Integrated analyses of carbon emissions, water use and criteria air pollutant emissions for electricity generation in Texas

In managing critical infrastructures such as the electric power system, a major challenge is to simultaneously manage the impacts of the system on several different issue areas that are conventionally considered independently. For example, the operation of electric power generation facilities affects climate (through carbon dioxide emissions), regional air quality (through emissions of criteria pollutants), and water (through thermal cooling). Shifting generation between plants to reduce one impact may worsen one of the others. In this work, we examine trade-offs between carbon dioxide emissions and emissions of criteria air pollutants.