Much Ado About Nothing

nwdiver

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Well, EPA itself has established damage cost factor of $5500/ton for directly-emitted NOx, and $5300/ton for NOx emitted from the fuel cycle. So there's some difference but not much.

Production of gasoline results in significantly higher emissions.than ULSD, including NOx, according to the GREET model.
I was referring specifically to the article in the OP which attempted to minimize the impact of mobile NOx emissions since it's very small compared to power plant emissions. That's extremely disingenuous since with NOx the top 3 variables that determine the social cost is location, location, location... not quantity. 1mg of NOx in downtown LA is more harmful than 1kg in Montana.
 

wxman

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I was referring specifically to the article in the OP which attempted to minimize the impact of mobile NOx emissions since it's very small compared to power plant emissions. That's extremely disingenuous since with NOx the top 3 variables that determine the social cost is location, location, location... not quantity. 1mg of NOx in downtown LA is more harmful than 1kg in Montana.
I generally agree, but it's still more complicated than that depending on the ambient chemistry of the location. For example, this well-respected model, "APEEP", shows that in two counties in the U.S., marginal NOx emissions are actually beneficial!





The combined population of those two counties (apparently Orange County, CA, and Cook County, IL) have a combined population of over 8 million.

Remember, NOx destroys ozone under specific ambient chemistry conditions.
 

bizzle

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Can you please translate those data illustrating the claim you're making about them.
I followed it to your personal site, but couldn't find a reference to the originating source. I tried googling "APEEP" but don't want to go into what that dredged up! I also tried googling whether there were statements about counties benefitting from NOx production but couldn't get anything. Is this a common perspective in your academic community? I can't find substantiating documents, but if you provide citations I can access them via my accounts.

At least by the picture shown, it's not immediately clear to me how you interpret a region with "negative" damages (OC and Cook County somehow making money from lack of NOx production) as those areas benefiting from producing more NOx.

At a minimum it looks like those data are incomplete for your claim but depending on how those figures are derived it could be something like selling credits or in OC's case where they designed zero emissions heavy duty vehicles for use in the county and may either be profiting from that design and implementation or calculating it to their benefit.
 
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bizzle

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Thank you for that. I'm going to need to follow up with Dr. Muller because according to this map on the same site he posted this

(I can't get it to post, have to right-click open in new tab)

right next to the one you posted, which directly contradicts one another for the same areas but there's no indication of what the images are actually showing us.
 
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wxman

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I can't open it either, but if it's the left graphic on his page, it's SOx. You can get similar damage maps for other regulated emissions through the AP2 data request form link. Just requires free registration.
 
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