Academic Journal
Air quality and public health co-benefits of 100% renewable electricity adoption and electrification pathways in Los Angeles
| Title: | Air quality and public health co-benefits of 100% renewable electricity adoption and electrification pathways in Los Angeles |
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| Authors: | Yun Li, Vikram Ravi, Garvin Heath, Jiachen Zhang, Pouya Vahmani, Sang-Mi Lee, Xinqiu Zhang, Kelly T Sanders, George A Ban-Weiss |
| Source: | Environmental Research Letters, Vol 19, Iss 3, p 034015 (2024) |
| Publisher Information: | IOP Publishing, 2024. |
| Publication Year: | 2024 |
| Collection: | LCC:Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering LCC:Environmental sciences LCC:Science LCC:Physics |
| Subject Terms: | climate change, renewable energy adoption, air quality, public health, Los Angeles, Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering, TD1-1066, Environmental sciences, GE1-350, Science, Physics, QC1-999 |
| More Details: | To demonstrate how a mega city can lead in decarbonizing beyond legal mandates, the city of Los Angeles (LA) developed science-based, feasible pathways towards utilizing 100% renewable energy for its municipally-owned electric utility. Aside from decarbonization, renewable energy adoption can lead to co-benefits such as improving urban air quality from reductions in combustion-related emissions of oxides of nitrogen (NO _x ), primary fine particulate matter (PM _2.5 ) and others. Herein, we quantify changes to air pollutant concentrations and public health from scenarios of 100% renewable electricity adoption in LA in 2045, alongside aggressive electrification of end-use sectors. Our analysis suggests that while ensuring reliable electricity supply, reductions in emissions of air pollutants associated with the 100% renewable electricity scenarios can lead to 8% citywide reductions of PM _2.5 concentration while increasing ozone concentration by 5% relative to a 2012 baseline year, given identical meteorology conditions. The combination of these concentration changes could result in net monetized public health benefits (driven by avoided deaths) of up to $1.4 billion in year 2045 in LA, results potentially replicable for other city-scale decarbonization scenarios. |
| Document Type: | article |
| File Description: | electronic resource |
| Language: | English |
| ISSN: | 1748-9326 |
| Relation: | https://doaj.org/toc/1748-9326 |
| DOI: | 10.1088/1748-9326/ad24cc |
| Access URL: | https://doaj.org/article/4b6393490a4f4572a972abbb45f5e470 |
| Accession Number: | edsdoj.4b6393490a4f4572a972abbb45f5e470 |
| Database: | Directory of Open Access Journals |
| ISSN: | 17489326 |
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| DOI: | 10.1088/1748-9326/ad24cc |
| Published in: | Environmental Research Letters |
| Language: | English |