Excess emission reduction targets

Excess Emission Reduction Targets — Most of the serious proposals for acid rain control (in fact, both the House and Senate bills of 1984) involve some formula for allocating reductions excess emissions of SO2 over a defined population of emitters (in almost all cases, electric utilities). The principal focus of these efforts is to reduce total regional emissions, thus avoiding the nationally uniform, ambient requirements of the NAAQS. While the proposals differ as to who must come into compliance with what, when, and how, they share the common feature of requiring proportional reductions, in emissions above some threshold level (7). The political and economic implications of this approach have been discussed extensively elsewhere (8). 

Although boiler manufactures have successfully reduced NO emissions by about 50% through modifications of the combustion process (less excess air, two-stage combustion in order to decrease the combustion temperature), a further reduction is in most cases still needed to meet the emission reduction targets (Table 6.18.4). 

Emission trading is more appealing to private industry because, by decreasing emissions, firms can actually profit by selling their excess GHG allowances. Creating such a market for pollution could potentially drive emission reductions below targets. 

If a network has excess CO even after highest reuse indicated by the pinch point, opportunities for systan improvement can be further explored by network modifications. Modifications can consist of intfoducing demands to increase utilisation of existing source streams, removal of sources to decrease emissions or intfoduction of purification units. The general hierarchical decision making for the implonentation of modifications to achieve targets in the initial network and for further CO emissions reduction is summarised as follows (Manan and Wan-Alwi 2012) ... 

Some excess of allocations over verified emissions, which led to the large price reductions, was predictable.6 Moreover, as indicated, the higher gas prices shifted some power generation back from gas to coal-based operation, increasing emissions compared to initial power sector projections. Thus the error, and the excess of allocations, could easily have been bigger, and this was the case in most other sectors. Both evidence and theory suggest that projection-based targets and allocations tend to be biased upwards.7... 

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