Analysis of air pollution from fossil fuel powered electricity generating set around off-campus student’s hostel: consideration of location and number of generators in use

Abstract

Although combustion of fossil fuel has been widely reported to pollute the air and to have hazardous effect on humans and the environment, the students of the study area seem to have this cannot-do-without attitude towards fossil fuel powered electricity generating sets and this has resulted to continuous subscription to this electric power source. The paper attempts to understand the combinatorial effect of the factors affecting the pollution level and how, if possible, same can be minimize within the feasible solution space of proper positioning and optimum number of generators in use. Data were primarily sourced from student’s hostels with many of such generating sets, collated and analyzed using multivariate regression technique. The obtained result shows that although the positioning of the generators has significant effect on the air pollution level in the student’s hostels, for the case analyzed, the optimum distance away from the generator’s house (housing 14 generating sets) is about 35.73 meters for maximum air pollution level of 15 and humidity of 99. While for zero number of operating fossil fuel powered electricity generating sets, at humidity of 99 (highest obtained level), wind direction relative to the observer of 360, and wind speed of 5 (highest obtained level), the air pollution level was found to be 13.76 around the generator’s house, which is within the safe range (0 – 15). It then suggests that replacement of the fossil fuel powered electricity generators with renewable energy sources should be sought rather than the palliative of seeking proper location of the fossil fuel powered generators, considering the space limitation in most of the hostels