TY - JOUR A1 - Weger, Lindsey B. A1 - Lupaşcu, Aura A1 - Cremonese, Lorenzo A1 - Butler, Tim T1 - Modeling the impact of a potential shale gas industry in Germany and the United Kingdom on ozone with WRF-Chem JF - Elementa-sccience of the anthropocene N2 - Germany and the United Kingdom have domestic shale gas reserves which they may exploit in the future to complement their national energy strategies. However gas production releases volatile organic compounds (VOC) and nitrogen oxides (NOx), which through photochemical reaction form ground-level ozone, an air pollutant that can trigger adverse health effects e.g. on the respiratory system. This study explores the range of impacts of a potential shale gas industry in these two countries on local and regional ambient ozone. To this end, comprehensive emission scenarios are used as the basis for input to an online-coupled regional chemistry transport model (WRF-Chem). Here we simulate shale gas scenarios over summer (June, July, August) 2011, exploring the effects of varying VOC emissions, gas speciation, and concentration of NOx emissions over space and time, on ozone formation. An evaluation of the model setup is performed, which exhibited the model’s ability to predict surface meteorological and chemical variables well compared with observations, and consistent with other studies. When different shale gas scenarios were employed, the results show a peak increase in maximum daily 8-hour average ozone from 3.7 to 28.3 μg m–3. In addition, we find that shale gas emissions can force ozone exceedances at a considerable percentage of regulatory measurement stations locally (up to 21% in Germany and 35% in the United Kingdom) and in distant countries through long-range transport, and increase the cumulative health-related metric SOMO35 (maximum percent increase of ~28%) throughout the region. Findings indicate that VOC emissions are important for ozone enhancement, and to a lesser extent NOx, meaning that VOC regulation for a future European shale gas industry will be of especial importance to mitigate unfavorable health outcomes. Overall our findings demonstrate that shale gas production in Europe can worsen ozone air quality on both the local and regional scales. KW - Shale gas KW - WRF-Chem KW - European air quality KW - Ozone KW - Methane leakage KW - Emission scenarios Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1525/elementa.387 SN - 2325-1026 VL - 7 PB - Univ California Press CY - Oakland ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Weger Coenen, Lindsey A1 - Leitão, Joana A1 - Lawrence, Mark T1 - Expected impacts on greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions due to a possible transition towards a hydrogen economy in German road transport JF - International journal of hydrogen energy : official journal of the International Association for Hydrogen Energy N2 - Transitioning German road transport partially to hydrogen energy is among the possibilities being discussed to help meet national climate targets. This study investigates impacts of a hypothetical, complete transition from conventionally-fueled to hydrogen-powered German transport through representative scenarios. Our results show that German emissions change between -179 and +95 MtCO(2)eq annually, depending on the scenario, with renewable-powered electrolysis leading to the greatest emissions reduction, while electrolysis using the fossilintense current electricity mix leads to the greatest increase. German energy emissions of regulated pollutants decrease significantly, indicating the potential for simultaneous air quality improvements. Vehicular hydrogen demand is 1000 PJ annually, requiring 446-525 TWh for electrolysis, hydrogen transport and storage, which could be supplied by future German renewable generation, supporting the potential for CO2-free hydrogen traffic and increased energy security. Thus hydrogen-powered transport could contribute significantly to climate and air quality goals, warranting further research and political discussion about this possibility. KW - Hydrogen economy KW - German road transport KW - Greenhouse gas mitigation KW - Air KW - pollution KW - Fuel cell electric vehicle KW - Emission scenarios Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2020.11.014 SN - 0360-3199 SN - 1879-3487 VL - 46 IS - 7 SP - 5875 EP - 5890 PB - Elsevier CY - Oxford ER -