Pollution accountability for

Her predecessor on the chair as Minister of Environment and Energy, Birgitta Dahl (now speaker for the Parliament), had shown the way almost a decade earlier. In April 1989, in front of an audience from the Stockholm Worker s Commune, Mrs. Dahl claimed that automobile emissions had passed cigarette smoking as the main cause of lung cancer in Sweden The SCC appointed by Mrs. Dahl s own party comrades had found that air pollution accounted for not more than about one percent of all cancers in the Swedish population. But why should a Minister of Environment bother about checking scientific information ... 

Humans and other animals are sensitive to ozone. This gas irritates and damages exposed membranes of the respiratory system and eyes. Ozone can also induce asthma. Sensitive people are affected at concentrations that commonly occur during oxidizing smogs. In the United States, ozone air pollution accounts for 10-20% of all summer respiratory related hospital admissions. 

In 1988 diaphragm cells accounted for 76% of all U.S. chlorine production, mercury cells for 17%, membrane cells for 5%, and all other production methods for 2%. Corresponding statistics for Canadian production are diaphragm cells, 81% mercury cells, 15% and membrane cells, 4% (5). for a number of reasons, including concerns over mercury pollution, recent trends are away from mercury cell production toward the more environmentally acceptable membrane cells, which also produce higher quality product and have favorable economics. 

Environmental Uses. Next to steel fluxing, environmental uses of lime are the biggest market, accounting for 24% of total lime consumption. These uses include air pollution control, water, sewage, and industrial wastewater treatment, hazardous waste treatment, etc. 

Early models used a value for that remained constant throughout the day. However, measurements show that the deposition velocity increases during the day as surface heating increases atmospheric turbulence and hence diffusion, and plant stomatal activity increases (50—52). More recent models take this variation of into account. In one approach, the first step is to estimate the upper limit for in terms of the transport processes alone. This value is then modified to account for surface interaction, because the earth s surface is not a perfect sink for all pollutants. This method has led to what is referred to as the resistance model (52,53) that represents as the analogue of an electrical conductance... 

Models can be used to study human exposure to air pollutants and to identify cost-effective control strategies. In many instances, the primary limitation on the accuracy of model results is not the model formulation, but the accuracy of the available input data (93). Another limitation is the inabiUty of models to account for the alterations in the spatial distribution of emissions that occurs when controls are appHed. The more detailed models are currendy able to describe the dynamics of unreactive pollutants in urban areas. 

Institutional hai iiers. In an organization without a strong infrastructure to support pollution-prevention plans, waste-reduction programs will be difficult to implement. Similarly, if there is no mechanism in place to hold individuals accountable for their actions, the successful implementation of a pollution-prevention program will be limited. 

The process of evaluating air emission permit apphcations for large sources which are subject to federal permitting requirements is called New Source Review (NSR) and can be quite complicated, taking from six mouths to four years to complete. An NSR application would be required for a new source which could emit 100 tons per year or more of any criteria pollutant, after accounting for any air pollution control equipment. 

Why is air pollution damage important when estimates suggest that it accounts for less than 5% of total crop losses in the United States ... 

While motor vehicles built today emit fewer pollutants (60% to 80% less, depending on the pollutant) than those built in the 1960s, cars and trucks still account for almost half the emissions of the ozone precursors VOCs and NO, and up to 90% of the CO emissions in urban areas. The principal reason for this problem is the rapid growth in the number of vehicles on the roadways and total miles driven. 

The electric arc furnace process accounted for about 25% of the 1982 U.S. steelmaking capacity (14). Most of the raw material used for the process is steel scrap. Pollutants generated by the electric furnace process are primarily particulate matter and CO. The furnaces are hooded, and the gas stream containing the particulate matter is collected, cooled, and passed to a bag-house for cleaning. Venturi scrubbers and ESPs are used as control devices at some mills. Charging and tapping emissions are also collected by hoods and ducted to the particulate matter control device. 

According to TRI data, the petroleum refining industry releases (discharges to the air, water, or land without treatment) and transfers (shipped off-site) a total of 482 million pounds of pollutants per year, made up of 103 different chemicals. This represents about 11 % of the total pounds of TRI chemicals released and transferred by all manufacturers in a year. In comparison, the chemical industry generates on the average 2.5 billion pounds per year, accounting for 33% of all releases and transfers. 

The principal factors which must be accounted for when designing a stack for air pollution control purposes are the dispersion and transport of the pollutants and the performance criteria against which the stack will be compared. These factors include (1) air quality standards, (2) meteorological conditions, and (3) topographical peculiarities. 

MPTDS is a modification of MPTER diat explicitly accounts for grai itational settling and/or deposition loss of a pollutant. 

Transportation accounts for about one-fourth of the primary energy consumption in the United States. And unlike other sectors of the economy that can easily switch to cleaner natural gas or electricity, automobiles, trucks, nonroad vehicles, and buses are powered by internal-combustion engines burning petroleum products that produce carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and hydrocarbons. Efforts are under way to accelerate the introduction of electric, fuel-cell, and hybrid (electric and fuel) vehicles to replace sonic of these vehicles in both the retail marketplace and in commercial, government, public transit, and private fleets. These vehicles dramatically reduce harmful pollutants and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by as much as 50 percent or more compared to gasoline-powered vehicles. 

Other factors to account for topography with regard to valley or hillside sites should include possible inversion and failure to disperse pollutants. Temperature inversion occurs when the temperature at a certain layer of the atmosphere stays constant, or even increases with height, as opposed to decreasing with height, which is the norm for the lower atmosphere. Inversions may occur on still, clear nights when the earth and adjacent air cools more rapidly than the free atmosphere. They may also occur when a layer of high turbulence causes rapid vertical convection so that the top of the turbulent layer may be cooler than the next layer above it at the interface. 

In most districts, however, sulphur dioxide and dust particles are the main corrosive pollutants. It has been demonstrated that there is a direct relationship between sulphur dioxide in the atmosphere and the corrosion of steel exposed to it (see Fig. 3.2). In a series of tests carried out in the Sheffield area, sulphur dioxide accounted for about 50% of the variations in corrosion rate at the different sites. ... 

Air pollution is principally a problem in urban and heavily industrialized areas, where the flow of clean air from surrounding areas is insufficient to disperse the accumulation. Motor vehicles account for more than 50% of the man-made emissions of carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, and nitrogen oxides (4). More than half of the U.S. annual trillion vehicle miles are driven in urban areas (5). Nature produces much more pollutants than all man-made sources, but natural emissions are widely dispersed and do not contribute heavily to urban pollution problems (6, 7). 

Boilers may be direct fired or indirect fired. Energy supply designs account for various combustion methods using fossil fuels, municipal waste, process residues, waste heat, and by-products. Special boiler combustion systems to reduce pollution or improve efficiency include fluidized-bed and combined cycle. 

Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) Is a major pollutant originating from natural and man-made sources. It has been estimated that a total of about 150 million tons of NOx are emitted to the atmosphere each year, of which about 50% results from man-made sources (21). In urban areas, man-made emissions dominate, producing elevated ambient levels. Worldwide, fossil-fuel combustion accounts for about 75% of man-made NOx emissions, which Is divided equally between stationary sources, such as power plants, and mobile sources. These high temperature combustion processes emit the primary pollutant nitric oxide (NO), which Is subsequently transformed to the secondary pollutant NO2 through photochemical oxidation. 

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