCE program is achieving its goals, transparent information about the allocation of the subsidies and about the operation of the subsidized utilities is required. The companion report to this one identified some issues about reliability of information generated under the current reporting system. Improvements in the reporting requirements could address these issues. A common issue is inconsistency in accounting for capital that state and federal agencies contribute to utilities. Those capital contributions include both grants or low-interest loans to finance capital projects as well as sources of short-term government financing, such as annual fuel loans, emergency loans, and write-offs of operating loans for troubled utilities. If capital investments for generation were separated from other capital, investments to reduce fuel costs (such as wind power) could be assessed more directly. 3.2. The PCE program is one of several programs that subsidize energy costs in rural Alaska, and an understanding of the interaction among these programs is required. An annual compilation of all state and federal heating and electrical subsidy support systems by community would enable better understanding of both individual program impact and also the collective programmatic impact of the subsidies on energy affordability. 3.3. Information on system reliability, usually measured as outage hours, is required to fully assess utility performance. 3.4. Currently, there is no information on how well the PCE program and other energy subsidy programs in rural Alaska target families and communities that face the greatest energy affordability challenges. Because of limitations on income data in small rural Alaska communities, assessing how well subsidies are targeted may be challenging. However, in light of general information that energy subsidies are often inefficient at poverty reduction, this is an important question. 3.5. The environmental impact of energy subsidies for rural Alaska, including the PCE program, through CO2 emissions and PM 2.5 emissions, has not been assessed.Alaska Energy AuthorityExecutive Summary / Background / Impact of Alternative Utility Organizational Structures on Cost / Postage Stamp Rate Design Issues for PCE Communities / Energy Subsidy Administration / Summar

Sustainability effects of next-generation intersection control for autonomous vehicles

Transportation sustainability is adversely affected by recurring traffic congestions, especially at urban intersections. Frequent vehicle deceleration and acceleration caused by stop-and-go behaviours at intersections due to congestion adversely impacts energy consumption and ambient air quality. Availability of the maturing vehicle technologies such as autonomous vehicles and Vehicle-To-Vehicle (V2V) / Vehicle-To-Infrastructure (V2I) communications provides technical feasibility to develop solutions that can reduce vehicle stops at intersections, hence enhance the sustainability of intersections. This paper presents a next-generation intersection control system for autonomous vehicles, which is named ACUTA. ACUTA employs an enhanced reservation-based control algorithm that controls autonomous vehicles’ passing sequence at an intersection. Particularly, the intersection is divided into n-by-n tiles. An intersection controller reserves certain time-space for each vehicle, and assures no conflict exists between reservations. The algorithm was modelled in microscopic traffic simulation platform VISSIM. ACUTA algorithm modelling as well as enhancement strategies to minimize vehicle intersection stops and eventually emission and energy consumption were discussed in the paper. Sustainability benefits offered by this next-generation intersection were evaluated and compared with traditional intersection control strategies. The evaluation reveals that multi-tile ACUTA reduces carbon monoxide (CO) and Particulate Matter (PM) 2.5 emissions by about 5% under low to moderate volume conditions and by about 3% under high volume condition. Meanwhile, energy consumption is reduced by about 4% under low to moderate volume conditions and by about 12% under high volume condition. Compared with four-way stop control, single-tile ACUTA reduces CO and PM 2.5 emissions as well as energy consumption by about 15% under any prevailing volume conditions. These findings validated the sustainability benefits of employing next-generation vehicle technologies in intersection traffic control. In addition, extending the ACUTA to corridor level was explored in the paper

Blue Sky Olympics: Satellite Observations of Air Quality During the 2008 Beijing Olympics

China has imposed short-term emission control regulations on industry and transportation to quickly improve air quality during certain events, including the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. Previous research noted reductions in NO2 vertical column density, CO emissions, CO2 emissions, and Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD). NO2 and SO2 decreased in neighboring provinces, during this time period. Using MODIS level-2 atmospheric aerosol product (MYD04_L2) data, processed by the dark target algorithm, this study observes trends in regional AOD and temporal change in AOD during the Olympic emissions reduction program. 2008 observations are referenced against AOD observations from 2003 to 2013, within 9-day intervals from June 23rd to October 24th and 40 km bands extending up to 240 km from the Beijing municipal limits. During the Olympics, median AOD values were below median AOD values from the reference period. AOD levels returned to above reference period levels in the September 12th to September 20th period, before the end of the Special Olympics in Beijing. During the Olympic period, reductions in AOD values, compared to the reference period were observed in regions within 80 km of Beijing, while an increase in AOD values was present in regions 120 km to 240 km from Beijing

What California Gains from Reducing Car Dependence

Cars provide an unparalleled level of mobility but have negative financial, public health, environmental, and social impacts. Reducing the need for driving in California would produce a range of household- and community-level benefits. Driving is associated with adverse health effects (e.g., obesity, high blood pressure, depression, injuries, fatalities), while commuting by walking or biking provides numerous physical and mental health benefits. A reduction in driving would also improve public health by decreasing air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. It would save substantial sums of money:  households spend about $9,000/year or 16$500 million per year on highway maintenance. A less car-dependent society would also be more equitable for those with limited income or limited physical abilities who cannot drive, to the benefit not just of those individuals but the community as a whole. While it is not realistic in the foreseeable future for most Californians to live without their cars, it is possible to decrease car dependence. Doing so requires a shift away from a century-old prioritization of the goal of reducing vehicle delays over other important goals. Creating a less car-dependent world is not necessarily more costly to the public and can be achieved over time through changes in land use and transportation planning practices. Answers to many of the frequently asked questions about such efforts are provided.View the NCST Project Webpag

The public health benefits of insulation retrofits in existing housing in the United States

BACKGROUND: Methodological limitations make it difficult to quantify the public health benefits of energy efficiency programs. To address this issue, we developed a risk-based model to estimate the health benefits associated with marginal energy usage reductions and applied the model to a hypothetical case study of insulation retrofits in single-family homes in the United States. METHODS: We modeled energy savings with a regression model that extrapolated findings from an energy simulation program. Reductions of fine particulate matter (PM(2.5)) emissions and particle precursors (SO(2 )and NOx) were quantified using fuel-specific emission factors and marginal electricity analyses. Estimates of population exposure per unit emissions, varying by location and source type, were extrapolated from past dispersion model runs. Concentration-response functions for morbidity and mortality from PM(2.5 )were derived from the epidemiological literature, and economic values were assigned to health outcomes based on willingness to pay studies. RESULTS: In total, the insulation retrofits would save 800 TBTU (8 × 10(14 )British Thermal Units) per year across 46 million homes, resulting in 3,100 fewer tons of PM(2.5), 100,000 fewer tons of NOx, and 190,000 fewer tons of SO(2 )per year. These emission reductions are associated with outcomes including 240 fewer deaths, 6,500 fewer asthma attacks, and 110,000 fewer restricted activity days per year. At a state level, the health benefits per unit energy savings vary by an order of magnitude, illustrating that multiple factors (including population patterns and energy sources) influence health benefit estimates. The health benefits correspond to $1.3 billion per year in externalities averted, compared with$5.9 billion per year in economic savings. CONCLUSION: In spite of significant uncertainties related to the interpretation of PM(2.5 )health effects and other dimensions of the model, our analysis demonstrates that a risk-based methodology is viable for national-level energy efficiency programs

Next Generation Clean Local Transport – Birmingham City University’s IDEA think tank a lead partner in developing the UK’s First Biomethane-Powered Tram

Wednesday, 22ndJuly, after a year working on the development of the UK’s ‘First-of-a-Kind’ (FOAK) Biomethane Railcar or tram, the vehicle was launched at a demonstration event hosted atMotorail’sLong Marston testing facilities. This was the first UK biomethane-powered tram and understood to be a world first too

The Impact of Prescribed Burns and Smoke Exposure on Marginalized Communities in California

In response to the increase in wildfires seen over the past decade, federal, state, and private landowners in California are taking steps to mitigate the effects of future wildfires. A key part of the mitigation plan is to increase the number of prescribed burns being done across the state. This planned substantial increase in prescribed burns aims to protect communities from wildfires but a key concern this paper will address is the impact that this increase is having on marginalized communities in the state. This paper will aim to provide some context for the current situation in California and examine how prescribed burn policies are affecting marginalized communities as well as propose solutions for how to protect specific marginalized communities from the effects of smoke and particulate matter exposure