Optimal Ozone Control with Inclusion of Spatiotemporal Marginal Damages and Electricity Demand

(Figure Presented) Marginal damage (MD), or damage per ton of emission, is a policy metric used for effective pollution control and reducing the corresponding adverse health impacts. However, for a pollutant such as NOx, the MD varies by the time and location of the emissions, a complication that is not adequately accounted for in the currently implem

Optimal ozone reduction policy design using adjoint-based NOx marginal damage information

Despite substantial reductions in nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions in the United States, the success of emission control programs in optimal ozone reduction is disputable because they do not consider the spatial and temporal differences in health and environmental damages caused by NOx emissions. This shortcoming in the current U.S. NOx control policy is explored, and various methodologies for identifying optimal NOx emission control strategies are evaluated. The proposed approach combines an optimization platform with an adjoint (or backward)

Targeted NOx Emissions Control for Improved Environmental Performance

Nitrogen oxides (NOx) are the main ozone precursors, and NOx control programs in the US have led to substantial reductions in emissions. However, it is unknown whether these programs have optimally reduced ozone concentrations. Current control programs do not account for spatial and temporal specificities of NOx emissions. In this paper, this shortcoming in traditional trading systems is addressed and a methodology for identifying optimal NOx emission control strategies is dev

A temporal NOx emissions trading system: Case study of US power plants

Despite the significant NOx reduction in the past decade, ozone concentrations in the eastern US are in violation of the National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS). This is because the location- and time-specific effects of NOx emissions on ozone formation have not been taken into consideration under cap-and-trade programs where polluters trade their emission quotas on a one-to-one basis. To account for such effects, a cap-and-trade program can be reformed by inclusion of exchange rates set by the regulator on an hourly basis. We examine the performance of such a reformed cap-and-trade program using a case study of US power plants. Our results indicate that shifting emissions from high-damage hours to low-damage hours can significantly improve the performance of the system

Improving NOx cap-and-trade system with adjoint-based emission exchange rates

Cap-and-trade programs have proven to be effective instruments for achieving environmental goals while incurring minimum cost. The nature of the pollutant, however, affects the design of these programs. NOx, an ozone precursor, is a nonuniformly mixed pollutant with a short atmospheric lifetime. NOx cap-and-trade programs in the U.S. are successful in reducing total NOx emissions but may result in suboptimal environmental performance because location-specific ozone formation potentials are neglected. In this paper, the current NOx cap-and-trade s