Health benefits and control costs of tightening particulate matter emissions standards for coal power plants - The case of Northeast Brazil

摘要: Exposure to ambient particulate matter (PM) caused an estimated 4.2 million deaths worldwide in 2015. However, PM emission standards for power plants vary widely. To explore if the current levels of these are sufficiently stringent a simple cost-benefit framework, we compared health benefits (avoided monetized costs) with control costs tightening coal-fired Northeast (NE) Brazil, where concentrations below World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. We considered three Brazilian PM10 (PMx refers diameter under x micrometers) and stricter U.S. EPA standard recent plants. Our integrated methodology simulates hourly electricity grid dispatch from utility-scale plants, disperses resulting PM2.5, estimates selected human impacts PM2.5 exposure using latest exposure-response model. Since emissions inventories required model secondary not available our study area, modeled only primary so benefit conservative. found that existing yields over 60 times greater than all scenarios considered. The monetary value avoided hospital admissions alone is at least four as large corresponding costs. These results provide strong arguments considering worldwide, including regions meet WHO guidelines developing countries.