Analysis of the air quality effects of power plant emissions

化石燃料的燃烧增加了温室气体（GHG）排放，并导致空气质量（AQ）下降。由于它们的高能见度，化石燃料发电厂与这个问题特别相关。作为减少温室气体排放和改善空气质量的一种手段，公众对政府的压力越来越大，要求政府淘汰这些发电厂，但这必须以保持充足和廉价的能源供应的方式进行。探索这些不同需求的解决方案通常是在模型的帮助下完成的，模型允许测试许多可能的方法，并选择最佳方法，而不会产生（通常很大的）实现费用。在市场经济中，工业部门有责任找到既成功又具有成本效益的方法来满足政府的规定。学术研究人员在这项工作中的作用是提供新颖有效的方法，供私营部门合作伙伴用于实现这些目标。该项目将与私营部门伙伴安大略发电公司合作，开发一种方法，在三个地理尺度上预测化石燃料热电厂排放对空气质量的影响：电厂附近地区；区域，重点是大的人口中心和长期影响，包括国家或国际影响。该项目的一期重点是OPG燃煤火力发电厂，这是多年来公众讨论和媒体关注的话题。为这个项目开发的模型也将适用于任何化石燃料发电厂，然而，在项目的第二阶段，我们将使用它们来研究美国化石燃料发电厂对加拿大AQ的影响。这种更广泛的观点将有助于了解加拿大的情况，并为联邦政府以及更广泛的建模界提供信息，这些信息将有助于讨论如何减少边界两侧设施的空气质量问题。

The combustion of fossil fuels increases greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and causes reduced air quality (AQ).  Due to their high visibility, fossil fuelled power plants are particularly associated with this problem.  There is increasing public pressure for governments to eliminate these power plants as a means to minimise GHG emissions and improve AQ, but this must be done in a way that maintains an adequate and inexpensive energy supply.  Exploring solutions to these divergent requirements is usually done with the help of models, which allow many possible approaches to be tested and the best one selected without incurring the (usually large) expense of implementation.  In a market economy, it is the responsibility of the industrial sector to find methods to satisfy government regulations in ways that are not only successful but also cost effective.  The role of the academic researcher in this effort is to provide novel and effective methods that can be used by the private sector partners to attain these goals.This project will develop, in partnership with the private sector partner, Ontario Power Generation, a method to predict the effects of the emissions from fossil fuelled thermal generating plants on the AQ at three geographical scales: the local vicinity of the plant; the regional, with emphasis on large population centres and the long range, which includes national or international effects.  The first phase of the project will focus on the OPG coal fired thermal generating plants, which have been the subject of a great deal of public discussion and media attention for many years.  The models to be developed for this project will also be applicable to any fossil fuelled power plant, however, and in the second phase of the project, we will use them to study the effects on AQ in Canada of fossil plants in the United States.  This broader view will be useful to put the Canadian situation in context and to provide the Federal government as well as the broader modelling community with information that will be useful in discussions regarding abatement of the AQ problems from facilities on both sides of the border.