An Evaluation of Human Health Risk from Biomass Power Plant in Thailand

Abstract

In Thailand, several biomass power plants are facing considerable opposition from local communities due to their concern over the perceived adverse health effects the pollutants they emit may generate. To address this issue, this study focuses on a small rice husk power plant (less than 10 MW) located in Surin province. The ISCST3 dispersion modeling tool was used to predict the concentration of stack emissions of SO2 and PM10 at varying distance from the source of emission. To assess potential health impacts on local communities, the risk assessment methodology was followed. The results showed that for the 3 communities targeted in these investigations, exposures to both SO2 and PM10 are safe with exposure concentration for the existing situation in the range, 0.083-0.171 μg/m3 and 0.062-0.121 μg/m3 respectively. It was also found that the exposure concentrations of SO2 and PM10 in ambient air that would lead to exceed the safe limit for health risk are 16.5 μg/m3 and 41.5 μg/m3 respectively. Since the concentrations of SO2 and PM10 in air are contributed by all sources of emissions and the rice husk power plant investigated in this study was found to contribute a minimal share, care in assessing inputs from all other emitting sources is required.