Assessment of Severity of Impact on Human Within The Proximity to A Fossil Fuel Power Plant

The present paper studies how the severity of adverse impacts due to electricity generation in a fossil fuel power plant decreases over distance from the plant and thus its overall impact on human health. To assess such impacts, an empirical relationship between the severity of impact (SoI) for any pollutant and distance from a power plant has been developed by incorporating the "Gaussian Plume Model" for atmospheric dispersion of pollutants. The resulting nonlinear equation has been implied for a conceptual assessment of SoI on humans due to electricity generation in a natural gas thermal power plant in Bangladesh. Results of this assessment showed that for CO2 being the pollutant with the degree of severity (DoS) equal to 1, SoI at 450m distance from this particular power plant is around 4.5% of the SoI at 150m distance. Further, it has also been assessed that for the same amount of electricity generation in this power plant, combined cycle power plant (CCPP) units cause less adverse impacts on human health compared to gas engine or steam turbine units. Finally, an annual cumulative effect has been projected for CO2 emitted from this power plant.