EnerGEO
EnerGEO is a European project (2009-2013) on Earth Observation for monitoring and assessment of the environmental impact of energy use. http://www.energeo-project.eu/. The Platform of Integrated Assessment is one EnerGEO outcome.
The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement no. 226364 (EnerGEO project).
Platform of Integrated Assessment
The Platform of Integrated Assessment (PIA) aims at assessing the environmental and health impacts by computing and gathering key information on human activity for different energy scenarios over the next 50 years.
The PIA focuses on annual direct assessment of impacts related to three key pollutants:
Particulate Matter (PM2.5),
Ozone,
Greenhouse Gases (GHG).
The PIA has been elaborated to provide impact results for the baseline scenario: (1) the number of years of life lost (YOLL) due to anthropogenic emissions of fine particles (PM2.5), (2) the Ozone-related mortality, (3) global warming potential (GWP). Those impacts results were obtainned with a set of models, namely GAINS Model (IIASA) and LOTOS Euros (TNO), which provide the pollutants concentrations.
Within the PIA, algorithms have been developed to convert these air pollutants concentrations into impacts on human health.
Fine particulates of size 2.5 µm (PM 2.5)
Indicator calculated: Loss of Life Expectancy (LLE) in term of Days Of Life Loss per person (DOLL) or Years Of Life Loss (YOLL) for a population over 30 years old in 2005 until death.
Ozone
Indicator calculated: yearly premature mortalities for the populations
Models
The annual temporal distribution of PM2.5 concentrations and ozone concentrations SOMO35 (sum of means over 35 ppb, daily maximum 8-hour) from 2005 to 2050 are issued from two models:
GAINS (Greenhouse Gas and Air Pollution Interactions and Synergies) model from IIASA (International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Austria). http://www.iiasa.ac.at/web/home/research/researchPrograms/GAINS.en.html
LOTOS-EUROS model from TNO (Environment & Geosciences, Department of Climate Air & Sustainability, The Netherlands).
Scenarios
Both models (GAINS and LOTOS EUROS) deliver the concentrations of pollutants in Europe, following four mix energetic scenarios elaborated by the German Aerospace Center (DLR):
The Baseline (BL) scenario considers the current European legislation.
The Open Europe (LC-BIO) is a low carbon scenario considering solar import from North Africa to Europe, high biomass share, and nuclear phase-out.
The Island Europe (LC-NUC) is a low carbon scenario considering no electricity imports from outside Europe, high biomass share, renewable energy use like in Trans-CSP or higher, nuclear energy use continued / extended if needed to balance power supply and demand.
The Maximum renewable power (LC-MRP) is a low carbon scenario considering renewable energy penetration close to 100%.
These pathways were combined with three sets of assumptions about emission control measures:
Current legislation (CLE): total PM25 emissions in the EU-28 are expected to decline by 25% compared to 2005.
Maximum Technically Feasible Reduction (MTFR): reduction beyond the current legislation through full application of the available technical measures without changes in the energy mix nor behavioral changes of consumers (optimistic assumption).
Fixed Emission Factors (FEF): emissions factors in use in 2005 were kept constant until 2050 (pessimistic assumption).
References
Gschwind, B., Lefevre, M., Blanc, I., Ranchin, T., Wyrwa, A., Drebszok, K., Cofala, J., Fuss, S., Including the temporal change in PM2.5 concentration in the assessment of human health impact: illustration with renewable energy scenarios to 2050, Environmental Impact Assessment Review (2014, in press).
Lefevre M., Gschwind B., Blanc I., Ranchin T., Wyrwa A., Drebszok K. M., Cofala J., Fuss S., Human health impacts for Renewable Energy scenarios from the EnerGEO Platform of Integrated Assessment (PIA). In Proceedings of the 27th Conference on Environmental Informatics - Informatics for Environmental Protection, Sustainable Development and Risk Management - 27th International Conference on Informatics for Environmental Protection, Hambourg : Allemagne (2013).
Lefevre M., Blanc I., Gschwind B., Ranchin T., Drebszok K. M., Wyrwa A., Loss of Life Expectancy related to temporal evolution of PM2.5 considered within energy scenarios in Europe. In SETAC Europe 23rd Annual Meeting, Glasgow : Royaume-Uni (2013).