General Industry News

EPA Seeks Comment on its Annual GHG Inventory

The EPA is ready to release a draft of the GHG emissions report to the United Nations as soon as the public has had a chance to review the materials.

The EPA is seeking public comment on the annual Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-2009 draft report. This report will be open for public comment for 30 days after the Federal Register notice is published.

The draft report shows that in 2009, overall greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions decreased by six percent since 2008. This downward trend was attributed to a decrease in fuel and electricity consumption across all U.S. economic sectors. Total emissions from GHGs were about 6,640 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent. Overall, emissions have grown by 7.4 percent from 1990 to 2009. Emissions in 2009 represent the lowest total U.S. annual GHG emissions since 1995.

The inventory tracks annual greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 to 2009 at the national level. The gases covered by this inventory include CO2, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride. The inventory also calculates CO2 emissions that are removed from the atmosphere by “sinks,” e.g., through the uptake of carbon by forests, vegetation or soils.

This annual report is prepared by the EPA in collaboration with experts from other federal agencies. After responding to public comments, the U.S. government will submit the final inventory report to the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The report will fulfill the annual requirement of the UNFCCC international treaty, ratified by the United States in 1992, which sets an overall framework for intergovernmental efforts to tackle the challenge posed by climate change.

More information is available at this URL link.

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Roy D. Bigham has been the editor of Pollution Engineering since 2002. Bigham attended Eastern Michigan University where he majored in chemistry and computer science with an associates degree in mathematics. He has worked as a laboratory technician at a research laboratory, managed an electroplating operation and an associated analytical laboratory. He spent three years overseeing environmental operations of five domestic and five overseas operations for a major manufacturer in the Detroit area. He then managed a field services department for an environmental analytical laboratory before moving on to a position as an environmental engineer for a construction aggregates company.

Bigham won a design award for a waste water treatment system for a landfill in the Detroit area from the State Chamber of Commerce. He has been active in the environmental field since 1980.

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