Impacts of Meteorological Variations on Acid Rain Abatement Decisions

Abstract

A linear programming (LP) based simulation model is used to examine the effects of variable meteorology on optimal controls for acid‐rain abatement in eastern North America. The LP model minimizes the total cost of pollution control corresponding to 235 controllable point sources subject to satisfying the maximum acid deposition limits at 20 receptor locations. The meteorlogic inputs are transformed into transfer coefficients that relate emissions from sources to depositions at receptors. The meteorologic inputs vary from season to season and year to year, reflecting meteorologic uncertainty. The resulting optimal control strategies for five years of meteorologic data are used in a simulation model to develop a curve of control costs versus the cumulative violation of a critical deposition limit at the selected receptor locations in order to study the trade‐off between emission reduction cost and “damage” reduction.