Ever wonder where you can find California’s biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions?
You can now find them on a handy interactive map, just released by the California Air Resources Board.
Oil and gas producers, cement plants, petroleum refineries, hydrogen plants… your friendly neighborhood industrial polluters are all here.
As reported by Climate Watch:
A new interactive map from the California Air Resources Board taps the versatility of Google Earth software to transform eye-glazing spreadsheet data into a visual, if wonky, feast.
The map shows the locations and greenhouse gas emissions of about 625 facilities — the largest industrial greenhouse gas emitters in the state. The graphical tool can filter by type of facility (cement plant, refinery, electricity generation), by county or air district. You can use the satellite view to see a facility’s physical footprint, then switch over to Google Earth to see how its carbon footprint stacks up against other emitters.
Here’s one not-so-fun fact I learned from the map: The Chevron Refinery in Richmond (which caught fire yesterday and forced thousands of San Francisco Bay Area residents to shelter in place for hours) released 4.5 million metric tons of greenhouse gases in 2010. That’s a lot of greenhouse gas when compared to other emitters.
The California Air Board requires facilities that emit 25,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide a year (about the same as the emissions of about 5,000 cars) to report their emissions annually. This information is already public, but the map makes it far more accessible for the average person with access to the Internet.
One last thing: All of the companies on the Air Board’s map are participating in the state’s cap-and-trade program, a central element of California’s Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32). The cap-and-trade program sets lower limits on companies’ greenhouse gas emissions and allows companies who emit less than their cap to sell permits to those who exceed their limits. The first auction of carbon pollution permits is scheduled for November this year. (A recent poll revealed that few Californians know anything about the auctions, despite the fact that they’re expected to generate anywhere from $2 billion to $14 billion annually in new revenues.) Stay tuned…
