AAAR 36th Annual Conference October 16 - October 20, 2017 Raleigh Convention Center Raleigh, North Carolina, USA
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Air Quality Impact of a Power Plant in the Midwest: High Resolution CMAQ-ISAM Modeling and Policy Applications
CAN DONG, Scott N. Spak, Robert Bullard, Elizabeth Stone, Charles Stanier, University of Iowa
Abstract Number: 514 Working Group: Source Apportionment
Abstract The air quality in Johnson County, IA is representative of other Midwest communities of commensurate size. The University of Iowa Power Plant is located in the downtown area of Iowa City, the county seat of Johnson County. It is a very publicly visible source of emissions, but the nature of the emissions has changed over the past decade due to fuel switching, combustion upgrades, and pollution control equipment. To evaluate the impact of the power plant to local air quality, annual simulations (between 08/15/2011 and 09/15/2012) are performed using the Integrated Source Apportionment Method within Community Multiscale Air Quality model (CMAQ-ISAM) at a high resolution (0.444 km). Meteorological fields from and WRF 3.4.1, chemical initial and boundary conditions from GEOS-Chem are used to drive the CMAQ-ISAM model. Novel features of this work include: (1) high spatial resolution, making it a potential replacement for AERMOD dispersion modeling assessments of the power plant impact, (2) comparison to receptor-based assessment of emission sector impacts, and (3) comparison to “fenceline” measurements of NOx, SO2 and filter based measurements of PM2.5. Results are compared with a previous study which uses chemical mass balance modeling for PM2.5 organic carbon (OC) source apportionment at an urban site and a peri-urban site located in the study domain. Though over 60% of OC was not assigned, that study reports relatively consistent (spatially and temporally) mobile sources and variable OC contributions from biomass burning and secondary OC. Modeling results from different emission scenarios are also analyzed to investigate the potential effects of different air quality policies.