Some questions for the day...
1. What pollutants (general categories)will the new mercury standards (MATS) for US power plants regulate? Why is this new regulation significant? How many power plants are expected to retire as a result of the new regulations? What are the expected effects of the MATS on the consumer price of electricity? What are the benefits that are predicted by the EPA?
2. Coal, NG, oil, and biomass can all be used to generate steam to make electricity. What are the differences between these different combustion sources in terms of "peaking" ability, CO2 flux per unit electricity generated, potential pollutants, US reserve volume, and price?
3. What is a biogeochemical cycle? What is the carbon cycle? What are the major reservoirs of carbon in the carbon cycle? What are some of the mechanisms through which carbon move from reservoir to reservoir? How does the combustion of fossil fuels affect (disturb) the carbon cycle? Where does the carbon that used to be in fossil fuels end up after combustion? Why is more carbon in the ocean a problem? Why is more carbon in the atmosphere a problem?
4. Why is the regulation of CO2 pollution so difficult? How is our classical thinking about defining 'acceptable' risk largely inadequate for dealing with CO2 pollution? How would the predefined probability approach be applied for CO2 pollution? How would the 'currently tolerated approach to defining 'acceptable' risk be applied to CO2 pollution? How would economic approaches like cost-benefit and cost-utility analysis- particularly in a multi-risk assessment be applied for CO2 pollution? In such a scenario, who bears the cost of pollution reduction? Who benefits from risk reduction related to pollution reduction?
Slides from lecture today are on Sakai. Please read New Solar-Energy System Generating Power at W&L by Jeff Hanna for Friday's class.
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