Facilities Seeking to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions
The resources in this section are intended to provide background information to industry professionals who are responsible for facilities that emit climate-changing compounds. These resources are useful to industries and employees who seek to better understand climate change. Six are highlighted to get you started. Additional resources follow, organized by resource type.
CARB has overseen one of “the most extensive air monitoring networks” in the world for over 50 years. Widely-referenced CARB emission standards are designed to protect the most populous US state’s residents from harmful effects of air pollution and to develop programs and actions to fight climate change. CARB focuses primarily on pollution from “moving sources” (such as boats, cars and trucks) while local air quality management districts focus on pollution from “stationary sources”.
This tool provides a simple way to calculate both utility-scale and distributed generation renewable energy technologies. NREL provides additional tools, along with research and analysis.
Home Page for the European Commission on Energy, Climate Change, and the Environment. Defines agency labeling and reporting requirements, policies, targets. Provides practical advice into project implementation, standards, and tools used throughout the region.
The EPA is the primary US Agency protecting the environment. The organization assesses and investigates environmental impacts, provides legislative guidance, and recommends solutions to ensure clean and protected natural resources.
The GHGRP allows businesses and others to track and compare facilities' greenhouse gas emissions, identify opportunities to cut pollution, minimize wasted energy, and save money. States, cities, and other communities use the data to find high-emitting facilities in their area, to compare emissions between similar facilities, and to develop common-sense climate policies.
Provides current agency policy and research into renewable energy and carbon capture as undertaken by 17 national labs. Offers details on DOE loans for qualifying projects and available funding opportunities for public/private research.
A public agency that regulates stationary sources of air pollution in nine counties of California's San Francisco Bay Area. It provides comprehensive air quality data from all stationary industrial facilities, including wastewater treatment plants and other sites, such as landfills, that emit global warming compounds. The agency also provides an extensive analysis on wood smoke from both naturally-occurring and home-based wood burning and heat-generating activities. Information on best available pollution controls - identified as BACT (Best Available Control Technology) is also provided.
IEAGHG is one of the International Energy Agency (IEA) technology Collaboration Programmes (TCPs). Formed in 1991 to accelerate energy technology innovation via public/private knowledge sharing and collaboration. The Technology Collaboration Programme on Greenhouse Gas R&D, also known as IEAGHG, constitutes an autonomous and independent framework within the IEA network. The IEAGHG’s task is to “employ the best academic institutions and technical consultancies from around the world…to assess the role that technologies can play in reducing greenhouse gas emissions from both the power system and from industrial processes.”
The Canadian government’s Natural Resources website outlines how this agency of the world’s second largest country (by area) develops policies and programs that enhance contribution from the natural resources sector to the economy. The goal is to improve quality of life for all Canadians and to track innovations that generate ideas and transfer technologies. Readers will find extensive information and research data on earth sciences, energy efficiency, energy sources and distribution, forests and forestry, and minerals and mining.
One of several statewide, local air quality management agencies in California, the South Coast AQMD formed in 1976 and is responsible for regulating stationary sources of air pollution in the South Coast Air Basin of Southern California. As of 2021, the agency is focused on reducing NOx, ammonia, and particulate levels from these sources. It gathers data and shares inputs among technology providers and owner organizations to shape pollution control efforts.
The C2ES is the successor to the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, which was founded in 1998. This non-profit organization focuses on reducing greenhouse gases via a range of solutions, including market-based approaches and complementary policies which reflect the urgent need for action.
The CIEL, with offices in Washington, DC, and Geneva, Switzerland, works to provide legal counsel and advocacy, policy research, and capacity building across three program areas: Climate & Energy, Environmental Health, and People, Land, & Resources
Founded in 1987 as the Pace Energy Project, the Pace Energy and Climate Center works at the “intersection of energy and the environment”, engaging government decision makers and key stakeholders with research and analysis in law and policy. The Center has grown from its initial focus on energy regulatory law and policies to tackle transportation and fuels, as well as climate change mitigation and resilience.
The Sabin Center for Climate Change Law develops legal techniques to fight climate change, trains students and lawyers, and provides up-to-date resources on key topics in climate change law and regulation.
NREL, the US-based National Renewable Energy Laboratory provides a simple way to calculate both utility-scale and distributed generation renewable energy technologies. The LCOE calculator compares the combination of capital costs, operations and maintenance (O&M), performance, and fuel costs. Financing, discounting factors, costs for future replacement or those brought on by degradation are not included.
Providing science-based carbon accounting software and tailored advice from net zero experts, enabling companies to reduce their carbon footprints. Looking at Scopes 1, 2, and 3 from the Greenhouse Gas Protocol.
This project from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (US), described in the article in Climate Policy, posits that in the absence of government mandates or price supports, economics tend to drive decisions. The article advocates making sound business decisions on pollution abatement projects, as well as developing new energy sources. Provides a proposed definition and discussion of what it terms “the levelized cost” of carbon and its abatement.
The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) provides current data on the levelized cost of new power generation, with comparison of renewable to conventional energy generation. LCOE refers to the estimates of the revenue required to build and operate a generator over a specified cost recovery period. Levelized avoided cost of electricity (LACE) is the revenue available to that generator during the same period.
A study published in Science Daily, on the life cycle assessment of carbon capture at incineration plants. Acknowledges drawbacks (e.g.: transportation of waste for processing and other carbon-producing activities) and shows the advantage of carbon capture projects for the climate in general.
