A wetfall chemistry study was conducted within a 15‐km radius of a large coal‐fired power plant in the southeastern United States. The study was conducted during the winter of 1981 and included event precipitation sampling on a dense network of 31 stations, selected air chemistry monitoring at two sites, and extensive meteorological measurements. The precipitation samples were analyzed for all major inorganic ionic species, including dissolved sulfur dioxide. The meteorological network included a preexisting network of 49 recording rain gages and four surface windsets, the power plant's fully equipped meteorological station, and a bistatic acoustic sounder. This paper presents the results from five of the sampled storms. Plume washout is evident in most target area samples, and sulfur, hydrogen ion, and chloride ion were found to be the predominant plume‐related species. Concentrations in the affected regions exceeded the background levels by up to 100% in the case of sulfur and of hydrogen ion, and by up to 145% in the case of chloride ion. Two of the storms were characterized by excess dissolved SO2 amounts in the target samples; for these storms, scavenging model simulations of dissolved SO2 concentrations indicated that deposition of sulfur by SO2 scavenging within 12 km was probably less than 2% of the total emitted. Based on the measured Cl− in rainwater, an estimate of the source strength (coal Cl content) using conventional gas scavenging theory appears reasonable.
The results from the first 18 months of a field study of power plant induced rainfall modification are presented. This study, a part of the Meteorological Effects of Thermal Energy Releases (METER) Program, employs a network of 49 recording raingages and four recording windsets situated around the Bowen Electric Generating Plant in northwestern Georgia. The results are based on the data from the period February 1978 to August 1979. The analysis was based on a nonparametric statistical approach and primarily compared medians and dispersions of rainfall distributions. The comparisons were performed in a control‐target framework, and the data were stratified according to various storm types. The tests failed, in most cases, to detect an effect. The risk of concluding an effect when in fact there is none was 5%.
This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, contractors, subcontractors, or their employees. makes any warranty, express or implied, nor assumes any legal liability or responsibility for any third party's use or the results of such use of any information , apparatus, product or process disclosed in this report. nor represents that its use by such th ird party would not infringe privately owned rights.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.