BIOHER assessment

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Health and climate impacts of heat production in small municipalities (BIOHER)

Bioher is a research project coordinated by the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL). The project runs from 2008 to 2011 and includes five workpackages: 1) measurement of PM and greenhouse gas emissions, 2) chemical characterization and assessment of atmospheric thermal impact of emitted PM, 3) toxicological characterization of emitted PM, 4) assessment of exposure to and health effects of current residential wood combustion, 5) assessment of health risks.


Assessment model:  CLAIH/BIOHER analytica model

Scope

Purpose

The purpose of the assessment is to evaluate health impacts and overall societal costs of different scenarios for household heating in Finland.

More specifically:

  • What would be the mortality impacts of PM2.5 emissions and the related societal cost?
  • What would be the greenhouse gas emissions and the related societal cost?
  • What are the optimal decisions on household heating for the society when energy costs to consumers and societal costs related to greenhouse gas emissions and health impacts of PM2.5 are taken into consideration?
  • What are the optimal decisions on household heating for a consumer (based on costs related to heat consumption), and are these in conflict with the optimal decisions for the society?


Boundaries

  • Energy production (single house and small energy plant level, 1-20MW)
  • Population (2000-10000 inh.)
  • Exposure for PM2.5
  • ER-functions for PM2.5
  • PM2.5 emissions (->health effects)
  • PM2.5 climate effect (-> health effects)
  • Household heating scenarios:
    • Light oil and pellets
  • Small heating plant scenarios:
    • Heavy oil and wood chips
  • Atmospheric thermal impact
  • DALY
  • Impacts:
    • Climate change
    • Premature mortality
    • Costs

Scenarios

Scenarios include two different fuel types of energy production in detached houses and small power plant:
Detached houses

  • light oil
  • Pellets


Small power plant

  • Heavy oil
  • Wood chips

Intended users

  • City-level policy-makers in all sectors in Kuopio as well as everywhere else
  • International policy-makers related climate change
  • Policy-makers related health risks of fine particles and green house gases
  • General public
  • Scientists working on health risks of fine particles, green house gases and climate change
  • Other interested of topic

Participants

Variables

Residential heat purchase

District heat and electricity production

Geenhouse gas & PM2.5 emissions

PM2.5 exposure and health effects

Costs


Old variables

Conclusions

Analyses

  • Cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analyses
  • value-of-information (VOI) analysis

See also


costs and future:

Finnish power plants:

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