Alternative methods of reducing air pollution from low-emissions sources in Krakow

摘要

A study on air quality monitoring carried out in the 1980s indicated that around 40% of the high concentrations of air pollutants adversely affecting residents and the natural environment were contributed by coal-fired home stoves and boiler houses using solid fuels. These heat sources discharging particulate matters at low heights, basically lacking any pollution control devices, are called the ''low emission sources.'' The American-Polish Program on Clean Fossil Fuels and Energy Efficiency in Krakow, which began in 1992, was preceded by a detailed inventory of low emissions sources completed in 1991. In the American-Polish program it has been accepted that all possible technical means would be used to reduce pollution, mainly those which enable utilization of reserves present in the existing networks of: district heating; gas distribution; and power distribution. The analysis indicated that the following activities can bring about realistic progress in reducing air pollution: elimination of the existing solid fuel boiler houses by connecting the buildings they serve to the municipal district heating network; elimination of solid fuel boiler houses by converting them to natural gas; elimination of solid fuel-fired home stoves by replacing them with electric heating; modernization of those solid fuel boiler houses which cannot by eliminated because of their function; and reducing the adverse environmental effects of home stove use throughout the city by changes in the combustion process, eliminating coal and replacing it with natural gas or electricity, and/or looking for combustion devices that can burn coal without producing air pollutants.