What's new

Has anyone moved to get away from the inversion/air in SLC?

I don't think Provo's air is any better than SLC's. My guess is it's actually worse. Today for instance, Provo's AQI is 153 and SLC's is 104.

Yeah, I was going to post that I drove to SLC today, and coming back to Utah county looked just about as bad as going into SL county.
 
@ babe -- I can't find any of your several posts about putting scrubbers on residential homes so I'm putting this here.

I finally got around to calculating this impact and it's pretty negligible: 56 tons VOC and a 78 tons total PM for an entire year statewide. I used the AP-42 factors in Table 1.4 (5.5 lb VOC/10^6 scf, 7.6 lb PM/10^6 scf)*, 878,000 households**, 1 scf/1027btu, average Utah household gas consumption***, and assume 100% scrubber removal efficiency.


*https://www.epa.gov/ttn/chief/ap42/ch01/final/c01s04.pdf

**https://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/49000.html

**https://apps1.eere.energy.gov/states/residential.cfm/state=UT
 
@ babe -- I can't find any of your several posts about putting scrubbers on residential homes so I'm putting this here.

I finally got around to calculating this impact and it's pretty negligible: 56 tons VOC and a 78 tons total PM for an entire year statewide. I used the AP-42 factors in Table 1.4 (5.5 lb VOC/10^6 scf, 7.6 lb PM/10^6 scf)*, 878,000 households**, 1 scf/1027btu, average Utah household gas consumption***, and assume 100% scrubber removal efficiency.


*https://www.epa.gov/ttn/chief/ap42/ch01/final/c01s04.pdf

**https://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/49000.html

**https://apps1.eere.energy.gov/states/residential.cfm/state=UT

Dumb this down for the rest of us if you don't mind.
 
Dumb this down for the rest of us if you don't mind.

Industry often runs exhaust through scrubbers (think of it as atomized water spray inside an enclosure) or baghouses (basically a giant vacuum cleaner). babe has suggested putting these on our homes so I calculated the potential emission reductions from natural gas furnace exhaust.

VOC's are a precursor to particulate matter (PM); that and ozone are the pollutants of concern during our wintertime inversions. 56 tons VOC and 76 tons PM over the entire year would be a pretty negligible reduction.


***Edit***

I just skimmed through the annual UDAQ report to put those numbers into perspective. Total statewide VOC and PM emissions during 2012 were 859,652 & 53,863 tons emitted respectively (total PM isn't followed because it's the 10 microns and smaller particles that are hazardous).

https://www.airquality.utah.gov/Public-Interest/annual-report/.pdf/2012Annual Report.pdf (page 20)
 
Last edited:
Back
Top