Wood Smoke Subcommittee Meeting Notes
Date: Aug 23rd
Meeting Attendees: Charlie Grist (Council Staff), David Nightingale (WAUTC), Cathy Carruthers (TPU),
Mohit Singh-Chhabra, Frank DeVita (Abt Associates), Anna Bellova (Abt Associates), Christian Douglas,
David Thompson (Avista), Elizabeth Daykin (BPA), Sandra Hirotsu (Council Staff), Warren Cook (ODOE),
Dave Baylon (Ecos Consulting), Marshall Runkell (Clean Energy Works Oregon), Don Jones Jr. (PacifiCorp)
Next Steps:
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The subcommittee recommends using Option 1 (COBRA) to model health benefits of reduced
emissions. This would cost $20 - $40k, require 3 months for analysis.
Mohit to reach out to council staff to determine if this project can be given to Abt, EPA, or if an
RFP needs to be developed.
David Thompson (Avista) will discuss this topic internally, send the subcommittee Avista’s
recommendation by August 30th.
Subcommittee recommends giving consideration to integrating Health Benefits related to air
pollutants in cost effectiveness calculations.
Mohit will reach out to council staff to understand the relative importance/ priority of this
analysis. Should the money required to conduct this analysis be spent on other EE related
activities, such as SEEM calibration, measure development, etc.?
Introduction:
The council has developed methodology in the past to look at environmental, non-energy benefits
(NEBs) in the past, however this has not been done for wood smoke.
If we do quantify this benefit (wood smoke), it is up to the Council to decide if they are included in the
power plan and cost effectiveness calculations.
Appendix P of the 6th Power Plan, explains (conceptually) how to take into account for environmental
benefits and costs. This can be applied to all fuels, including fossil fuels.
The PAC have been advised that the RTF is taking on the issue of quantifying wood smoke. The first step
is to understand if the health benefits of avoiding wood smoke are quantifiable.
RTF staff to research how an issue similar to wood smoke displacement was dealt with in the past.
Abt Presentation:
Abt works extensively with the US EPA.
Basic Air Pollution Concepts:
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RIA stands for “Regulatory Impact Analysis”. This is a level of rigor that is used by the EPA to
determine cost and benefit (to society) of proposed regulations.
CAPs – Criteria Air Pollutants (CO, Particulate Matter (PM), SOx, NOx etc.)
HAPs – Hazardous Air Pollutants. These are more toxic than CAPs. E.g. toxic hydrocarbons.
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There is agreement in the scientific community that air pollution causes illness.
Two terms often used when describing the effects of air pollution on health are mortality, and
morbidity. Morbidity is sickness which has not yet killed the patient.
In standard air quality analysis, reductions in mortality and risk estimates are spread over a 20
year period. The value of these deaths are discounted to present value.
There is a monetary value to each death.
There are no predefined thresholds below which there is no impact.
BENMAP – environmental benefits mapping tool. Data management and analysis tool.
Proposed Modeling Methodology:
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To model the effects of wood smoke, Abt will run two scenarios. The first would be a baseline
scenario (with current levels of wood smoke) and the second would be a control scenario (with
reduced wood smoke). The data for simulating the base scenario will be obtained from
publically available data sources, such as the EPA, eGrid etc. Abt also has access to other data
sources, which are not publically available.
COBRA (Co-benefit risk assessment screening model). This tool helps conduct a basic screening
level analysis.
o COBRA integrates the effects of mortality and morbidity.
o For complex analysis, EPA first uses COBRA as a scoping tool; a detailed analysis is then
conducted via an hourly simulation tool (e.g. CMAQ).
o The RTF can consult with the EPA; the EPA would be happy to talk more about how they
use COBRA.
o A more detailed CMAQ type analysis may be compromised by the fact that it is hard for
the council/RTF to identify a particular (source type and location) power generating
source at a given time.
o COBRA provides county level, annualized results. COBRA and wood combustion tools are
available on the EPA website for download.
o Running a COBRA model takes approximately 10 – 15 minutes. CMAQ takes 4-5 days per
scenario. Hourly inputs are required for every scenario.
o There is a meteorological impact built into the data in COBRA, but it is simplistic.
o COBRA does not use BENMAP. It uses an EPA based formula – that cannot be changed.
However, if and when BenMap functions change, COBRA is updated as well to match
the formulae in BENMAP. Abt develops both models for the EPA.
o COBRA can simulate the effects of multiple pollutants at a time.
o COBRA will suffice for simulating the health impacts of electricity reduction due to
energy efficiency.
If Abt does conduct this analysis, they will endeavor to use local data as much as possible.
When studying PM emissions, annual results sometimes suffice; hourly simulation is required
when studying the effects of ozone. Ozone is a summer time pollutant, PM is a winter time
pollutant. Consider that wood smoke would mostly be emitted during the winter, we do not
require hourly simulation.
Abt has latitude-longitude and emissions data for every stack in the country. Small sources of
emissions (e.g. wood) would be estimated at the county level.
Note, emissions data for all stacks are available on eGrid.
According to Abt, it would cost more to do this analysis in house than to hire an expert.
Abt recommends using the cheapest option, via COBRA to conduct the health benefits analysis. If there
is a need to conduct a more detailed analysis, work completed for the screening analysis could be reused. Resources will not be wasted.
Subcommittee Discussion:
Subcommittee recommends giving consideration to integrating NEBs in cost effectiveness calculations.
The subcommittee worries that NEBs will become a significant part of benefits used in cost
effectiveness calculations.
Some expressed concern over whether these values would be larger than the TRC values. Some
expressed that the work should be done well. Some expressed that the work should be inclusive of
generation effects.
The subcommittee recommends that council staff understand the relative importance/ priority of this
analysis. Should the money required to conduct this analysis be spent on other EE related activities, such
as SEEM calibration, measure development, etc.?
The impact of monetizing health benefits from avoiding wood smoke on cost effectiveness is not
apparent; it is necessary to conduct a COBRA level screening to ascertain this.
Note, that the PAC have already been informed that this analysis is being undertaken by the RTF.
The council/ RTF would also have to decide how the results from such a study would be used in the
power plan and in individual measures.
Note that the output from a screening level analysis will not provide an estimate of uncertainty.
Mohit will find out if an RFP is required for this project, or if the council can hire Abt to conduct the
analysis, or if the contract can be done with EPA.