Kim Byeong-Uk, Kim Okgil, Kim Hyun Cheol, Kim Soontae
a Georgia Environmental Protection Division , Atlanta , GA , USA.
b Department of Environmental Engineering , Ajou University , Suwon , South Korea.
J Air Waste Manag Assoc. 2016 Sep;66(9):863-73. doi: 10.1080/10962247.2016.1175392.
The South Korean government plans to reduce region-wide annual PM2.5 (particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter ≤2.5 μm) concentrations in the Seoul Capital Area (SCA) from 2010 levels of 27 µg/m(3) to 20 µg/m(3) by 2024. At the same time, it is inevitable that emissions from fossil-fuel power plants will continue to increase if electricity generation expands and the generation portfolio remains the same in the future. To estimate incremental PM2.5 contributions due to projected electricity generation growth in South Korea, we utilized an ensemble forecasting member of the Integrated Multidimensional Air Quality System for Korea based on the Community Multi-scale Air Quality model. We performed sensitivity runs with across-the-board emission reductions for all fossil-fuel power plants in South Korea to estimate the contribution of PM2.5 from domestic fossil-fuel power plants. We estimated that fossil-fuel power plants are responsible for 2.4% of the annual PM2.5 national ambient air quality standard in the SCA as of 2010. Based on the electricity generation and the annual contribution of fossil-fuel power plants in 2010, we estimated that annual PM2.5 concentrations may increase by 0.2 µg/m(3) per 100 TWhr due to additional electricity generation. With currently available information on future electricity demands, we estimated that the total future contribution of fossil-fuel power plants would be 0.87 µg/m(3), which is 12.4% of the target reduction amount of the annual PM2.5 concentration by 2024. We also approximated that the number of premature deaths caused by existing fossil-fuel power plants would be 736 in 2024. Since the proximity of power plants to the SCA and the types of fuel used significantly impact this estimation, further studies are warranted on the impact of physical parameters of plants, such as location and stack height, on PM2.5 concentrations in the SCA due to each precursor.
Improving air quality by reducing fine particle pollution is challenging when fossil-fuel-based electricity production is increasing. We show that an air quality forecasting system based on a photochemical model can be utilized to efficiently estimate PM2.5 contributions from and health impacts of domestic power plants. We derived PM2.5 concentrations per unit amount of electricity production from existing fossil-fuel power plants in South Korea. We assessed the health impacts of existing fossil-fuel power plants and the PM2.5 concentrations per unit electricity production to quantify the significance of existing and future fossil-fuel power plants with respect to the planned PM2.5 reduction target.
韩国政府计划到2024年将首尔首都圈（SCA）的区域年度细颗粒物（空气动力学直径≤2.5μm的颗粒物）浓度从2010年的27μg/m³降至20μg/m³。与此同时，如果未来发电量增加且发电组合保持不变，化石燃料发电厂的排放量将不可避免地持续增加。为估算韩国预计发电量增长导致的细颗粒物增量贡献，我们利用了基于社区多尺度空气质量模型的韩国综合多维空气质量系统的一个集合预报成员。我们对韩国所有化石燃料发电厂进行全面减排的敏感性运行，以估算国内化石燃料发电厂的细颗粒物贡献。我们估计，截至2010年，化石燃料发电厂占首尔首都圈年度细颗粒物国家环境空气质量标准的2.4%。根据2010年的发电量和化石燃料发电厂的年度贡献，我们估计每增加100太瓦时的发电量，细颗粒物年度浓度可能增加0.2μg/m³。根据目前关于未来电力需求的信息，我们估计化石燃料发电厂未来的总贡献将为0.87μg/m³，占2024年细颗粒物年度浓度目标削减量的12.4%。我们还估算出，到2024年，现有化石燃料发电厂导致的过早死亡人数将为736人。由于发电厂与首尔首都圈的距离以及所使用的燃料类型对这一估算有重大影响，因此有必要进一步研究发电厂的位置和烟囱高度等物理参数对首尔首都圈每种前体导致的细颗粒物浓度的影响。
在基于化石燃料的电力生产增加的情况下，通过减少细颗粒物污染来改善空气质量具有挑战性。我们表明，基于光化学模型的空气质量预报系统可用于有效估算国内发电厂的细颗粒物贡献及其对健康的影响。我们得出了韩国现有化石燃料发电厂每单位发电量的细颗粒物浓度。我们评估了现有化石燃料发电厂对健康的影响以及每单位发电量的细颗粒物浓度，以量化现有和未来化石燃料发电厂相对于计划的细颗粒物减排目标的重要性。
