Quantifying the impact of renewable energy technology and policy interventions on air pollution and climate

量化可再生能源技术和政策干预对空气污染和气候的影响

• 批准号: RGPIN-2018-04582
• 负责人: Zimmerman, Naomi
• 金额: $ 2.4万
• 依托单位: University of British Columbia
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2022-01-01 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=760325
• 关键词: Quantifying; impact; renewable; energy; technology

My research is focused on tackling some of the greatest societal challenges we currently face: improving air quality and mitigating climate change in an increasingly globalized, urban world. Many sources of air pollutants are co-emitters of climate-forcing agents, such as greenhouse gases and black carbon, and thus air quality and climate science are intricately related fields, which may be effectively co-managed using well-crafted environmental policy. For example, policies to incentivize fueling heavy-duty trucks with natural gas may simultaneously reduce tailpipe and greenhouse gas emissions. However, the effectiveness of any given policy decision on air quality and climate outcomes is often difficult to quantify using traditional laboratory-based research as the laboratory poorly represents real-world behaviour. Thus, it is critical that we develop real-world based tools to quickly and quantitatively assess the impact of our policy decisions on air and climate outcomes, and use the knowledge gained to support better policy planning. As part of my long-term research vision, I plan on developing and applying instruments to obtain reliable and quantitative data in support of better air and climate policy. Together with HQP, I propose two studies using real-world monitoring tools to quantify the impact of policy interventions and technology on air and climate-relevant pollutant reductions. The studies will be conducted in two diverse environments, Vancouver, British Columbia and a rural village in Uttar Pradesh, India to demonstrate the broad applicability of the methods. The studies will address emissions from the transportation sector and indoor air pollution from household combustion, two major sources of air pollutants and climate forcing agents. Both will use the same low-cost air quality sensors, an emerging air quality monitoring technology that comprise a mix of commercially available and research sensors. The use of low-cost air quality sensors for monitoring enables denser networks at a comparable cost to the existing regime. Furthermore, these sensors are compact and have a low power demand, allowing them to be moved with relative ease to rural areas or developing regions where limited resources and infrastructure exist.The data collected during the studies will be extrapolated to city and regional scale systems to forecast the impact on air and climate outcomes. Technologies will also be tuned to identify optimal configurations and these recommendations will be summarized for Canadian and global policymakers to support writing more impactful and efficient policy to protect our air and climate. Furthermore, the sensor technology and data analysis tools developed and applied in my program will provide assessments in near real-time, enabling the community to iterate or improve policies more quickly, improving the overall effectiveness of our environmental policies.

我的研究重点是应对我们目前面临的一些最大的社会挑战：改善空气质量并缓解日益全球化的城市世界中的气候变化。许多空气污染物的来源是气候燃料代理（例如温室气体和黑碳）的共同发射器，因此空气质量和气候科学是相互关联的领域，可以使用精心制作的环境政策有效地共同管理。例如，激励用天然气加油的重型卡车的政策可以同时减少尾管和温室气体排放。但是，对于任何给定的对空气质量和气候结果的政策决定的有效性通常很难使用传统的基于实验室的研究来量化，因为实验室不良代表了现实世界中的行为。因此，至关重要的是，我们开发基于现实世界的工具来快速，定量评估我们的政策决策对空气和气候结果的影响，并利用所获得的知识来支持更好的政策计划。作为我长期研究愿景的一部分，我计划开发和应用工具，以获取可靠和定量的数据，以支持更好的空气和气候政策。与HQP一起，我提出了两项​​使用现实世界监测工具的研究，以量化政策干预和技术对空中以及与气候相关的污染物减少的影响。这些研究将在两种不同的环境中进行，分别是温哥华，不列颠哥伦比亚省和印度北方邦的一个乡村，以证明这种方法的广泛适用性。这些研究将解决运输部门的排放和家庭燃烧的室内空气污染，两种主要的空气污染物和气候强迫药。两者都将使用相同的低成本空气质量传感器，这是一种新兴的空气质量监测技术，包括商业上可用的和研​​究传感器的组合。使用低成本的空气质量传感器监视以与现有制度相当的成本提供密集的网络。此外，这些传感器是紧凑的，并且具有低功率需求，从而使它们相对轻松地转移到农村地区或发展有限的资源和基础设施的开发区域。研究期间收集的数据将被外推到城市和区域规模系统，以预测对空气和气候影响的影响。还将对技术进行调整以识别最佳配置，并为加拿大和全球决策者总结这些建议，以支持写作更具影响力和高效的政策，以保护我们的空中和气候。 此外，在我的计划中开发和应用的传感器技术和数据分析工具将近乎实时地提供评估，从而使社区能够更快地迭代或改善政策，从而提高我们环境政策的整体效率。