Details of Ringaskiddy Plume Plotter

This page should be read in conjunction with How Plume Plotter Works. It provides more details specific to the Ringaskiddy version of Plume Plotter.

Stacks and buildings

Building measurements are taken from the building plans included in the EIS [1].

This image shows the layout of the stack and buildings modelled. (North is at the top; numbers indicate the height of stacks and buildings; lighter shades of pink are used for higher buildings.)

Stack measurements

All of these are taken from [1]:

For consistency with other incinerators, a single value is used for albedo, Bowen ratio, and roughness length, unlike the complicated values used in [1]:

Emissions

The emission rates of pollutants are taken from Tables A8.2 and A8.91b of [1]. We use the long-term maximum emission concentrations and the maximum flow rate, for consistency with other incinerators modelled. Unlike [1], we never use "abnormal" emission concentrations because these are only allowed during abnormal operation, which is rare. The emission rates are:

PollutantEmission rate
per second
Oxides of nitrogen7.89 g
Particulates PM10400 mg
Sulphur dioxide2 g
TOC400 mg
Carbon monoxide2 g
Hydrogen chloride400 mg
Hydrogen flouride40 mg
Cadmium and thallium2 mg
Mercury2 mg
Other metals20 mg
Dioxins and furans4 ng

Background levels

The background levels of pollutants are taken from the "Baseline Monitoring" row of Table A8.23 of [1]. These are:

PollutantBackground
concentration per m3
Oxides of nitrogen9 μg
Particulates PM1020 μg
Sulphur dioxide9 μg
TOC1 μg
Carbon monoxideN/A
Hydrogen chloride1.2 μg
Hydrogen flouride50 ng
Cadmium and thallium1 ng
Mercury1 ng
Other metals10 ng
Dioxins and furans1.3 fg

For consistency with other incinerators, the background concentration of nitrogen oxides shown here is actually the background concentration of nitrogen dioxide only.

Weather data

Weather data is taken from METAR reports from a local airport: Cork.

For historical plots, official weather data from the Roches Point weather station is used, with cloud cover from Cork Airport.

Upper air data is the latest reported by the Valentia upper air station.

References

1. Ringaskiddy Resource Recovery Centre: Environmental Impact Statement. APPENDIX 8.1 - AIR QUALITY STUDY.