AAAR 33rd Annual Conference
October 20 - October 24, 2014
Rosen Shingle Creek
Orlando, Florida, USA
Abstract View
Linking Air Quality Health Impacts and Electricity Capacity Planning
PAUL KERL, Wenxian Zhang, Juan Moreno-Cruz, Athanasios Nenes, Matthew Realff, Armistead Russell, Joel Sokol, Valerie Thomas, Georgia Institute of Technology
Abstract Number: 467 Working Group: Linking Aerosols with Public Health in a Changing World
Abstract Production of electricity from combustion sources generates sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide that transform in the atmosphere into other pollutants such as fine particulate matter and ozone. These air pollutants have a variety of negative consequences, such as premature mortality, asthma exacerbation, increased hospital admissions and decreased visibility. We create a mathematical formulation of a multi-decade least-cost electricity capacity planning model that newly links emission sensitivities from the Community Multi-scale Air Quality Model (CMAQ), to model air pollutant concentrations at a fine spatial and temporal resolution. This new capability allows us to use mixed integer linear programming to minimize a combined objective of monetized air quality health impacts and the cost of production of electricity. We examine planning for the state of Georgia within this linked framework.