Review of the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Fossil Energy's Research Plan for Fine Particulates

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TABLE 3-1 Estimated Budgets for Fiscal Year 1999 for Activities in the DOE Research Program on Fine Particulates

Activity	DOE Expenditure	DOE Share
Upper Ohio River Valley Project	$2,000,000	100%
Great Smoky Mountains National Park	$150,000	26%
Atlanta monitoring site	$150,000	3%
Birmingham monitoring site	$750,000 (expected)^a
Clean Environment Development Facility	$500,000	31%
Cumberland plume characterization	$150,000^b	25%
Perfluorocarbon tracer technology	$150,000	5%
Control technology solicitation^c	$1,500,000	80%
^a A congressional directive mandates funding at this level for the establishment of monitoring stations in the southeastern United States, but no funds had been awarded as of June 1999. ^b Of the $450,000 DOE provided to TVA in fiscal year 1998, about one-third went to the 1999 Cumberland plume experiments. ^c This expenditure does not include the current projects listed in Appendix B. DOE issued a solicitation in the spring of 1999 for new projects on emission-control technologies.

DOE-FE's fine particulate research program is driven by three guiding principles: (1) maximal lever-aging of research funds, (2) the establishment of partnerships with key stake-holders,¹ and (3) the sharing of results. The program schedule is based on EPA's implementation schedule for the PM_2.5 NAAQS and is designed to assist in the collection and analysis of a significant volume of data over a four-year period starting in late 1998 (e.g., collection of data from more than a thousand monitors of ambient PM_2.5) and, at the same time, working toward the development of emission-control strategies and technologies.

The DOE-FE research plan and program includes research in three main areas:

ambient PM_2.5 sampling and chemical analysis
characterization of source emissions and plume/ atmospheric chemistry studies
development of control technologies

The committee agrees that these are appropriate areas for research for the DOE-FE to pursue although these areas could be extended to support epidemiological studies (see recommendations). The committee also questions whether the development of control technologies for primary PM emissions should be pursued at this point in the research program. The DOE has taken the lead and is the primary funding source for some of the projects in its research program. For others, DOE has followed a strategy of entering into partnerships with other groups as a contributing and/or minor participant to take advantage of ongoing studies. Thus, DOE plays an active, leading role in some projects and a passive, secondary role in projects directed by other groups. Table 3-1 shows the estimated budgets for current research projects and indicates DOE's involvement.

AMBIENT PM_2.5 SAMPLING AND ANALYSIS

The DOE-FE program includes the establishment of monitoring sites designed to provide data for determining the relationships between emissions from coal-fired power plants and other point and nonpoint sources, ambient PM_2.5, regional haze, and human exposure. Four projects are focused on sampling and analysis: (1) the UORVP (Upper Ohio River Valley Project), (2) visibility in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, (3) ARIES (the Aerosol Research Inhalation Epidemiology Study) in Atlanta, Georgia, and (4) the Birmingham, Alabama, site.

Upper Ohio Valley River Project

The largest portion of the budget is devoted to the UORVP. At present, DOE is the sole sponsor and the lead developer and overseer of this project. The objective of the UORVP, an extensive air-quality monitoring

¹	Stakeholders include industry, the health-effects research community, states, environmental groups, and the EPA.

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