Air Quality Health Benefits of the Nevada Renewable Portfolio Standard

Authors

Alireza Rezaee, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Lung-Wen Chen, University of Nevada, Las VegasFollow
Ge Lin, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Mark P. Buttner, University of Nevada, Las VegasFollow
Max Gakh, University of Nevada, Las VegasFollow
Emma Frances Bloomfield, University of Nevada, Las VegasFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

8-29-2022

Publication Title

Atmosphere

Volume

13

Issue

9

First page number:

1

Last page number:

11

Abstract

In recent years, renewable portfolio standards (RPS), which require a certain percentage of electricity sold to consumers to come from renewable resources, have been established by many state governments to mitigate emissions of greenhouse gases and air pollutants in the United States. Nevada’s RPS set a target of 50% of electricity to come from renewable sources by 2030. By coupling the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s AVoided Emissions and geneRation Tool (AVERT) and CO–Benefits Risk Assessment (COBRA) model, this study assesses potential emission reductions from fossil fuels owing to this requirement and regional health benefits via improved air quality, as well as how these benefits vary spatially under high and low projected electricity demands in 2030. Successful implementation of the RPS could produce health benefits equivalent to USD 3–8 million per year for Nevada residents and up to USD 164 million per year for the entire U.S. Nevada is ranked only 6th among states benefiting from the policy, while California and Washington obtain the most health benefits. There is also inequity among Nevada counties, partly caused by the county population and proximity to major fossil fuel power plants. Lowering electricity demands by 5% in Nevada would lead to a ~10% increase in health benefits. These findings should empower public support of RPS policies and energy conservation to reduce air pollution and public health inequity for the region.

Keywords

RPS; PM2.5; AVERT; COBRA; Health inequity; Health disparity

Disciplines

Environmental Public Health

File Format

pdf

File Size

1999 KB

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Repository Citation

Rezaee, A., Chen, L., Lin, G., Buttner, M. P., Gakh, M., Bloomfield, E. F. (2022). Air Quality Health Benefits of the Nevada Renewable Portfolio Standard. Atmosphere, 13(9), 1-11.
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/atmos13091387