Optional Specification of Air-Pollution-Emission Regulations Including Reliability Requirements

A basic model for air-pollution control is a semi-infinite program that minimizes the sum of individual polluter's control costs while ensuring that ambient pollution concentrations are within air-quality standards. This paper is an extension that includes the effects of pollution-control-device breakdowns and shutdowns for planned maintenance. We use the fact that days characterized by good dispersion of pollution emissions occur periodically and can be accurately forecast for shutdown periods. A stochastic process of breakdown arrivals and servicing, and appropriate extensions of diffusion models give rise to a model for additional concentrations due to downtime. Parameters of the stochastic process are included as decision variables in a chance-constrained semi-infinite program allowing for tradeoffs between collection efficiency and various reliability characteristics. A practical implementation model and solution techniques are given for possible use in the present clean-air program.