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Air Emissions and Air Quality Studies
Benbow Environmental is able to provide a comprehensive range of services within the fields of air emissions and air quality. This includes measuring emissions and air quality at sites according to Australian Standards, modelling air dispersion and air pollution impacts, developing management programmes and controls, and interpreting the regulations concerning air matters.
A wider description of these services follows below.
- Stack monitoring for PM10, PM2.5, PM1.0 and TSP particulates, odour, acid gases, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), hydrocarbons, moisture, Ringelman Number, Bacarach tests
- Design of ventilation equipment
- Stack design to prevent health effects on the residential community or odour nuisance
- Computer modelling using ‘AUSPLUME’, US EPA's 'CALPUFF', and ISC
- Performance assessment of combustion processes
- Environmental Monitoring Programmes
- Environmental Auditing
- Due Diligence Programmes
- Assistance with environmental protection licence applications and annual reporting to regulators
- Climatic effects on air emissions
- Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) – building air conditioning/ventilation systems to prevent sick building syndrome
- High volume sampler measurements
- Measurement of particle size distributions of emissions using Cascade Impactors
- Design control measures
Odour Measurement and Control
Benbow Environmental can measure and determine odour dilution units (ODU), or odour concentration, from laboratory analysis and a real-time field measurement device – the “Nasal Ranger”. From these measurements, specific odour emission rates can be calculated.
Odour releases from existing and proposed operations can also be assessed using industry recognised modelling techniques to determine odorous impacts, and thus allow the means to plan for control measures if need be.
Some examples of industries and clients Benbow Environmental have worked with include:
- Metal Processing and Fabrication – Alcoa & Ingal Civil Products;
- Building Materials – Readymix, CSR Building materials;
- General Manufacturing – Aeropack Australia, Nestle;
- Waste Industry - WSN Environmental, Wanless Waste Corp, Visy Recycling, Cleanaway, Stericorp;
- Produce Industry - Poultry farms, Piggery farms, poultry processing facilities;
- Energy – Smithfield cogeneration plant, Huntley (NZ) cogeneration plant; and
- Sustainable industries – EDL Appin and Tower Methane conversion plants, Sydney gas sites.
Latest Newsletter Article Related to Air Quality
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Air Impact Assessments for Gas Compressor Stations - February 2010
Benbow Environmental have prepared air impact assessments for some of the gas compressor stations in QLD and NSW and were able to advise stack heights to readily comply with the Australian air quality regulation limits and guidelines in NSW.
In NSW, impacts from the site were assessed based on the limits stipulated by the Protection of Environment and Operations (Clean Air) Regulation, as well assessing air impacts against the nearest residences and other locations which could be considered health sensitive. Queensland gas compressor stations were also assessed against these regulations as they are based on the National Environmental Protection Measure (NEPM) targets, which are air quality objectives for Australia and New Zealand.
Recently, Benbow Environmental has prepared an air impact assessment for similar, though larger, gas compressor stations in Oman in the Middle East. Unlike the previous work that had been done for Australian gas compressor stations, the initial screening assessment has found that air emission impacts from the site were showing potential exceedances to the limits applied in Oman, which are based on World Health Organization (WHO) limits. Discussions were made with the project managers to consider “end of pipe” solutions but these were not viable.
Benbow Environmental was then asked to prepare a much more detailed air impact assessment to help determine not only the results during various worst-case meteorological and site operation conditions but also determine ways to achieve compliance without resorting to “end of pipe” solutions.
The air impact assessment provided outcomes that implementation of catalytic converters on their compressor and gas-powered generator engines were not necessary to achieve compliance but were helpful in reducing the overall emissions from the site. The detailed assessment also found that the major potential source of air emissions from the site was the flare used for burning excess fuel. This is due to the nature of flares and its potential to release significant quantities of air emissions. Numerous scenarios for the flares were developed and had showed exceedances to the applicable limits.
A risk based approach was developed to determine the likelihood of the operating conditions occurring, the frequency of these occurrences, the consequences to receivers and the frequency the receivers could expect to be exposed.
As a result during the final stages of the assessment, the frequency and operational parameters of the flaring operations were then designed to be limited and controlled. The site was enabled to achieve compliance with the Oman and WHO limits.
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