Air quality and the climate change penalty: will electric vehicles be enough?

As one of the projects of the Clean Air Research Program, CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research developed a methodology to estimate ozone concentrates under climate change conditions for any period or location in Australia. The system was assessed for Sydney to give an insight into the impact of climate change on ozone levels in Sydney in 20 and 50 years time, with assistance from NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change. Projected changes in Sydney weather and peak ozone concentrations were calculated for a global climatology based on an A2 SRES greenhouse gas emission scenario (a high end CO2 emissions growth scenario) and for a range of Sydney air pollution emission scenarios. When air pollution emissions were held fixed at current decade levels, it was found that number of exceedance days per year increases approximately 25% and 50% for the decade of 2021-2030 and 2051-2060 respectively for 1-hour ozone threshold (100 ppb), and 25% and 65% increase for the decade of 2021-2030 and 2051-2060, respectively for 4-hour ozone (80 ppb) threshold. A number of anthropogenic emission reduction scenarios such as A2, 40% and 70% reduction, was applied to the decade of 2051-2060. The results of these reduction scenarios failed to achieve compliance with the NEPM although they showed reduction of peak ozone concentration. For a further emission reduction scenario, all petrol/lpg fuelled vehicles are assumed to be replaced by either hybrid cars or electric cars under the 2051–2060 climatology. For the hybrid car scenario that assumes 50% emission reduction from petrol/lpg with no changes in diesel vehicle emissions, the number of exceedance days per year increases by 10% from the current decade for both 1–hour and 4–hour threshold concentrations. For the electric car scenario that assumes no emissions from petrol/lpg, the number of exceedance days decreases by 40% from the current decade showing that it can compensate for the climate change impact on ozone concentration, but this is not sufficient to achieve compliance with the NEPM long term objectives for ozone. It is noted that the system needs to be operated in an ensemble mode to be able to provide estimates of uncertainties in model results.

• Record URL:
  http://eng.monash.edu.au/civil/research/centres/its/caitr-home/prevcaitr-proceedings/caitr2008.html
• Authors:
  • Lee, S
  • Cope, M
• Conference:
  • Conference of Australian Institutes of Transport Research (CAITR), 30th, 2008, Perth, Western Australia, Australia
• Publication Date: 2008-12

Language

• English

Media Info

• Pagination: 9p
• Monograph Title: 30th Conference of the Australian Institutes of Transport Research (CAITR), 10-12 December, 2008, University of Western Australia Business School

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Air pollution; Air quality management; Compliance; Electric vehicles; Environment; Exhaust gases; Mathematical models; Ozone
• Geographic Terms: Australia; Sydney (Australia)
• ATRI Terms: Air pollution; Compliance; Electric vehicle; Modelling; Ozone; Vehicle emissions
• Subject Areas: Environment; I15: Environment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01525048
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: ARRB
• Files: ITRD, ATRI
• Created Date: May 20 2014 12:51PM