Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, United States.
School of Public and International Affairs and Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08540, United States.
Environ Sci Technol. 2024 Sep 3;58(35):15371-15380. doi: 10.1021/acs.est.4c00704. Epub 2024 Aug 19.
Retiring coal power plants can reduce air pollution and health damages. However, the spatial distribution of those impacts remains unclear due to complex power system operations and pollution chemistry and transport. Focusing on coal retirements in Pennsylvania (PA), we analyze six counterfactual scenarios for 2019 that differ in retirement targets (e.g., reducing 50% of coal-based installed capacity vs generation) and priorities (e.g., closing plants with higher cost, closer to Environmental Justice Areas, or with higher CO emissions). Using a power system model of the PJM Interconnection, we find that coal retirements in PA shift power generation across PA and Rest of PJM, leading to scenario-varying changes in the plant-level release of air pollutants. Considering pollution transport and the size of the exposed population, these emissions changes, in turn, give rise to a reduction of 6-136 PM-attributable deaths in PJM across the six scenarios, with most reductions occurring in PA. Among our designed scenarios, those that reduce more coal power generation yield greater aggregate health benefits due to air quality improvements in PA and adjacent downwind regions. In addition, comparing across the six scenarios evaluated in this study, vulnerable populations─in both PA and Rest of PJM─benefit most in scenarios that prioritize plant closures near Environmental Justice Areas in PA. These results demonstrate the importance of considering cross-regional linkages and sociodemographics in designing equitable retirement strategies.
退役燃煤电厂可以减少空气污染和健康损害。然而，由于复杂的电力系统运行以及污染化学和传输过程，这些影响的空间分布仍不清楚。本文聚焦于宾夕法尼亚州（PA）的燃煤电厂退役问题，分析了 2019 年的六种情景方案，这些方案在退役目标（例如，减少 50%的基于煤炭的装机容量或发电量）和优先级（例如，关闭成本较高、更接近环境正义区或 CO 排放量较高的电厂）上存在差异。通过使用 PJM 互联的电力系统模型，我们发现 PA 的燃煤电厂退役会导致 PA 和 PJM 其余地区的发电转移，从而导致电厂层面的空气污染物排放发生变化。考虑到污染传输和暴露人群的规模，这些排放变化继而导致在 PJM 范围内减少了 6-136 例与 PM 相关的死亡，其中大部分减少发生在 PA。在我们设计的方案中，由于 PA 和相邻下风区空气质量的改善，减少更多煤炭发电量的方案会带来更大的总体健康效益。此外，在比较本研究中评估的六种情景方案时，无论是在 PA 还是在 PJM 其余地区，社会弱势群体在优先考虑关闭 PA 环境正义区内电厂的方案中受益最大。这些结果表明，在设计公平的退役策略时，考虑跨区域联系和社会人口统计学因素非常重要。
