Speaker 1: A news study out from researchers at Harvard University this
Speaker 1: week looked at an under explored component of energy transition,
Speaker 1: air pollution. For years, when researchers, activists, or politicians talked
Speaker 1: about moving from coal to natural gas, they focused on
Speaker 1: greenhouse gas emissions and specifically carbon dioxide emissions, which are
Speaker 1: lower for gas than coal. Over the past five years
Speaker 1: or so, we've gotten plenty of studies around that other
Speaker 1: greenhouse gas, methane, and how the transition to gas has
Speaker 1: generated a massive amount of it, But we haven't heard
Speaker 1: much about air pollution, so researchers at Harvard's School of
Speaker 1: Public Health turn their attention there. The good news is
Speaker 1: that overall energy use is less of a contributor to
Speaker 1: air pollution than it was when everything was coal fired.
Speaker 1: The bad news is that it's still a primary contributor,
Speaker 1: and that gas and biomass are the key culprits. In
Speaker 1: other words, once again, we're finding out that these bridges
Speaker 1: to clean energy have only really served to impede progress
Speaker 1: and perpetuate the same old problems. Two of the studies authors,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Bonacore and Parishar Salimifhard, joined me to discuss their findings.
Speaker 1: That conversation coming up after this quick break you're listening
Speaker 1: to drill. I'm Amy Westervelt. I'm really interested in this paper,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to kind of start with maybe having
Speaker 1: you both introduce yourselves and then tell me a little
Speaker 1: bit about what prompted you to look into this in
Speaker 1: the first place.
Speaker 2: So let's start. I guess I'm Jonathan Buincorr. I'm a
Speaker 2: research scientist at the Center for Climate Health and the
Speaker 2: Global Environment at the Harvard tch chance School of Public Health.
Speaker 3: Hi, my name is Patty Chasteli Mifad. I'm a post
Speaker 3: doctor LFLO and how books.
Speaker 2: Okay, great, I guess I guess to start with the
Speaker 2: how we kind of got started down this line of
Speaker 2: inquiry was that, I mean, as you're probably aware, there's
Speaker 2: been all kinds of research about the climate effects of
Speaker 2: natural gas and the transition away from coal to gas.
Speaker 2: There's been all this research about how the conversion in
Speaker 2: the electricity sector from cole to gas has affected greenhouse
Speaker 2: gas missions of the United States, and some discussion on
Speaker 2: the life cycle greenhouse gas impacts with like methane links
Speaker 2: and those kinds of things. And this research is all
Speaker 2: great there's a lot of good stuff out there, but
Speaker 2: one of the things that it doesn't do is it
Speaker 2: does not address questions about what the changes to health
Speaker 2: impacts due to the energy choices were. So that's part
Speaker 2: of the emphasis of this paper is just to kind
Speaker 2: of get started answering that particular question is what is
Speaker 2: you know, we know a fair amount about the greenhouse
Speaker 2: gas implications of this transition from coal to gas, and
Speaker 2: this is starting to fill in that question regards to public.
Speaker 1: Health, right right. You know, I have to say that
Speaker 1: I was surprised at how much biomass impact there is,
Speaker 1: just because I feel like, I don't know, it just
Speaker 1: doesn't get talked about as much as something that was
Speaker 1: widely embraced. It almost seemed like from the climate side,
Speaker 1: it seemed like people talked about it a lot and
Speaker 1: then kind of decided, oh, actually this isn't a great solution,
Speaker 1: and then stop talking about it. But it seems like
Speaker 1: from your research that quite a few buildings tansition to
Speaker 1: biomass and it's having a big impact. So I'm curious
Speaker 1: about what you found on that front. And then I
Speaker 1: want to get into the natural gas stuff after that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the finding about biomass was kind of a
Speaker 2: surprise to us too. We kind of figured, like, you know,
Speaker 2: while we're looking at coal and gas, we might as
Speaker 2: well look at all the other energy resources that have
Speaker 2: been used in you know, buildings, electricity, and industrial boilers.
Speaker 2: And yeah, that was a big surprise to us too,
Speaker 2: is that the impact of wood and residential buildings, wooden
Speaker 2: biomass and commercial buildings and the wooden biomass use in
Speaker 2: industrial boilers were all growing. And for the boilers and
Speaker 2: industrial boilers and for residential buildings, those were really high
Speaker 2: impacts and kind of made it to kind of the
Speaker 2: top shelf of impactful sources that we found.
Speaker 3: Just adding to John has point and also to what
Speaker 3: you mentioned your question, actually that because that is true
Speaker 3: that because in our climate policy and climate action plans
Speaker 3: we have been many focused on being huse gas emissions
Speaker 3: some of these and I just also have been kind
Speaker 3: of going under the radar of how we have looked
Speaker 3: at them and their emissions. And the biomass can be
Speaker 3: an example because we also regard them usually as renewables.
Speaker 3: But they didn't talk about or did not have a
Speaker 3: good understanding of how much of health impacts they have,
Speaker 3: and that can be a good example of why health
Speaker 3: and energy should be looked at together and we shouldn't
Speaker 3: look at climate actions just by focusing on doing husse
Speaker 3: gas emissions.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, did you get a sense in your research
Speaker 1: of just, you know, kind of what percentage of buildings
Speaker 1: are actually using biomass now as opposed to other I
Speaker 1: just like I when I was reading your paper, I
Speaker 1: was like, God, I hadn't realized that it had been
Speaker 1: that widely adopted that it would now be like a
Speaker 1: dominant source of air push.
Speaker 2: So right, Yeah, So the data that we used was
Speaker 2: based on it was a missions data that's collected by
Speaker 2: the EPA, So we don't have information on like the
Speaker 2: number of buildings that are using these different field sources.
Speaker 2: But I think one of the things that contributed to
Speaker 2: that is rather than not just like the sheer number
Speaker 2: of buildings that are converted, it's more of the fact
Speaker 2: that these sources looks like they can be fairly high
Speaker 2: emitting a few a few sources that could be small
Speaker 2: will admit a fair amount, right, And that's more what's
Speaker 2: driving the impact parsure. You had something you looked into
Speaker 2: the emissions factors for some of that right, Yes, that
Speaker 2: is so.
Speaker 3: Adding to what Jonathan said, we don't have the percentage
Speaker 3: of how many number of buildings are using what fuel type,
Speaker 3: but we do have amount of energy consumption in residential
Speaker 3: building sector. Just looking at the quantity the amount of
Speaker 3: energy that is being used in residential buildings, for example,
Speaker 3: natural gas has much higher amount of energy use compared
Speaker 3: to biomass. However, we see health impacts of biomass is
Speaker 3: dominating the residential sector and is because of what Jonathan
Speaker 3: mentioned is the emission factor. So for one unit of
Speaker 3: energy that biomass is providing, we have higher emissions usually, however,
Speaker 3: I should not hear that there is a variation in
Speaker 3: emission factors. So we have different types of biomass, and
Speaker 3: would some of them have lower emission factors some of
Speaker 3: them have higher. For example, wood is one of the
Speaker 3: highest air putent emit emitting fuels in the biomass category.
Speaker 3: But looking at the health impacts specifically, one thing that
Speaker 3: we did find in our results was that looking at
Speaker 3: the different states in residential sector, combustion of wood and
Speaker 3: combustion of wood was dominating the health impacts in almost
Speaker 3: every state except for just two which was New York
Speaker 3: State and Illinois.
Speaker 1: Wow. Wow, that's really interesting. I'm curious to hear more
Speaker 1: about the natural gas impacts too. So there was one
Speaker 1: line in your paper that I was like, wow, that's interesting,
Speaker 1: and that was let's see it says all three RCMs
Speaker 1: indicate that gas had higher health impacts than coal in
Speaker 1: eight states in two thousand and eight, and that number
Speaker 1: increased to twenty in twenty seventeen. Could you talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about that? And I think there is this
Speaker 1: kind of persistent idea that because of what you were
Speaker 1: talking about before, that we focus on greenhouse gas emissions
Speaker 1: and climate and not you know, the more sort of
Speaker 1: immediate health impacts that I do think that people have
Speaker 1: kind of glossed over the fact that natural gas does
Speaker 1: actually create immediate pollution too. So yeah, I'm curious to
Speaker 1: have you just lay out, you know, what that result
Speaker 1: kind of means. And I know you do that in
Speaker 1: your paper, but just to have it on audio too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, I think, I mean, I think pretty simply
Speaker 2: what it means is that like basically, if you swap
Speaker 2: out one combusting fuel for another combusting fuel that is
Speaker 2: not a catholic, that's going to get you to a
Speaker 2: healthy energy system. I mean, when you combust anything, it
Speaker 2: will produce air pollution, and you know if you inhale
Speaker 2: that it is going to be harmful no matter where
Speaker 2: it comes from.
Speaker 1: Do you think you know there should be more studies
Speaker 1: of this this type that look at you know, kind
Speaker 1: of beyond greenhouse gas emissions around energy sources. But also
Speaker 1: do you think that like this kind of feeds into
Speaker 1: the need to to just sort of rethink how how
Speaker 1: we evaluate and embrace you know, quote unquote climate solutions
Speaker 1: in the first place, that this this kind of idea
Speaker 1: of just sort of swapping out one energy source for
Speaker 1: another is maybe a bit simplistic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I definitely agree on that point that it's simplistic.
Speaker 2: I mean with in greenhouse gas world and just climate world.
Speaker 2: I mean, energy choices gets a lot of the intention,
Speaker 2: I feel like, and I think there's there's not as
Speaker 2: much attention paid as there should be to the fairly
Speaker 2: large impact that air pollution has on public health. I
Speaker 2: mean we've been seeing kind of study after study about this.
Speaker 2: I mean recently there was the study showing that there's
Speaker 2: like around eight million deaths worldwide due to air pollution
Speaker 2: from fossil fuels. So it's a big deal for public health,
Speaker 2: and I think yeah, so, I think I think it's
Speaker 2: it's not evaluated as much as it really should be.
Speaker 2: And what we're seeing is that these kinds of health
Speaker 2: decisions are Sorry, the kind of health aspects of energy is.
Speaker 2: It's becoming more and more a really big factor in
Speaker 2: terms of decision making about what type of energy and
Speaker 2: climate policies we have, and I think that's only going
Speaker 2: to continue in the future as we're continuing to rightfully
Speaker 2: put more and more focus on both public health and
Speaker 2: sort of the equity implications where you know, again with
Speaker 2: a lot of these fuel combusting sources, they're often around
Speaker 2: you know, black, indigenous or communities of color, So making
Speaker 2: the correct choices around what those folks are getting exposed
Speaker 2: to is really important for not just public health, but
Speaker 2: for equity and in frontal justice as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Can you talk a little bit about the specific
Speaker 1: health related emissions associated with natural gas kind of what
Speaker 1: they are and their impacts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we do see it's a pretty steep decline
Speaker 2: in health impacts due to coal combustion and a lot
Speaker 2: of with coal, a lot of the impacts there are
Speaker 2: coming from primary PM two point five emissions. So these
Speaker 2: are things that are admitted sort of, this is what
Speaker 2: everybody gets exposed to in the end, and this is
Speaker 2: like just primary exposure of just particles that are suspended
Speaker 2: in the air. The other thing, other main pollutant leading
Speaker 2: to the coal health impacts is SO two sulfur dioxide.
Speaker 2: It forms sulfuric g acid and forms sulfate particles, which
Speaker 2: is a type of PM two point five, which then
Speaker 2: people inhale and results in all the health effects that
Speaker 2: we know about for PM two point five. So in
Speaker 2: terms of the air pollution from natural gas gas, that's
Speaker 2: a little bit of a different profile. There is some
Speaker 2: emissions of that primary PM two point five, but with
Speaker 2: gas there's a bigger proportion of it is coming from
Speaker 2: NOTO a NOx NOx similar to SO two. It can
Speaker 2: when it's emitted, it eventually reacts with other pollutants downwind
Speaker 2: and forms PM two point five, which we then get
Speaker 2: exposed to and causes the harmful health effects we know about.
Speaker 2: The other one, strangely is ammonia. This was another kind
Speaker 2: of almost atmospheric chemistry surprise, where there's a fairly high
Speaker 2: ammonia emissions from natural gas, especially when it's burnt in
Speaker 2: residential buildings, which leads to fairly high impacts areas around
Speaker 2: those buildings.
Speaker 1: That's super interesting too, So what do you plan to
Speaker 1: look at next? I know, I saw something in here
Speaker 1: about you know that kind of looking at current projections,
Speaker 1: it seems like these trends continue in twenty eighteen. So
Speaker 1: I imagine that you're planning to continue looking at this as
Speaker 1: data is available. But are there other kind of areas
Speaker 1: that you want to look into?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think, as I was talking about with this
Speaker 2: kind of the comparison to the greenhouse gas footprint, you
Speaker 2: have to look across again the full life cycle, including
Speaker 2: both combustion, pipeline, storage, processing, and activity in the well.
Speaker 2: So that's largely been done for greenhouse gas emissions, hasn't
Speaker 2: been done for health, and we would like to do
Speaker 2: that to look at the full life cycle health impacts
Speaker 2: of gas from wellhead to point of combustion, whether that's
Speaker 2: a power plan in a building or a innustrial boiler.
Speaker 2: The other thing we'd like to do on top of
Speaker 2: that is to rerun this using a different, different set
Speaker 2: of modeling platforms. Lets us catch health impacts of exposures
Speaker 2: to more different pollutants and do it in more geographic details.
Speaker 2: We'll be able to get county level health estimates and
Speaker 2: get estimates of the health of other health impacts related
Speaker 2: their pollution exposure like asthma, respiratory countiovascular hospitalizations, and other
Speaker 2: health impacts related their pollution exposure. Okay, py, sure you
Speaker 2: want to talk about the other stuff going on.
Speaker 3: You have also some other studies that we are looking
Speaker 3: at to one of the previous points that we talked
Speaker 3: about having a more holistic assessment of climate policy plans
Speaker 3: that doesn't look at just climate impacts and going house
Speaker 3: gas emissions, but also health impacts of different client policies
Speaker 3: that are being proposed, specifically in building sector. So that
Speaker 3: is one of our other studies that we have been
Speaker 3: working on. One example of that has been looking at
Speaker 3: the health and climate impacts of Local Law ninety seven
Speaker 3: in New York City that aims to that has actually
Speaker 3: mandated emission reduction from energy use in building sector from
Speaker 3: buildings that are larger than twenty five thousand square feet
Speaker 3: with the goal of reducing their gin house gas emissions
Speaker 3: forty person by twenty thirty and eighty percent by twenty fifty.
Speaker 3: But that policy also being another example of focusing on
Speaker 3: even the goals are explicitly just talking about HAS gas
Speaker 3: emission reduction, we are looking at how that can impact
Speaker 3: health impacts.
Speaker 1: Got it, That's interesting. Thank you guys both so much
Speaker 1: for speaking with me. That's it for this time. Big
Speaker 1: thanks to Jonathan and PARISHARV for joining me. I'll stick
Speaker 1: a link to their study in the show notes for
Speaker 1: those of you who want to dig in further. Also
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