This report provides a summary of the impact of wind energy development on various air pollutants for a general audience. The core document addresses the key facts relating to the analysis of emission reductions from wind energy development. It is intended for use by a wide variety of parties with an interest in this issue, ranging from state environmental officials to renewable energy stakeholders. The appendices provide basic background information for the general reader, as well as detailed information for those seeking a more in-depth discussion of various topics. Illustrations.
The generation of electricity by wind energy has the potential to reduce environmental impacts caused by the use of fossil fuels. Although the use of wind energy to generate electricity is increasing rapidly in the United States, government guidance to help communities and developers evaluate and plan proposed wind-energy projects is lacking. Environmental Impacts of Wind-Energy Projects offers an analysis of the environmental benefits and drawbacks of wind energy, along with an evaluation guide to aid decision-making about projects. It includes a case study of the mid-Atlantic highlands, a mountainous area that spans parts of West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. This book will inform policy makers at the federal, state, and local levels.
The world’s atmosphere is a common resource. Air quality, along with energy, transportation, and climate change have significant impacts on our lives and this book helps readers understand the changes happening at the nexus of these areas, as they relate to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving air quality. Discussing the transitions to electric vehicles, solar and wind energy for electricity generation, battery developments, smart grids and electric power management, and progress in the electrification of agricultural technology, it also provides the latest information in the context of the United Nations sustainable development goals and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Features: Includes content on how to improve urban air quality in large cities and urban environments. Effectively addresses the nexus of energy, transportation, air quality, climate change and health. Discusses innovative concepts at the nexus of renewable energy, smart grid, electric vehicles, and electric power management. Describes recent progress in meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and the benefits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Written for a wide audience by world experts in sustainability. Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emission and Improving Air Quality: Two Interrelated Global Challenges, is an invaluable book for professionals and academics at the center of changes relating to solar and wind energy, electric vehicles, and charging infrastructure, including government officials, community leaders, researchers, students, and interested citizens. It is also an excellent text for classes that address sustainability, particularly for those focused on transportation and energy.
The results of a study of four solar energy technologies and the electric utility industry are reported. The purpose of the study was to estimate the penetration by federal region of four solar technologies - wind, biomass, phtovoltaics, and solar thermal - in terms of installed capacity and power generated. The penetration by these technologies occurs at the expense of coal and nuclear power. The displacement of coal plants implies a displacement of their air emissions, such as sulfur dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, and particulate matter. The main conclusion of this study is that solar thermal, photovoltaics, and biomass fail to penetrate significantly by the end of this century in any federal region. Wind energy penetrates the electric utility industry in several regions during the 1990s. Displaced coal and nuclear generation are also estimated by region, as are the corresponding reductions in air emissions. The small-scale penetration by the solar technologies necessarily limits the amount of conventional fuels displaced and the reduction in air emissions. A moderate displacement of sulfur dioxide and the oxides of nitrogen is estimated to occur by the end of this century, and significant lowering of these emissions should occur in the early part of the next century.
Katzenstein and Apt investigate the important question of pollution emission reduction benefits from variable generation resources such as wind and solar. Their methodology, which couples an individual variable generator to a dedicated gas plant to produce a flat block of power is, however, inappropriate. For CO2, the authors conclude that variable generators 'achieve (almost equal to) 80% of the emission reductions expected if the power fluctuations caused no additional emissions.' They find even lower NO(subscript x) emission reduction benefits with steam-injected gas turbines and a 2-4 times net increase in NO(subscript x) emissions for systems with dry NO(subscript x) control unless the ratio of energy from natural gas to variable plants is greater than 2:1. A more appropriate methodology, however, would find a significantly lower degradation of the emissions benefit than suggested by Katzenstein and Apt. As has been known for many years, models of large power system operations must take into account variable demand and the unit commitment and economic dispatch functions that are practiced every day by system operators. It is also well-known that every change in wind or solar power output does not need to be countered by an equal and opposite change in a dispatchable resource. The authors recognize that several of their assumptions to the contrary are incorrect and that their estimates therefore provide at best an upper bound to the emissions degradation caused by fluctuating output. Yet they still present the strong conclusion: 'Carbon dioxide emissions reductions are likely to be 75-80% of those presently assumed by policy makers. We have shown that the conventional method used to calculate emissions is inaccurate, particularly for NO(subscript x) emissions.' The inherently problematic methodology used by the authors makes such strong conclusions suspect. Specifically, assuming that each variable plant requires a dedicated natural gas backup plant to create a flat block of power ignores the benefits of diversity. In real power systems, operators are required to balance only the net variations of all loads and all generators, not the output of individual loads or generators; doing otherwise would ensure an enormous amount of unnecessary investment and operating costs. As a result, detailed studies that aggregate the variability of all loads and generators to the system level find that the amount of operating reserves required to reliably integrate variable resources into the grid are on the order of 10% of the nameplate capacity of the variable generators, even when upto25%of gross demand is being met by variable generation. The authors implicit assumption that incremental operating reserves must be 100% of the nameplate capacity of the variable generation, and be available at all times to directly counter that variability, excludes the option of decommitting conventional units when the load net of variable generation is low. In real power systems, generation response to wind variation can typically be met by a combination of committed units, each operating at a relatively efficient point of their fuel curves. In the Supporting Information, we conceptually demonstrate that the CO2 and NO(subscript x) efficiency penalty found by the authors can be significantly reduced by considering the unit commitment decision with just five plants. Real systems often have tens to hundreds of plants that can be committed and decommitted over various time frames. Ignoring the flexibility of the unit commitment decision therefore leads to unsupportable results. Anumber of analyses of the fuel savings and CO2 emission benefits of variable generation have considered realistic operating reserve requirements and unit commitment decisions in models that include the reduction in part load efficiency of conventional plants. The efficiency penalty due to the variability of wind in four studies considered by Gross et al. is negligible to 7%, for up to a 20% wind penetration level. In short, for moderate wind penetration levels, 'there is no evidence available to date to suggest that in aggregate efficiency reductions due to load following amount to more than a few percentage points'. As such, other studies using a more appropriate methodology have found a much smaller CO2 penalty from variability than found by Katzenstein and Apt. Less information is available on the NO(subscript x) emission penalty. Results from recent state-of-the-art integration studies in the United States indicate at the very least clear NO(subscript x) emission reduction benefits from variable generation. NO(subscript x) reductions estimated in these studies are discussed in more detail in the Supporting Information. Denny and O'Malley similarly find NO(subscript x) reduction benefits when forecasting is used in the unit commitment decision.
This book provides a detailed roadmap of technical, economic, and institutional actions by the wind industry, the wind research community, and others to optimize wind's potential contribution to a cleaner, more reliable, low-carbon, domestic energy generation portfolio, utilizing U.S. manu-facturing and a U.S. workforce. The roadmap is intended to be the beginning of an evolving, collaborative, and necessarily dynamic process. It thus suggests an approach of continual updates at least every two years, informed by its analysis activities. Roadmap actions are identified in nine topical areas, introduced below.
Green to Scale is a series of analysis projects that have highlighted the potential of scaling up existing climate solutions. Nordic Green to Scale for countries zooms in on two regions: the Baltic States, Poland and Ukraine in Europe; and Kenya and Ethiopia in East Africa. This report presents the emission reduction potential of 10 selected solutions for the European target countries. The study highlights the costs, savings and co-benefits of implementing the solutions as well as makes policy recommendations for capturing the potential. The project was carried out by the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra, together with its partners CICERO, CONCITO and Institute of Sustainability Studies at the University of Iceland. The technical analysis was produced by the Stockholm Environment Institute Tallinn Centre. The project is part of the Nordic Council of Ministers' Prime Ministers’ Initiative.
We urgently need to transform to a low carbon society, yet our progress is painfully slow, in part because there is widespread public concern that this will require sacrifice and high costs. But this need not be the case. Many carbon reduction policies provide a range of additional benefits, from reduced air pollution and increased energy security to financial savings and healthier lifestyles, that can offset the costs of climate action. This book maps out the links between low carbon policies and their co-benefits, and shows how low carbon policies can lead to cleaner air and water, conservation of forests, more sustainable agriculture, less waste, safer and more secure energy, cost savings for households and businesses and a stronger and more stable economy. The book discusses the ways in which joined-up policies can help to maximise the synergies and minimise the conflicts between climate policy and other aspects of sustainability. Through rigorous analysis of the facts, the author presents well-reasoned and evidenced recommendations for policy-makers and all those with an interest in making a healthier and happier society. This book shows us how, instead of being paralysed by the threat of climate change, we can use it as a stimulus to escape from our dependence on polluting fossil fuels, and make the transition to a cleaner, safer and more sustainable future.
