Impact assessment of emissions from energy facilities on the Baikal natural area

This work aims to establish a technology for conducting a comprehensive assessment of the impact of energy facilities on the environment. The proposed strategy combines regulatory methods for calculating pollutant emissions and dispersion, as well as the laboratory findings on pollutant content in snow samples. To assist the technology, a scientific prototype of an intelligent decision-making support system known as WIAIS (Web-oriented Impact Assessment Information System) was developed. The proposed technology includes three principal stages: calculating the quantitative indicators of pollutant emissions, calculating the pollutant dispersion in the atmosphere, examining snow samples for the pollutant content and comparing them with the obtained results. For practical evaluation of the proposed technology, a computational experiment was performed, which assessed the impact of emissions from the boiler plants located in the Baikal natural area and powered by different types of coal. The testing was performed using the data on 48 boiler plants of various installed capacities having different equipment and located all over the Baikal nature area. Data on the main pollutants emitted by energy facilities (sulfates, nitrogen oxides, solids) were obtained. Quantitative indicators of pollutant emissions were established; thus, the total volume of pollutants amounts to 18.33 thousand tons/year. Furthermore, the largest sources of pollutants were identified, including boiler plants in Slyudyanka, Elantsy settlement, Severobaikalsk, and Nizhneangarsk settlement. Therefore, the proposed methodology can be used for environmental assessments of the existing power plants, as well as for designing new power facilities and developing recommendations for reducing pollutant emissions.

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