Use of Wind Tunnel Refinements in the Dispersion Modeling Analysis of the Alaska LNG Gas Treatment Plant

摘要

The proposed Alaska LNG GTP project includes the construction of a natural gas treatment plant on the Alaska North Slope. The Gas Treatment Plant (GTP) is proposed to be located on the west coast of Prudhoe Bay and would treat natural gas produced on the North Slope.Initial dispersion modeling of the Alaska LNG Gas Treatment Plant (GTP) found results inconsistent with local and regional measurements when evaluating compliance with the 1-hour NO_2 National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) due in part to two adjacent nearby sources. These existing sources include the Central Gas Facility (CGF) and Central Compression Plant (CCP) located immediately east of the GTP. The prevailing winds at the site are east-northeast and west-southwest which align with the arrangement of the facilities.The building downwash inputs generated by the Building Profile Input Program for PRIME (BPIPPRM) were evaluated for the CGF and CCP facilities. This analysis confirmed that the building dimension inputs for numerous wind directions were outside of the tested theory used to develop the building downwash algorithms in AERMOD. Previous studies suggest that AERMOD predictions are biased to overstate downwash effects for certain building input ratios.Wind tunnel determined equivalent building dimensions (EBD) were conducted for the most critical stacks and wind directions to refine AERMOD-derived predicted concentrations. The current paper covers the EBD method used to refine the building inputs for the CGF and CCP facilities. The regulatory process and benefits from this physical modeling method is also discussed.