[Stoves] Off-topic:World’s first PM emissions trading scheme?

Tue Jun 4 23:08:24 CDT 2019

Dear Nikhil

 It is interesting that they use a mass concentration as the metric. Because the implications are often unknown or poorly understood, let me add flesh.

The mass concentration is the mass of PM per cubic metre of emissions (exhaust). Obviously if the exhaust is diluted with air the mass per cubic metre is lower. In some jurisdictions and in the early days of the EPA, dilution was the solution to pollution. Being less concentrated meant protecting people and objects like stone buildings from the effects of ozone, SO2 and NOx. It did nothing, however, to reduce the total emitted.

The first question to ask is whether the regulators or proposers have the right calculation. The concentration of PM can be determined for a city using a PM detector of some kind. Concentration in the ambient air presumes a certain exposure to the inhabitants either of the city (in the case of Toronto) or the neighbourhood (in the case of Ulaanbaatar).

It is clear that on a windy day, the total mass emitted could be much higher because of the diluting effect of Clean Air from a rainy place, an ocean or other vast area with very little pollution. The claimed goal, remember, is to reduce exposure of people to air pollution on an annual basis (generally speaking).

If the mass emitted per cubic metre is not diluted by cleaner air, the reported concentration is higher, even though the total emitted is the same. So a device or facility can fail or pass depending on whether it is appropriately diluted or not.

To fix this error the concept of a standard dilution rate, as reported using a standard oxygen concentration like 8%, was introduced. Any emission mass concentration can be corrected to any standard dilution value. The 150mg per cubic metre is a concentration based emission so additional info is needed. What is the O2 level in the proposed 150 mg/m^3? That is important to know.

If they can't answer the concentration question it means they are working with the old EPA method (this still happens).

Next is the issue of toxicity. If I push out a lot of flyash (silica sand, mostly) and substitute a burner that reduces flyash to zero and I emit lots of Black Carbon instead, I receive no penalty if the metric is mass concentration. PM is a size, not a material, so as I could be creating 10 or 100 times the health risk while getting paid to "pollute less" (according to their assessment).

At present there is no easy solution for this because the EPA classes all PM as equally toxic (the equitoxicity ruling we decry so much). While the ruling is patently defective, they won't yield to efforts to correct it.

The cap and trade proponents hold up SO2 in the USA as an example of success for cap-and-trade.  That is interesting but inappropriate because SO2 is a single thing. PM is anything, so emitting less "anything" has no quantifiable health effect if the things emitted are not identified. No one knows what the city residents will inhale under a PM cap and trade regime. Might be better and might be worse - literally no one knows. They are not going to measure what it is, only the size and estimated total mass.

Although it is very inconvenient, I suggest that stove designers find out what is being emitted by their products even if there are no regulations governing it beyond size and a couple of gases. Ethanol in particular can generate dreadful organic carbon emissions when burned badly. So can biomass.

Finally, the standard dilution for regulation in many places is different for different fuels. The "150 mg/m^3" may represent different total masses for different fuels when one is reported at O2 = 8% and another is 11%.  Further, some jurisdictions set different emissions rates for domestic and industrial sources.

In one place I encountered recently the permitted domestic rate is half the industrial rate, and the domestic sources are far more diluted, simply by them being distributed, not concentrated sources. Learn the details. Not everything makes sense when viewed closely.

One thing for sure about Surat, whatever the cost of emissions, it will be passed on to consumers.

Regards
 Crispin

From: pienergy2008 at gmail.com
Sent: June 4, 2019 11:36 PM
To: stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org
Reply to: ndesai at alum.mit.edu; stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org
Subject: [Stoves] Off-topic:World’s first PM emissions trading scheme?

Very interesting. At this stage, only one city and covering 350 industrial units. I know the city, Surat, and I think lignite is the most common industrial fuel, with some HFO, maybe some coke. Since organic PM is a PIC, better combustion would reduce PM but increase CO2.

I suppose Michael Greenstone could cook up an ETS for rural biomass. Harvard, Chicago, Yale, MIT make quite a circus. There should be a study of an ETS v. an aDALY market (originating from all attribution factors for every premature death).

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/69640732.cms?<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Ftimesofindia.indiatimes.com%2Farticleshow%2F69640732.cms%3Futm_source%3Dcontentofinterest%26utm_medium%3Dtext%26utm_campaign%3Dcppst&data=02%7C01%7C%7C24ac5abb00f54cb17edb08d6e902779e%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636952594137640347&sdata=n5E0hCJKvbO9Q5khNb%2BbjcXhotJTAWcSqsTn4kxF1Ok%3D&reserved=0>
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Nikhil Desai
(US +1) 202 568 5831
Skype: nikhildesai888

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