Emission Load Research Articles

Transportation Activities Associated with High-Volume Hydraulic Fracturing Operations in the Marcellus Shale Formation

The natural gas extraction method of high-volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF) has a significant truck transportation component, with estimates ranging from 625 to 1,148 heavy truck trips for equipment, materials, and waste movement for each well drilled in the Marcellus Shale. ArcGIS Network Analyst was used to analyze the environmental impacts of transporting sand and water to, and waste from, Pennsylvania wells from 2011 to 2013. The locations of wells, resource supply areas, and waste disposal facilities served as a series of origin and destination pairings for probable truck routes. Material and waste volumes per well were used to estimate the truck counts assigned to each route, leading to estimates of truck traffic by road segment. Emission loads and energy usage were calculated with the geospatial inter modal freight transport model. Simulation results of 22-ton loads estimated 4.4 million one-way truck trips totaling nearly 86.5 million vehicle miles and producing nearly 19 Mg of particulate matter and 745 Mg of nitrogen oxides, among other pollutants. Maps showing road segments with high truck counts identified areas of potential health and infrastructure impacts. On-site recycling of wastes offset an estimated 842,678 truck trips and associated emissions. Case studies developed during this project pointed to the need for better data collection and data distribution efforts in states extracting gas and those considering whether to allow HVHF operations. The results will help policy analysts and environmental planners to understand and evaluate the environmental, health, and economic impacts (pro and con) associated with the movement of HVHF equipment and materials.

INTEGRATED ASSESSMENT AND GISMAPPING OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL STATE OF THE CITY OF VORONEZH (RUSSIA)

The authors have created a geoinformation-analytical system (GIS) for integrated assessment and mapping of the ecological conditions of the territory according to the criteria of anthropogenic impact and quality of the urban environment, as well as the response of woody plants and the health of the child population (on the example of Voronezh – the largest industrial city of the Central Chernozem region). It has been identified that anthropogenic pollution is formed by the industrial-transport sector and varies with regard to the features of the functional planning infrastructure; near the industrial facilities of the petrochemical profile in the left-Bank sector of the city, conditions for the existence of woody plants significantly worsen, which is manifested in the inhibition of their development; child morbidity rate is significantly higher in industrially polluted neighborhoods with high load of pollutant emissions from industry and transport. The diseases primarily associated with pollution are congenital anomalies, neoplasms, endocrine pathology and diseases of the urogenital area. The industrial zone is the main contributor to the total pollution of air, but the transport zone is the main contributor to the total pollution of soil and snow cover.

Study of Acoustic Emission and Mechanical Characteristics of Coal Samples under Different Loading Rates

To study the effect of loading rate on mechanical properties and acoustic emission characteristics of coal samples, collected from Sanjiaohe Colliery, the uniaxial compression tests are carried out under various levels of loading rates, including 0.001 mm/s, 0.002 mm/s, and 0.005 mm/s, respectively, using AE-win E1.86 acoustic emission instrument and RMT-150C rock mechanics test system. The results indicate that the loading rate has a strong impact on peak stress and peak strain of coal samples, but the effect of loading rate on elasticity modulus of coal samples is relatively small. When the loading rate increases from 0.001 mm/s to 0.002 mm/s, the peak stress increases from 22.67 MPa to 24.99 MPa, the incremental percentage is 10.23%, and under the same condition the peak strain increases from 0.006191 to 0.007411 and the incremental percentage is 19.71%. Similarly, when the loading rate increases from 0.002 mm/s to 0.005 mm/s, the peak stress increases from 24.99 MPa to 28.01 MPa, the incremental percentage is 12.08%, the peak strain increases from 0.007411 to 0.008203, and the incremental percentage is 10.69%. The relationship between acoustic emission and loading rate presents a positive correlation, and the negative correlation relation has been determined between acoustic emission cumulative counts and loading rate during the rupture process of coal samples.

Urban air pollution: comparative study

The air pollution status in one of the metropolitan city from India, Mumbai was compared with the predicted results using US-EPA regulatory dispersion model - AERMOD on the basis of emission loads given by CPCB and NEERI. The present air-pollution status at two monitoring locations 'Sion' from central Mumbai and 'Bandra' from western Mumbai were compared for concentrations of two air pollutants namely PM10 and NOx for the year 2012. The results obtained for the monitoring locations at 'Sion' and 'Bandra' shows that the present observed concentrations of PM10 are more than the predicted concentrations. However, in case of NOx, the observed concentrations were found to be less than the predicted concentrations at Sion and Bandra. Comparison of the results of the study indicate that the development activities, plans and policies to control air pollution in the city have controlled the rate of increase in NOx but failed to control the rate of increase in PM10. This paper will provide another direction to the researchers and decision makers/planners to focus on the effectiveness of the implemented plans and policies with the help of air pollution modelling.

Estimating Vehicular Emission in Kathmandu Valley, Nepal

The study estimate, the vehicular emission load for CO, CO2 , HCs, NOX, SO2, Dioxin/Furans, Particulate Matters (PM10, PM2.5, Black carbon and Organic Carbon) by using emission factors and Global Warming Potentials (GWPs) of the pollutants (CO2, NOX, BC and OC). For this purpose, data were collected through the video tape record (in 30 sites), questionnaire survey, field visit, and literatures review. The total estimated emission of Kathmandu Valley (KV) was 7231053.12 ton/year. Of the total emission, CO2 emission was highest i.e., 91.01% followed by CO 5.03%, HC 0.96%, NOX 0.60%, PM10 0.18% and SO2 0.10%. Annually 529353.36 μg Toxic Equivalent (TEQ) of Dioxin/Furan produced and directly disperse to the ambient environment. The total estimated PM2.5, BC and OC emission were 9649.40 ton/year, 1640.4 ton/year and 2894.82 ton/year. The total carbon equivalence of the combined emissions (CO2, NOX and BC) for 100-years standard time horizon is 10579763.6 ton CO2-eq i.e., 2885390.07 ton carbon.CO2 alone will be responsible, for about 62% of the impacts for the next century from current emissions of CO2, NOX and BC. Of the total emission Heavy Duty Vehicles (HDV) emits 50%, Light Duty Vehicles (LDV) emits, 27%, 2-Wheelers emits 22% and 3-Wheeler (Tempo) emits 1%. The total emission of all pollutants combined per vehicle together was estimated to be 5.46 ton/year which was estimated as 23.63, 10.35, 1.83 and 5.58 ton/year for HDV, LDV, 2-Wheelers and 3-Wheeler respectively. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/ije.v3i4.11742 International Journal of EnvironmentVolume-3, Issue-4, Sep-Nov 2014Page: 133-146

The Influence of Weather Anomalies on Mercury Cycling in the Marine Coastal Zone of the Southern Baltic-Future Perspective.

Despite the decreased emission loads of mercury, historical deposits of this metal in various compartments of the environment may become an additional diffuse source in the future. Global climate change manifests itself in the temperate zone in several ways: warmer winters, shorter icing periods, increased precipitation and heightened frequency of extreme events such as strong gales and floods, all of which cause disturbances in the rate and direction of mercury biogeochemical cycling. The present study was conducted at two sites, Oslonino and Gdynia Orlowo (both in the coastal zone of the Gulf of Gdansk), from which samples were collected once a month between January 2012 and December 2012. In the Southern Baltic region, climate changes can certainly enhance coast to basin fluxes of mercury and the transfer of bioavailable forms of this metal to the food web. They may also, in the future, contribute to uncontrollable increases of mercury in the seawater.

Best Compromise Alternative to EELD Problem using Hybrid Multiobjective Quantum Genetic Algorithm

A novel hybrid multiobjective quantum genetic algorithm (HM-QGA) for economic emission load dispatch (EELD) optimization problem is presented. The EELD problem is formulated as a nonlinear constrained multiobjective optimization problem with both equality and inequality constraints. HM-QGA are population based evolutionary algorithms that imitate quantum physics by introducing quantum bits for a basic probabilistic genotypic representation a nd hence better population diversity, and quantum gates for evolving the population of solutions. We use quantum genetic algorithm to exploits the power of quantum computing to speed up genetic algorithm procedure. We present methodology that allows the decision maker (DM) to be a partner in problem solving, where DM specifies input values (namely the weight values) according his need s. Simulation results on the standard IEEE 30-bus 6-generator test system show that the proposed algorithm outperforms other heuristic algorithms and is characterized by robustness, high success, fast convergence and excellent capability on global searching.

Economic Emission Load Dispatch with Multiple Fuel Options Using Cuckoo Search Algorithm with Gaussian and Cauchy Distributions

Cuckoo Search Algorithm (CSA), a new meta-heuristic algorithm based on natural phenomenon of Cuckoo species and Levy flights random walk, has been successfully applied to several optimization problems so far. In the paper two modified versions of CSA, where new solutions are generated using two distributions including Gaussian and Cauchy distributions are proposed for economic emission load dispatch (EELD) problem with multiple fuel options. The advantages of CSA with Gaussian distribution (CSA-Gauss) and CSA with Cauchy distribution (CSA-Cauchy) over CSA with Levy distribution are fewer parameters and fewer equations and shorter computational process. The proposed method is tested on one test system consisting of ten generating units with various load demands and compared to other methods. In addition, the best compromise from the set of obtained solutions is found and compared to this from lamda-iteration (LI) method and Hopfield Lagrange Network (HLN). The result comparisons have indicated that the proposed method is a highly effective method.

Regional optimal allocation for reducing waste loads via artificial neural network and particle swarm optimization: a case study of ammonia nitrogen in Harbin, northeast China.

Cutting external waste loads can improve water quality. Allocation for reducing waste loads should consider changing variables, such as river flows and pollutant emissions. A particle swarm optimization (PSO) method and coupling artificial neural network (ANN) models have been applied to optimize reduction rates of ammonia nitrogen (NH3-N) loads from sewage outlets in Harbin, northeast China. For the planned water quality functional section (WQFS), the NH3-N concentration is related to emitted pollutant loads and can be well predicted by ANN linkage models. Further, NH3-N load reduction rates of all outlets are optimized by PSO with the water quality standard target. The highest NH3-N concentrations occur in January and February, a typical low-flow period in Harbin. The results delivered optimum NH3-N reduction rates for the five outlets, for January and February 2011. All predicted NH3-N concentrations after the reduction meet the water quality standard. The results indicate that the outlet with the highest NH3-N load has the biggest reduction rate in each WQFS, and outlets in the WQFS with higher background NH3-N concentrations need to cut more NH3-N loads. Decision-makers should not only focus on the outlet with the highest NH3-N emission load, but also ensure that the NH3-N concentration of upper WQFS meets the water quality goal.

Multi-Objective Economic Emission Load Dispatch Solution Using Evolutionary Algorithm with and without Considering Wind Power Penetration and Valve Point Effect

The electrical power system is considered as the most complex man-made systems mainly due to their wide geographical coverage. Electrical energy industries contributes environmental pollution which rise questions concern environmental protection and methods of eliminating or reducing pollution from power plants either by design or by operational strategies. Electric power plants are mainly aimed to operate al low fuel cost strategies .In this paper a Multi –Objective Economic Emission Load Dispatch problem is solved to minimize the emission of nitrogen oxides (NOx) , oxides of other fuels that release during generation of electricity and fuel cost considering both Thermal generators and Wind turbines. A large number of iterations and oscillation are those of the major concern in solving the economic load dispatch problem by using the BFO(bacterial foraging optimization) method. By applying BFO method the economic dispatch problem is optimized to minimize the total generation cost of a power system while satisfying various equality and inequality constraints. The effect of Wind power on overall emission is also investigated here using Quadratic programming by wolf’s method. This method has better convergence characteristic. Wolf’s method is an extended simplex procedure which can be applied to Quadratic programming problems in which all the problem variables are non-negative.

Modelling and control of pollutant formation in blast stoves

Abstract The formation of nitrogen oxide NO is investigated for the combustion of enriched blast furnace gas in a blast stove of the voestalpine Stahl GmbH Linz. The pollution formation is modelled with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) considering detailed reaction chemistry. The non-adiabatic numerical calculations investigate the turbulence–chemistry interaction in the combustion chamber using the Eddy Dissipation Concept in combination with a multi-step chemical reaction mechanism. Sub-models are implemented to investigate turbulence of flow, radiative heat transport, flame characteristics and reaction kinetics of participating species in order to calculate the emission load in dependence on the operating conditions. The results confirmed the generally known trend that the NO emissions strongly depend on the temperature level of the stove's dome. A NO emission load of about 16.1 mg/m3 (STP) (at 3 volume % of dry O2) was calculated for the base operating case showing promising agreement with real plant data and literature trends. The numerical results can be used by plant operators to generate operational measures in terms of control for temperature level and gas feed ensuring compliance with legal pollution limits. In this context a dome temperature of ∼1360 °C turns out to define the plant's peak temperature to hold the permissible NOX offgas concentration.

Airborne pollutant characteristics in an urban, industrial and agricultural complex metroplex with high emission loading and ammonia concentration

The size distribution of particulate mass and water-soluble ionic constituents and their gaseous precursors was investigated in a subtropical area, southern Taiwan. Field sampling and chemical analysis of particulate matter (PM) were conducted using a Micro Orifice Uniform Deposition Impactor (MOUDI) and a Nano-MOUDI, and gaseous pollutants were determined by a denuder-filter pack system. PM size mass distribution, mass concentration and ionic species concentration were measured during the day and at night in the winter and summer. Average PM concentrations in the winter were as high as 132±42μg/m3, and PM mass concentrations in the summer were as low as 38±19μg/m3. Generally, PM concentration was 111±60μg/m3 at night, which was 20% higher than that in the daytime. The size-segregated mass distribution of PM mass concentration was over 85% in the 0.1–3.2μm range. Ammonium, nitrate, and sulfate were the dominant water-soluble ionic species in PM, contributing 34%–48% of PM mass. High ammonia (12.9–49μg/m3) and SO2 (2.6–27μg/m3) were observed in the gas precursors. The molar ratio NH4+SO42− was 3.18±1.20 at PM1.0, which indicated that the PM was rich in ammonium. Therefore, the excess ammonium could neutralize nitrate to form ammonium nitrate, after the more stable ammonium sulfate and ammonium bisulfate formation.

Hybrid ant optimization system for multiobjective economic emission load dispatch problem under fuzziness

In this paper, a new hybrid optimization system is presented. Our approach integrates the merits of both ant colony optimization and steady state genetic algorithm and it has two characteristic features. Firstly, since there is instabilities in the global market and the rapid fluctuations of prices, a fuzzy representation of the economic emission load dispatch (EELD) problem has been defined, where the input data involve many parameters whose possible values may be assigned by the expert. Secondly, by enhancing ant colony optimization through steady state genetic algorithm, a strong robustness and more effectively algorithm was created. Also, stable Pareto set of solutions has been detected, where in a practical sense only Pareto optimal solutions that are stable are of interest since there are always uncertainties associated with efficiency data. Moreover to help the decision maker DM to extract the best compromise solution from a finite set of alternatives a Technique for Order Performance by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method is adopted. It is based upon simultaneous minimization of distance from an ideal point (IP) and maximization of distance from a nadir point (NP). The results on the standard IEEE systems demonstrate the capabilities of the proposed approach to generate true and well-distributed Pareto optimal nondominated solutions of the multiobjective EELD.

Downriver Water Quality Predicting in River Segment with Multi-Pollution Source via ANN

Cutting the external waste loads can improve the water quality. The correlation analysis of discharged pollutant and water quality of the river is useful auxiliary for effective water quality management. ANN models were used to link the NH3-N concentration and emission loads and to predict downriver water quality in planned water quality functional section (WQFS) of Harbin, northeast of China. Besides conventional point and non-point pollution sources, polluted river branches were also considered as an influencing factor for downriver water quality. Downriver NH3-N concentration was predicted based on the loads and upriver water quality by ANN model. In general, it indicates that an acceptable agreement between the observations and the predictions has been achieved. All predicted results and analysis should provide useful suggestion to decision-makers for effective water quality management in the Harbin region.

Effect of Hg in Jiaozhou Bay Waters - Aquatic Transfer Process

Based on the investigation data of Hg in Jiaozhou Bay waters in April, July and October 1986, this paper tried to analysis the horizontal, vertical and seasonal distributions of Hg in Jiaozhou Bay, and to reveal the pollution sources and transfer processes of Hg. Results showed that Jiaozhou Bay had been heavily polluted by Hg, whatever in different seasons. Hg in Jiaozhou Bay was mainly from point sources such as industrial waste and sewage runoff. The horizonal and vertical distributions of Hg content showed the transfer processes as, from estuaries to their outside and the bay mouth, and form surface waters to bottom waters, respectively. The water environmental capacity of Hg in Jiaozhou Bay had been unable to carry the emission load of Hg, and therefore the reduction of emission as well as the improvement of cyclic utilization ratio were the primary processes for Hg pollution prevention and reduction.

Recent trends in wastewater flow and pollutant load resulting from urbanization in Shanghai.

To better control water pollution and to manage water resources, we used input-output analysis to examine structural changes in wastewater flows and pollutant loads following changes in socioeconomic activities in Shanghai. We found that the industrial structure has changed considerably and that total direct emission loads exhibited a decreasing trend between 1997 and 2007. Emission loads from secondary industries, especially from paper manufacturing, have decreased. However, wastewater from primary industries remained constant while wastewater from tertiary industries and domestic sources increased, acting as the largest sources of emission loads since 2002. Wastewater and pollutant loads from household consumption, including indirect sources from food manufacturing, clothing, and transportation, had an especially large influence on emission loads in 2007. These emissions were primarily generated through primary industries and food manufacturing sectors. With continued urbanization, wastewater and pollutants generated by household consumption should be factored into the control of water pollution in Shanghai.

Solution of Economic Emission Load Dispatch problems of power systems by Real Coded Chemical Reaction algorithm

This paper presents a Real Coded Chemical Reaction algorithm (RCCRO) approach to solve the Economic Emission Load Dispatch (EELD) problem of thermal generators of power systems. Emission substance like NOX, power demand equality constraint and operating limit constraint are considered here. EELD problem has been originated as a multi-objective problem by considering both economy and emission simultaneously. Chemical Reaction Optimization (CRO) mimics the interactions of molecules in a chemical reaction to reach a low energy stable state. Basically, the CRO is designed to work in the discrete domain optimization problems. A real coded version of it, known as Real-Coded Chemical Reaction Optimization (RCCRO) is applied here to solve multi-objective EELD problems, in order to show the advantages of proposed algorithm to solve complex continuous optimization problems. Different test systems having 10, 13 and 40 generators, addressing valve-point loading and NOX emission have been considered. The solutions obtained are quite encouraging and superior to different existing optimization techniques.

Multi-Objective Economic Emission Load Dispatch using Teacher-Learning-Based Optimization Technique

Abstract In this paper, a new parameter-less diversity preservation approach to solve the non-linear multi-objective economic emission load dispatch (EED) problem is envisaged using Teacher-Learning Based Optimization (TLBO) method. The TLBO technique is totally parameter less and takes less computation time as compared to other optimization techniques for the determination of solutions in the Pareto-optimal front. The TLBO method is tested for EED problem on 6-generator test system (IEEE 30- bus) and the results obtained are compared with those obtained from Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm (NSGA). The simulation results confirm the computational advantage of the TLBO method.

Multi-objective economic emission load dispatch problem with trust-region strategy

In this paper, we present a trust region algorithm for solving multi-objective economic emission load dispatch problem (EELD). The trust region algorithm has proven to be a very successful globalization technique for solving a single objective constrained optimization problems. The proposed approach is suitable for multi-objective problem (EELD) such that its objective functions may be ill- defined or having a non convex pareto-optimal front. Also, we identify the weight values which reflect the degree of satisfaction of each objective. The proposed approach is carried out on the standard IEEE 30-bus 6-generator test systems to confirm the effectiveness of the algorithm used to solve the multi-objective problem (EELD). Our results with the proposed approach have been compared to those reported in the literature. The comparison demonstrates the superiority of the proposed approach and confirm its potential to solve the multi-objective problem (EELD).A Matlab implementation of our algorithm was used in solving one case study and the results are reported.

A modified harmony search method for environmental/economic load dispatch of real-world power systems

Economic load dispatch (ELD) problem is one of the basic and important optimization problems in a power system. However, considering practical constraints of real-world power systems such as ramp rate limits, prohibited operating zones, valve loading effects, multi-fuel options, spinning reserve and transmission system losses in ELD problem makes it a non-convex optimization problem, which is a challenging one and cannot be solved by traditional methods. Moreover, considering environmental issues, results in combined economic and emission load dispatch (CEELD) problem that is a multiobjective optimization model with two non-commensurable and contradictory objectives. In this paper, a modified harmony search algorithm (MHSA) proposed and applied to solve ELD and CEELD problem considering the abovementioned constraints. In the proposed MHSA, a new improvising method based on wavelet mutation together with a new memory consideration scheme based on the roulette wheel mechanism are proposed which improves the accuracy, convergence speed, and robustness of the classical HSA. Performance of the proposed algorithm is investigated by applying it to solve various test systems having non-convex solution spaces. To Show the effectiveness of the proposed method, obtained results compared with classical harmony search algorithm (HSA) and some of the most recently published papers in the area.