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Emissions from Power Plants: Sulfur Dioxide, Nitrogen Oxides, Carbon Dioxide
EPA’s Clean Air Markets website is a great tool for obtaining, among other things,
emissions data from specific facilities, units, or states. Upon clicking the “Data and Maps” link
on the left side of the page, you are brought to a functional diagram of all the data contained
within the Clean Air Markets database. For retrieving emissions information, the most useful
application is the “Query Wizard”. This application will allow you customize your emissions
queries to reflect annual, quarterly, monthly, daily, or hourly data for either a specific facility or
a type of unit. (It is important to note, however, that state data can be obtained from the
emissions query wizard by selecting the “Unit Characteristics” option – once a state is selected
from the list, a report can be generated without having to choose a specific unit.) The reports
generated contain sulfur dioxide emissions information from 1980 to the present, nitrogen oxides
and carbon dioxide data from 1995 to the present, and heat input numbers for individual units.
The data can also be easily sorted using the drop-down menu provided at the top of the report.
Although the query wizard is the most flexible way to generate emissions data, the Clean Air
Markets website also contains a number of reports that have already been compiled and
organized, which makes finding what you are looking for that much easier. Simply click on the
“Data Sets and Published Reports” icon on the main “Data and Maps” page, and you will be
presented with a number of useful links.
Emissions of Mercury and Other Toxic Chemicals
Power Plants
EPA maintains a useful site for tracking down mercury emissions called the Toxic
Release Inventory (TRI) Explorer. This database allows users to search for detailed information
on these emissions from power plants and other industry between the years of 1988 and 2002.
To do so,
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Click on “Select Specific Chemical(s)” from the “Chemicals Released” list;
Scroll down until you find mercury; and
Click it once to add it to the list of chemicals to search for.
After you have done this, click “Done” in the chemicals window to bring you back to the main
TRI Explorer page. From there,
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Use the drop-down “Industry” menu to choose the “Select from a list of SIC Codes”
option. This will open its own window, similar to that of the chemicals, with a list of
industries and their respective SIC codes;
Scroll down to “Utilities” in order to get power plant emission information; and
Add it to the query by another single click.
Once these steps have been completed, simply click “Generate Report” at the bottom of the page,
and your search will run, returning a sortable report. If, however, you are looking for corporate
information on mercury emitting power plants, Environmental Working Group’s 1999 report
“Mercury Falling: An Analysis of Mercury Pollution from Coal-Burning Power Plants” can be of
great use.
Other Industries and Chemicals
If your search entails finding out more than just information on mercury emissions from
power plants, users can easily select other chemicals and other industries to investigate in the
same fashion as before. By using the “Select Specific Chemical(s)” option in the “Chemicals
Released” drop-down menu and by selecting your preferred industry from TRI’s list of SIC
Codes, a single click will, once again, attach those entries to your query so they can be included
in the final report. Furthermore, in addition to the standard chemical release reports, TRI
Explorer can produce state fact sheets, waste transfer reports, and waste quantity reports by
clicking the appropriate tabs and completing the proper search fields. But if figuring out how to
generate the proper data table seems difficult, the help page for first-time users is very useful.
Emissions from Power Plants: By Company
A great resource for finding out power plant emissions is the Natural Resource Defense
Council’s Benchmarking Air Emissions website. This helpful and easy to use online database,
developed jointly with the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies and the Public
Service Enterprise Group, presents and compares air pollutant emissions of the 100 largest US
power producers for 2002. A specific focus is given to emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen
oxides, mercury, and carbon dioxide from these plants. As an added bonus, similar data from
2001 is available on the website as well, facilitating not only pollution comparisons by owner,
but also by year. Furthermore, each of these tables provided by NRDC is both sortable by rank
order and able to be downloaded in a Microsoft Excel format, allowing users to easily analyze
and compare emissions and emission rates from these top 100 power plants.
Upset Emissions
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s website (www.tnrcc.state.tx.us)
contains a very informative database on emission events that is useful for calculating fugitive
emissions in the state. To access the front page of this searchable database, click here. As you
can see, there are three options in conducting your query: you can search by (1) company (the
corporation name – e.g. Exxon); (2) regulated entity (the site name – e.g. Baytown refinery); or
(3) region. Upon completing all of the necessary fields, you will be presented with an unsorted
list of all the emission events for the company/entity/region for the specified time period.
(However, it is important to note that when entering a date range, the database is not equipped to
handle date requests prior to January 31, 2003.) The list generated comes complete with tracking
numbers, the location of the event, the dates of the beginning and end of the event, and the event
type. By clicking on the individual tracking numbers, you can get a full description of each of
the events, including emission totals for various pollutants.
State Emission Inventories
Some states maintain emissions inventory data online. Texas provides one good example
of a state with such a database. Information on emissions can be found in an Adobe format on
the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s website that is presorted either by account
number, county, SIC code, or company name, facilitating user analysis and comprehension.
While the inventory presents detailed data on pollutants such as volatile organic compounds,
nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, and particulate matter, it also displays annual
emission trends for these toxics for the past 4 years of available reporting (1999-2002).
Louisiana also has an emission inventory section on their environmental quality website. Their
Toxic Emissions Data Inventory (TEDI) contains information on all of the above pollutants, as
well as a more detailed look at what makes up the total VOC emissions from a specific facility.
Louisiana’s data is also presorted by categories including parish code, facility name, SIC code,
and chemical name. Although these databases are very useful in observing trends and
developments, the data itself tends to be fairly unreliable. Therefore, it is best to back up this
kind of state-held information with another source to achieve a higher level of accurateness.
Enforcement Data
EPA’s Enforcement and Compliance History Online (ECHO) database allows users to
search a multitude of enforcement data all from one website. This database tracks enforcement
actions and compliance with the Clean Air and Water Acts, the Resource Conservation and
Recovery Act, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act,
and other federal statutes. A facility’s compliance status, however, is only known for the past
two years. ECHO also includes detailed information on judicial and administrative cases lodged
from fiscal year 2001 until the present, which can be obtained by filling out the necessary search
forms provided. Four key components of the enforcement process at regulated facilities are
documented in this database:
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The occurrence of a monitoring event;
The determination of a violation (noncompliance);
The occurrence of a government enforcement action to address violations; and
Penalties associated with enforcement actions.
Political Contributions
For obtaining information on campaign donations, presidential or otherwise, by different
groups, industries, or individuals, the Center for Responsive Politics’ Opensecrets.org website
delivers a large quantity of very useful data. One of the more interesting aspects of this site is its
section that allows users to generate lists of donors by their industry affiliation. Not only are
total contribution amounts provided, but the respective contributors within their specific industry
and their recipients as well. To start along this path, click here to get to the main industry search
page. Then simply find your desired business universe by using either of the drop-down menus,
or by typing in some keywords in the field provided. Once you have reached that industry’s
main page, you can utilize the links located in the left column to get more detailed information.
For example, if you are looking for data on the top contributor from the energy sector,
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Simply click on “Energy/Natural Resources” in the first menu on the main industry
search page, and
Select “Top Contributors” in the left column to get the list.
Likewise, to view the top recipients of contributions made by the energy sector,
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Once again click on “Energy/Natural Resources” in the first menu on the main industry
search page, and
Select “Top Recipients” in the left column to get the list.
Additionally, for more of a micro look at where the money is coming from and where it is going,
specific industries can be selected within a particular sector by using the “Industries in this
Sector” drop-down menu also located in the left column. In continuing with our energy sector
example, if one were looking for information on who’s campaigns are benefiting from funds
donated by coal mining companies, all you would need to do is select “Coal Mining” from the
“Industries in this Sector” menu, and the data would be returned automatically.
Aside from these particular portions of the website, the rest of Opensecrets.org is also
very useful, and can be easily navigated using the tabs located at the top of each page.