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Comparing Projected and Modeled Health Benefits of Alternative Energy Futures
Citation:
Brown, K. Comparing Projected and Modeled Health Benefits of Alternative Energy Futures. 2019 CMAS Annual Meeting, Chapel Hill, NC, October 21 - 23, 2019.
Impact/Purpose:
This project evaluates different methods of assessing health benefits associated with changes in emissions. One method requires more time and resources, so we compare this to another method to see when the faster calculation would be useful. Applying the quick method to changing populations or large geographical scales may introduce errors. These results would be useful to any government or interest group calculating health benefits for a proposed change in the energy system.
Description:
Emissions from energy production, conversion, and use are significant contributors to problematic air quality. It is possible to reduce emissions from the energy system. Calculating the benefits of potential emissions reductions is often an important motivator to spur action. We calculate the benefits of emissions reductions in two different ways and compare the resulting values. An energy system model was used to determine how damage-based fees might impact technology choice and resulting emissions from the energy system. The benefits of the emissions reduction should be equal to the change in emissions multiplied by the damage estimates used. Alternatively, air quality and health benefit models are used to quantify the effect of the resultant emission changes. If the damages were linearly related to the emissions, the benefit of the policy would be calculated the same using the initial damage estimates and the more model intensive procedure. The sources of difference between the calculation methods are examined. Major sources of difference include changing population, which can increase the value by 2-3% per year, and regional variations within the national scale analysis. An additional source of uncertainty comes from upstream emissions. Life cycle analyses usually provide only total emissions values without location information. A new treatment is needed for these emissions, because they can be significant, but cannot be modeled in the same way that combustion emissions are.