Home – Home – Jornals – Geography and natural resources 2016 number 5S

Presented are the data of monitoring of power generation facilities located in the central ecological zone of the Baikal natural territory. For specifying the location and classification of the power grid facilities, thermal and diesel electric power plants and boilers we developed the information system for the power generation infrastructure in the central ecological zone. It is found that most consumers in the central ecological zone receive electricity in a centralized manner from the power systems of Irkutsk and the Republic of Buryatia and that there are only some local areas of autonomous electric power supply. It is established that the most severe impact on the natural environment in the zone comes from the boilers, and from the Baikalsk thermal power station. Furthermore, the boilers of Irkutsk oblast use almost all kinds of energy resources. In the Republic of Buryatia, coal is the main type of fuel. On the basis of systematized data on the capacity series of the boilers, and on the type and characteristics of fuels, we calculated the volume and ingredient composition of air emissions of pollutants. Among the areas of the central ecological zone, the largest emissions from the power generation facilities correspond to the Severo-Baikal’skii district of the Republic of Buryatia, and to the Slyudyanskii district of Irkutsk oblast. We compiled the list of a possible mitigation of the anthropogenic load on the natural environment in the central ecological zone, including a modernization of boiler equipment, the transfer to ecologically clean types of fuel (natural gas, and timber processing waste), the use of electric energy for heat-supply purposes, and the use of renewable energy sources (geothermal, solar and wind power stations, and heat pumps).