Bad Policy, Bad Government, and Ozone
While the world is spinning into a spiral of crime, moral decay, and the highest inflation in a generation, I am going to focus on an obscure piece of news relegated to the back pages of our papers. That would be ozone and how our gas prices are going to go up at least 50 cents a gallon as a result. Well actually, the problem is not ozone, but the policies of the EPA, our state government, and the failure of our Governor.
Like most problems that society chooses to remedy, they follow a typical arc. There is an awareness of a problem. There is the research to understand the magnitude of the problem. There is regulation to solve the problem by an established bureaucracy and consultant class whose economic existence is tied to the continuation of the problem. And finally, the people (us) who have had little to do with the awareness, research, or regulation of the problem have to pay the price for what ultimately didn’t work.
Air Pollution
But first, we cannot discuss the problem of ozone without recognizing the problem air pollution in general. Air pollution has been around for a long time. A long, long time. Before humans existed, there was a never-ending cycle of growth and destruction all of which affected the air on the planet. Volcanoes erupted, plants and animals died and decayed, fires burned and renewed the forests. Life, death, change and what we call pollution are all part of the natural order of existence.
With man’s arrival, we created more air pollution as our ancestors discovered fire to stay warm and cook their food. We cleared the forests with fire in order to provide land to grow life sustaining food upon which their existence relied.
When the industrial age came, we created additional pollution as we burned coal to run our machines and warm our houses concentrating pollution in smaller and smaller urban populated areas. In 1905, Dr. Henry Antoine Des Voeux created a name for this pollution. He called it “smog”, the combining of smoke and fog. London was notorious for its coal caused smogs, which were nicknamed "pea-soupers".
Ok what about my 50 cents a gallon, you say…. Hold on for a moment.
What is Ozone?
There are two types of ozone, at least for this discussion. The first comes naturally. The second is anthropogenic, caused by man.
Naturally Caused
The two big areas of naturally caused pollution which turns into ozone is volcanoes and plants. An erupting volcano can emit high levels of sulfur dioxide along with a large quantity of particulate matter; two key components for the creation of smog.
Plants are the source of hydrocarbons that undergo reactions in the atmosphere and produce smog. Both plants and soil contribute a substantial amount to the production of hydrocarbons, mainly by producing isoprene and terpenes. Hydrocarbons released by plants can often be more reactive than man-made hydrocarbons. For example, when plants release isoprene, the isoprene reacts very quickly in the atmosphere with hydroxyl radicals. These reactions produce hydroperoxides which increase ozone formation.
Enough chemistry? …Well, not quite.
Human Caused
Summer smog, also called Photochemical smog, is a type of air pollution which occurs during hot weather in built-up urban areas with sunny, warm, dry climates and a large number of motor vehicles. It is the chemical reaction of sunlight, nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds in the atmosphere, which leaves airborne particles and ground-level ozone.
Good Ozone vs Bad Ozone
To make things more complicated, there is good ozone and bad ozone. The good ozone occurs naturally in the Earth’s upper atmosphere 10 to 30 miles above the Earth’s surface. There it forms a protective layer that shields us from the sun’s radiation. Without this protective shield, we would die.
Bad ozone is in the Earth’s lower atmosphere, near ground level. This ozone is formed when pollutants emitted by cars, power plants, industrial boilers, refineries, chemical plants, and other sources react chemically in the presence of sunlight.
We are going to talk about the bad ozone.
So how bad is it?
I would suggest that the honest answer is, we don’t know for sure, but we have an idea.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that there are 7 million deaths per year attributed to both indoor and outdoor pollution and stem from both man-made and natural sources of air pollution.
The largest source of natural air pollution is airborne dust in the world’s deserts. Other natural sources of pollution are fires, sea spray, pollen and volcanoes. Human caused sources include electricity production, burning of solid fuels for cooking and heating in poor households, agriculture, industry and road transport.
To give you a perspective on the magnitude of the problem, the 7 million deaths per year from the WHO estimate includes deaths of 3.8 million from indoor pollution and 4.8 million deaths from outdoor pollution. I know these numbers don’t add up to 7 million, but some deaths are attributed to both indoor and outdoor pollution. How can you tell if someone died of ozone exposure or cigarette smoking. To a large degree, they are guessing.
For your interest and amusement, while a number of pollutants have negative health impacts, the greatest adverse impact to humanity is actually particulate matter. Particulate matter is everything in the air that is not a gas. The largest source of natural air pollution is airborne dust in the world’s deserts. This form of particulate matter is a large threat to the health of people in the arid regions of the world (like Denver). A second major natural source is the smoke from wildfires in forests and grasslands (like Denver).
Getting back to ozone, the WHO says that the death toll from ozone is much lower than that of particulate matter but guesses that ozone is still responsible for hundreds of thousands of premature worldwide deaths every year.
Although, the WHO doesn’t ascribe many deaths to ozone (comparatively), ozone can make life more miserable by causing coughing, throat irritation, and congestion. It can also worsen bronchitis, emphysema, and asthma. In perspective, ozone can be bad, but not as bad as other evils which face us in the world.
Hey, but when are we going to talk about the 50 cent gas increase? … Hmmm, Not yet.
How we measure Air Quality?
To understand the relative harm and the appreciate the rationality of the limits set for ozone, we have to talk about the Air Quality Index. Air quality is measured by a nationwide monitoring system that records concentrations of ozone and several other air pollutants at more than a thousand locations across the country.
The EPA has translated these pollutant concentrations from all sources to the Air Quality Index, which ranges from 0 to 500. An AQI value of 100 usually corresponds to the national ambient air quality standard for the pollutant or in other words, natural background air. The AQI scale has been divided into distinct categories, each corresponding to a different level of health concern.
If you look at your weather app on your phone, it will have the air quality number. This is where that number comes from.
The AQI of 0-50 is Good,
51-100 is Moderate,
101 to 150 is Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups,
150 -200 is Unhealthy,
200-300 is Very Unhealthy, and
300-500 is also part of the AQI, but it never gets that high.
To compare this scale to ozone readings, the EPA lists ozone as:
0 to 64 ppb (parts per billion)-Good,
65 to 84 ppb-Moderate,
85-150 ppb-Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups, and
105 to 124 ppb-Unhealthy.
To compare, an ozone rating of 84 would be the AQI equivalent of 100 or background air.
Setting the standards and changing the rules
In 1979, the EPA set a national ozone standard of 120 parts per billion (ppb). In 1997, the EPA changed its standard for reasons I do not understand to 80 parts per billion. Being less than 84 ppb, this is lower than one would expect in natural ambient air.
In 2009, the standard was lowered again to 75 ppb and yet again in 2015 to 70 ppb. 70 ppb of ozone is well below the upper limit for moderate air quality.
As the EPA ratcheted ozone standards below ambient air, it’s not as if our air was getting dirtier. We made great strides with automobile technology including catalytic converters and scrubbers on coal fired power plants. A July 2018 report estimated that the emissions of six key pollutants had dropped 73% between 1970 and 2017. In addition between 1990 and 2017, ground level ozone decreased by 22 percent.
Nevertheless, while the EPA set a series of attainment standards to be accomplished over time, as a result of it moving the regulatory goal posts on ozone standards, Colorado reported more violations.
There were no consequences for these particular failures as Colorado went from moderate nonattainment to serious nonattainment with a series of extensions, waivers and agreements all with the promise to reduce ozone levels in the future.
The problem with ozone compliance in Denver and the Front Range of the Rockies is that ozone levels are naturally higher due to the mountains trapping out-of-state pollution and wildfire emissions. Colorado’s overall high altitude also contributes to an increase of ozone over which the state has no control.
In addition, in a 2015 study led by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, it found that while the United States had removed a fifth of its ozone producing emissions between 2005 and 2010, there was no drop in US atmospheric measurements due to a combination of naturally occurring atmospheric processes and pollutants crossing the Pacific Ocean from China.
Indeed, Chinese pollution accounted for as many as 5 parts per billion of ozone. If Colorado had not been penalized for including Chinese pollution in its measurements, it would have resulted in Colorado being in compliance with the strictest EPA standards.
Ozone measurements of between 65 and 75 ppb have been recorded at remote air quality monitoring sites outside the front range monitoring areas with few if any anthropogenic contributions. Indeed, many readings were approaching 70 ppb without a single emission from Colorado businesses or residents. No matter what we did, there was no way for Colorado to meet the lowered EPA ozone goals.
In 2018, Former Gov Hickenlooper recognized the problems associated with ratcheting down the standards, the futility in attempting to comply, and the potential consequences of falling into the severe attainment category for ozone. He pursued an extension of time to comply with the standards by arguing that the EPA should consider and exclude out-of-state pollution, including from foreign countries. The extension would have resulted in the lack of any consequences for failure to meet the ozone standards until the rules could be adjusted to reflect realities in the Rocky Mountain region. The EPA would have granted the extension.
A Really Bad Decision.
However, in 2019, Gerald Polis took office as the new Governor of Colorado and in one of his first acts, he inexplicably rescinded Hickenlooper’s EPA extension request. At the time, Polis was pushing his climate agenda to cripple the oil and gas industry as well as to his implement his radical greenhouse gas initiatives reducing emissions to 90 % of 2005 levels.
Even as he was aware that there was no hope to reduce ozone levels to comply with the EPA standards, the State now had only three years (until 2022) to comply with the tightened ozone standards with no further opportunity for waiver or appeal.
Three years later, in May 2022, the State was told by the EPA that in accordance with the regulations, it was going to downgrade Colorado’s attainment status from serious to severe, and the State would have to suffer the penalties that the regulation provided.
Colorado regulators knew that the downgrade was coming, and Polis responded with the usual…more calls for electric vehicles (that don’t exist), the approval of $65 million to help school districts transition to electric school buses only as they replace them, and free rides on RTD light rail and buses during August. Everyone knew that these measures would not contribute to satisfying the EPA ozone goals.
Polis also provided $47 million to the Air Pollution Control Division to hire more state regulators and buy more air quality monitoring technology. Since April, the Air Pollution Control Division hired 60 employees, including 13 to work on permitting. The Division still has 40 more positions to fill. None of these new State employees will do anything meaningful to reduce ozone levels, but will no doubt contribute to its increase as they drive to work.
The Punishment.
So why is my gas going up 50 cents a gallon? Ok now I will tell you.
As part of the consequences for the reclassification to “severe”, the EPA requires that motorists use a special blend of gasoline beginning in the summer of 2024 that will cost drivers an estimated “minimum” of 50 cents per gallon more than they are paying now.
While it is easy to sit in a conference room to send out a decree that says, you are in a severe “nonattainment” area and you have to use reformulated gasoline. Implementing that decision is a lot harder. In Colorado 35-40% of the gasoline supply is provided by the Suncor refinery in Commerce City. Another 30% is provided from Wyoming and the rest via pipeline from the gulf states and other bordering states.
Upgrades to refineries to make blended reformulated gas can cost hundreds of millions of dollars as well as higher ongoing costs to produce the fuel. Since the out-of-state refineries don’t have to sell reformulated gas because they are not located in Colorado, they probably won’t and will sell their gas in other markets. Those refineries throughout the country that do already refine this particular required chemical mix could fill the gap, but the costs of transporting the gas to Colorado from farther away by truck rather than pipeline will increase costs further. And if these refineries don’t want to sell to Colorado, we could be out of gas in the Summer of 2024.
But hey, ok it’s bad. It increases gas prices in these inflationary times by over 13%, but if it reduces ozone for the health of the community wouldn’t it be worth it? You know, save lives? Well, in this case, no. It wouldn’t be worth it, and it won’t save lives.
The concept that requiring reformulated gas to be used in the summer to reduce emissions is an old rule and an old concept. Over the years, car engines have been modified to run better and smoother and produce fewer emissions running on regular gasoline so now the benefits to changing to expensive reformulated gas is very small.
There is also the concern that the reformulated gas wouldn’t be limited just to the Denver Metro/Front Range counties in the severe nonattainment area covered by the decree since to allow regular gas to be sold at a 50-cent discount in other parts of the State would encourage more trips out of the metro area to buy cheap gas. These longer trips and miles traveled would only create more hydrocarbon emissions which would turn into ozone.
Even the Colorado Energy Office, no friend to the Colorado consumer when it comes to environmental policy, has said that requiring the Denver area to use reformulated gas will reduce ozone emissions only by .01 ppb (that is 1 part per 100,000,000,000). Will the edict to buy reformulate gas as a required remedy of the regulation reduce ozone emissions. Absolutely not. It’s not going to matter to the environment. It will have no effect.
But reformulated gas isn’t the only downside as a result of Polis’ withdrawal of the request for an extension. An additional 600 businesses will be required to prepare, process, and request Title V, federal air permits. The state currently grants 250 of those permits. With the designation of “severe” nonattainment status that number increases 240%.
While much of the new burden of this new wasteful effort will fall on small oil and gas producers, the rule also extends to companies one would not think of as major industrial polluters; commercial printing, computer processing and date preparation, hospitals, and food processors like bakeries and breweries.
Increased permitting burdens have very little to do with improving air quality. It will only increase day-to-day business costs which will either be passed on to consumers or if too burdensome, the businesses will close.
Can it get any worse or more ridiculous? Well actually, it can. There is something in environmental rules called the “good neighbor policy”. This policy would require those states linked to downwind air-quality problems to adopt reduction strategies to reduce their own emissions to better enable their neighboring states, Colorado, in this case, to meet its EPA air-quality standards. In the case of Colorado, those “good neighbors” who contribute downwind pollution are Wyoming and Utah.
If the good neighbor policy was implemented, Wyoming, which accounts for merely 1% of Colorado’s ozone problem, could be required to adopt expensive air-quality strategies, such as reformulated gas, despite being ranked as having some of the best air quality in the Country.
To make this tale more ridiculous, even with the unrealistic standards set by the EPA; the Chinese pollution, unfavorable geography caused by our Mountains, and an unfair amount of sunny weather, we are actually awfully close to meeting the EPA’s arbitrary goals.
Colorado ozone level violations have usually occurred in specific areas affecting fewer than half of the regions 196 ozone monitors. In fact, in the latest June 2022 monitoring data, only 5 monitors out of 16 along the front range showed levels over 70 ppb and none over 75 ppb.
Lessons
We have allowed a system to be created where we are trapped by our own nonsensical regulations that are so complex and interwoven that we can’t find a way out to come to realistic common-sense solutions for solving our real environmental problems. Added to that, we have a Governor who is so arrogant and obsessed with his green agenda that he would rather let the people that he represents suffer for no reason rather than bear what he believes is a crack in his environmental agenda by asking for an extension of EPA rules, which I suspect even the EPA realizes are ridiculous and unattainable.
The lesson for us is that we need to pay attention to the stories on the back pages of the newspapers as our Government and the regulatory industry that feeds on it is willing to regulate for regulation sake alone. We need to understand that a utopia where no pollutants exist will never occur. We need to understand that some goals can never achieved, and finally we need to understand that there are politicians who we have elected who put their own environmental morality over the people they serve.