health considerations on the proposed biomass power plant Luserna SG express wish to express their views on the possible risks to public health that might result from the construction of a wood biomass-fired power plant in the town of St. Luserna John.
Wood is a bad fuel and its use can be tolerated in domestic installations and small-scale for heating of buildings.
Particularly relevant is the contribution of atmospheric particulates and oxides of nitrogen, the last powerful broncoirritanti and precursors of 'ozone.
as planned, the plant will emit 250 mg / NMC NOx, equivalent to an annual total of 31,000 kg (31 tons) of nitrogen oxides.
Wood also retains a number of other combustion products, particularly critics, including especially interesting are the PAHs and dioxins (dioxins + furans, PCBs + true).
The ANPA provides an estimate of the amount of dioxin produced per kilogram of different materials, technology of incineration and killing similar to that which would be used to Luserna.
The central characteristics hardly compatible with a closed environment and limited as that of Val Pellice.
burning about 51,000 pounds of wood (the daily requirement of the plant) every day for eleven months there would be the emission of 500,000 pg (picograms) per day and about 167 million pg of dioxin per year, intended to build up in soil and plants.
remember that the dose accepted as tolerable for a healthy adult by WHO was 2 pg per kg of body weight per day, then 150 pg for an adult weighing 75 kg E 'known that children, especially infants, receiving large shares of fat, are more at risk of accumulation and are more vulnerable to damage caused by the dioxins countless.
It 'important to detect substances such as dioxins are not water soluble and persistent in the environment where the damage phenomena of bioaccumulation in the food chain that sees man as a last terminal. 5 E 'so as to provide an accumulation of dioxins from a new source, which should be in addition to those from existing sources.
Ciò è incompatibile con l’obiettivo di migliorare la qualità dell’aria e contrasta con l’orientamento dell’Unione Europea in materia.
52001DC0593 Comunicazione della Commissione al Consiglio, al Parlamento europeo e al Comitato economico e sociale - Strategia comunitaria sulle diossine, i furani e i bifenili policlorurati /* COM/2001/0593 def. */ gazzetta ufficiale n. C 322 del 17/11/2001 pag. 0002 - 0018
Action is needed to further reduce emissions of these substances and prevent the negative effects of dioxins and PCBs on the environment and human health. It is essential therefore that the Commission adopt a strategy to reduce the presence of these compounds in the environment, feed and food, including short-, medium and long term. Such a strategy would have to guarantee complete control of the problem of dioxins and PCBs within ten years. After this, the strategy proposed here will be re-evaluated and revised to take account of progress. The results of this strategy could also be used to reduce concentrations of other substances dangerous persistent in the environment. "
It seems to me that creating a new source (however small) of dioxin in the Valley, in addition to those already existing, of which nothing is known, does not go in the direction advocated by the Commission and the European Union.
A completely similar reasoning should be done about the PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), a known carcinogen and have certainly produced by the various activities involving combustion (eg vehicle traffic, particularly heavy).
the situation is even less controllable with regard to atmospheric emissions of heavy metals known to be present in the release gas (and especially in ash and dust filtration) from the combustion of wood, in fact the reports in the literature report varying concentrations of metals, depending on the composition of media on which grew the plants themselves.
Finally, it is reported the possible presence in the fumes of benzene, formaldehyde and butadiene, all carcinogens.
Some considerations on the fine
intended release (theoretical) total particulate matter (PM) of the central under conditions of normal use, would amount to 12 mg / NMC, which when multiplied by the emission of 15500 NMC time for the total of operating hours per year (8000 hr) means a release into the atmosphere yearly total of 1488 kg of airborne particulates.
The airborne particulate is monitored by law in his village PM10 (ie all particles with aerodynamic diameter less than or equal to 10 micrometers).
E 'ImportantTelephones be aware that the coarse fraction of PM10, ie particles with a diameter of 10 μm to 2.5
stop, as they decrease the size, in the upper airways, main bronchi, small bronchi.
may be largely responsible for chronic respiratory diseases, not excluding the cancers because of the carcinogens that can carry with them.
particles from 2.5 μm down instead penetrate the lungs and gradually decreases as their size are able to cross the alveolar-capillary barrier and then enter the bloodstream.
"There is increasing evidence that exposure to PM2, 5 is associated with the development of adverse effects on health, mortality, such as respiratory, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and morbidity." 1, 3
The PM 2.5 are therefore the most dangerous, but their quantity in the air emitted nothing can be known and can only make indirect estimates.
PM10 (by weight) will be subject to self-care facility operators the same, but will not be given to know the ratio of particles of different sizes and in particular the so-called fine and ultrafine particles having a size
and 0.1 μm respectively. consider that as PM10 weighs about 1000 and 1,000,000 PM1 PM0, 1, and we realize that in total particulate (or PM10) will contain many more particles small diameter compared to coarse.
In investigations where the particles are counted, it was found that ultrafine (PM0, 1) accounted for 70% of the total number, but it is hard to predict, in the absence of effective measures, the numerical relations between particles of different sizes.
E ', however, would expect a decrease in diameter (and consequently an increase in the number) of particles in proportion to the temperature of combustion: temperature = more smaller size of the particles.
the installation in question, the combustion temperature will be around 1000 ° C, then we expect the contribution of fine and ultrafine particulate matter (the most harmful to health, particularly the elderly and children) 4 is particularly significant part of the total particulate weight.
Conclusions
The filtering system on the fumes of the plant only provides for the removal of total dust, with an expected greater efficiency on the coarser powders, every other component is not trapped.
sisema The continuous self-monitoring involves the measurement of:
PM10
CO (carbon monoxide)
NOx (oxides of nitrogen)
SO 2 (carbon dioxide di zolfo)
TOC (Composti organici totali)
Le emissioni principali previste dal progetto sono:
NOx = 250 mg/Nmc, pari a 31 tonnellate/anno
PM10 = 12 mg/Nmc, pari a 1488 Kg/anno
A cui aggiungiamo un’emissione di diossina prudenzialmente stimabile in circa:
10 pg (picogrammi) /Kg incenerito pari a 167.000.000 pg/anno
ed emissioni imprevedibili (e che non sono oggetto di controllo) di IPA (Idrocarburi Policiclici Aromatici), metalli pesanti (Pb, Cu, Mn, Zn, As), benzene, formaldehyde, 1,3 butadiene.
should be emphasized that the Val Pellice is a narrow valley and steep flanks, with winter conditions of strong thermal inversion, a phenomenon that causes an accumulation of air pollutants in the lower layers in the months when their production the boiler would reach maximum intensity. remember that the ultrafine behave as a gas and persist long into the atmosphere before being deposited or aggregate into larger particles.
While political bodies and international scientific demand to reduce the level of air pollution, this project goes in the opposite direction, with predictable negative effects on the health of the population, particularly its most vulnerable. 4
I therefore ask the directors of the municipalities of Val Pellice, also based on the precautionary principle which should inspire all authority that monitors public health, to express a negative opinion on the construction of the proposed power plant woody biomass.
Dr. Tullio Guazzotti
Specialist in Occupational Medicine
Minimum Bibliography:
1) - Scientific Committee On Health and Environmental Risk - European Commission - Adopted by the SCHER Opinion During the 4 th plenary of 18 march 2005
2) - Veneto Region - Epidemiology Service - ultrafine AND HEALTH EFFECTS - http://www.regione.veneto.it/NR/rdonlyres/C13B51EC-140D-492B-8186-BE7D35314A3B/0/B_Polveriultrafiniedeffettisullasalute_B.pdf
3) - Arden, Burnett and others - Lung Cancer, Cardiopulmonary Mortality and long-term exposure to fine particulate air pollution - Journal of the American Medical Association, 3/6/2002, Vol 287, p. 1132
4) - Bonzini, Carugno et al - Impact of air pollution on birth outcomes: Systematic review of the current Evidences - Occupational Medicine, wk. - Oct. 2010, Vol 101, No 5, p.. 341
5) - APAT (Agency for Environmental Protection and Technical Services): Dioxins, furans and PCBs. Rome, 2006
