Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Improving Air Quality

Front matter

REDUCING EMISSIONS

AND IMPROVING AIR QUALITY

Larry E. Erickson Gary Brase

Preface

This book is for all readers who want to know more about not only air quality and greenhouse gas emissions, key factors contributing to climate change, but also the rapidly changing technologies and social factors that are being used to address these issues. These technologies include the electrification of transportation, renewable energy sources, battery storage of electricity, and the development and management of a smart grid. The social factors include government policies towards these technologies and how they are used, economic considerations, and human decision making about how air quality and emissions are managed. Finally, there are some specific illustrations of contexts (agriculture) and locations that are of particular interest.

Our interest in all of this began expanding in 2009, in the context of a National Science Foundation (NSF) supported Research Experience for Undergraduates program: “Earth, Wind, and Fire: Sustainable Energy for the 21st Century”. Some of the research within that program started looking at adding solar panels to parking lots in order both to generate electricity and to have shaded parking. Many of the undergraduate students were also interested in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, sustainable energy, and climate change — it was clear that there were many directions we could go with this work. Renewable energy has also been a popular research area because of its importance to society. Common Sustainable Development Goals include a transition to renewable energy, the generation of electricity without carbon emissions, and the electrification of transportation in order to have cities with zero-emission vehicles.

Since 2009, there has been great progress in the development of solar panels, batteries, and electric vehicles. Our earlier book, Solar Powered Charging Infrastructure for Electric Vehicles: A Sustainable Development (Erickson et al., 2017a), provided information on developments related to the generation of electricity with solar photovoltaics (PV), electric vehicle charging infrastructure, batteries, and electric vehicles. One of the very interesting aspects of these developments is that they can interact when they are combined to provide benefits even greater than one might expect from just the individual innovations.

Our earlier book includes a chapter on urban air quality because of the health benefits of the transition to renewable energy and electric vehicles. Because of our subsequent work on a US Environmental Protection Agency project (RD83618201), in which we worked with four intercity communities in Chicago on measuring air quality, we became immersed in the literature on air quality and health (Erickson, 2017; Erickson and Jennings, 2017; Erickson et al., 2017b). This work resulted in a better understanding of air quality and health; actions to improve air quality in the pursuit of improving health can have great value with respect to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

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We realized that there is a need to help people understand, with this new book, all the ways that the two topics of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving air quality are related. Indeed, they can interact and feed off of each other much like electric vehicles and solar power charging can interact to provide multiplicative benefits.

Since air quality, electricity, and transportation impact everyone, this book addresses important topics that people need to understand. At this time, in 2019, there has been great progress in the transition to electricity from renewable sources and the electrification of transportation. The prices associated with solar PV, wind energy, batteries, and electric vehicles are much better than in past years, and they are improving.

Additionally, it is important for everyone to realize that the world's atmosphere is a common resource. All people consume air and depend on good air quality for their health. Air pollution is associated with more than $4 trillion in social costs each year, including many people who die prematurely. We now have good options to improve air quality. We can add solar panels to our home and generate some of the electricity that we use. We can add insulation and reduce energy use for heating and cooling.

We all have many choices with regard to taking action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve air quality. It is possible to do one or two small things each day to improve air quality and reduce emissions, such as walking to work or going by bicycle. It is also possible to do larger things to improve air quality and reduce emissions, such as shifting to electric transportation, generating renewable power, and enacting government policy changes. You can read this book and apply some of the ideas in your daily life.

Erickson, L.E. (2017). Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving air quality: Two global challenges. Environmental Progress and Sustainable Energy 36: 982-988.

Erickson, L.E. and Jennings, M. (2017). Energy, transportation, air quality, climate change, health nexus: Sustainable energy is good for our health. AIMS Public Health 4: 47-61.

Erickson, L.S., Robinson, J., Brase, G., and Cutsor, J. (2017a). Solar Powered Charging Infrastructure for Electric Vehicles: A Sustainable Development. CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida.

Erickson, L.E., Griswold, W., Maghirang, R.G., and Urbaszewski, B.P. (2017b). Air quality, health, and community action. Journal of Environmental Protection 8: 1057-1074.

Acknowledgments

Many people have contributed to our understanding of an array of issues that form the foundations of this book. Chief among these are the interactions with faculty, staff, and students at Kansas State University through the NSE Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program, CHE 670 Sustainability Seminar, CHE 750 Air Quality Seminar, the annual Dialog on Sustainability, the Consortium for Environmental Stewardship and Sustainability (CESAS), chemical engineering design project activities, and other events.

Martin Abraham had the vision to encourage review articles in Environmental Progress and Sustainable Energy, and we thank him for the invitation to prepare the review “Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Improving Air Quality: Two Global Challenges”. This paper resulted in an invitation to expand the subject matter into this book.

Many of the ideas that are included in this book are related to the research that was done under Assistance Agreement RD83618201 awarded by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to Kansas State University. This book has not been formally reviewed by the EPA. The views expressed in this book are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Agency. The EPA does not endorse any products or services mentioned in this publication.

Many good ideas came from dialogue with the many people who participated in public education events and environmental organizations. Thank you in particular to members and friends of the Climate and Energy Project, Flint Hills Renewable Energy and Efficiency Cooperative, Kansas Natural Resource Council, Lutherans Restoring Creation, Kansas Interfaith Action, Clean Air Now, Sierra Club, Metropolitan Energy Center, and Kansas Rural Center.

We thank Proterra, Inc. for permission to use the photo on the cover of the book. This 35-foot Catalyst Bus is one of the electric models that Proterra manufactures and sells. For more information, see www.proterra.com.

We express special thanks to Danita Deters for her indefatigable help with the manuscript and other aspects of developing the book. Sheree Walsh has been very helpful in hosting many activities that are related to the topics of the book, and we profusely thank her for her work.

And, last on this list but absolutely not least, we thank Irma Britton for all the many ways she has helped with this book, and we thank Sandra Brase and Laurel Erickson for their support and encouragement.

Larry E. Erickson Gary Brase ix

The Authors

Larry E. Erickson is Professor of Chemical Engineering at Kansas State University. His research interests include environmental engineering, air quality, and sustainable development. His teaching includes an air quality seminar and a sustainability seminar. He helps to provide leadership for the Consortium for Environmental Stewardship and Sustainability and the annual Dialog on Sustainability. His degrees are in chemical engineering from K-State.

Gary Brase is a professor and the Graduate Program Director in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Kansas State University. Dr. Brase studies complex human decision making using cognitive and evolutionary theories, including topics such as medical decisions, decisions about sustainability issues, relationship decision making, and reasoning about social rules. He has over 75 journal articles and other publications, and over 100 research presentations. Dr. Brase received his PhD from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1997 and has been at K-State since 2007.

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Contributors

Ronaldo G. Maghirang is Professor of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, and Associate Dean for research and graduate programs at Kansas State University. His research is on air quality.

Kate Preston is an undergraduate student in chemical engineering at Kansas State University who helped with the chapter on batteries.

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