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The West Virginia Division of Air Quality (DAQ) does not currently require sources to report their GHG emissions directly to DAQ. The DAQ will obtain the federal GHG data being collected rather than requiring sources to report GHG data to the State as well as to EPA. Sources are still encouraged however, to voluntarily report GHGs when completing their annual Emissions Inventory.
Reporting Greenhouse Gases to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
The Environmental Protection Agency’s Mandatory Reporting Rule of Greenhouse Gases (MRR-GHG) applies to direct greenhouse gas emitters, fossil fuel suppliers, industrial gas suppliers, and facilities that inject CO2 underground for sequestration or other reasons. In general, the threshold for reporting is 25,000 metric tons or more of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent per year. Reporting is at the facility level, except for certain suppliers of fossil fuels and industrial greenhouse gases.
Is the Mandatory Greenhouse Gas Reporting Rule Applicable to your Facility?
Please use EPA’s
Greenhouse Gas Overview
Certain gases effectively trap heat in the earth's atmosphere. The net effect is much like a greenhouse where the glass allows light but keeps heat from escaping. The so-called greenhouse gases can have a similar effect and may actually influence the earth's climate. Our climate appears to be warming and many scientists believe that human greenhouse gas emissions are contributing. The warming potentially can lead to serious consequences, including changes in weather patterns, increased droughts, increased extreme weather events and adverse impacts on various species.
For an image of the greenhouse effect, please select the link below:
Greenhouse Effect (Climate Change)
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/overview.html
The substances of concern include individual gases as well as groups of gases that have similar characteristics. The typical list includes six items:
The greatest amounts of emissions, both naturally and man-made, occur from carbon dioxide, followed by methane.
Greenhouse gases are not created equal. Each possesses a different efficiency for trapping heat. For example methane is about 21 times more potent than CO2 and sulfur hexafluoride is thousands of times more potent than CO2. Therefore, to estimate the net effect on climate, GHG emissions are usually converted to CO2 equivalent (CO2e) and then expressed in metric tons.
2011 U.S. Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report
INVENTORY OF U.S. GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS AND SINKS: 1990-2009
(April 2011)
USEPA #430-R-11-005
The Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks, is an emissions inventory that identifies and quantifies the country's primary anthropogenic1sources and sinks of greenhouse gases that are essential for addressing climate change. This inventory adheres to both (1) a comprehensive and detailed set of methodologies for estimating sources and sinks of anthropogenic greenhouse gases, and (2) a common and consistent mechanism that enables Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to compare the relative contribution of different emission sources and greenhouse gases to climate change.
In 1992, the United States signed and ratified the UNFCCC. As stated in Article 2 of the UNFCCC, “The ultimate objective of this Convention and any related legal instruments that the Conference of the Parties may adopt is to achieve, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Convention, stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. Such a level should be achieved within a time-frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner.”
The Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program
The deadline to submit 2012 reports is
April 1, 2013.
EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program
Greenhouse Gas Permitting
EPA’s Prevention of Significant Deterioration and Title V Greenhouse Gas Tailoring Rule /
Clean Air Act Permitting for Greenhouse Gases:
Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the largest stationary sources were, for the first time, covered by the Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) and Title V Operating Permit Programs beginning January 2, 2011. These permitting programs, required under the Clean Air Act, are proven tools for protecting air quality and the same tools will be used to reduce GHG emissions. But the thresholds established in the Act for determining when emissions of pollutants make a source subject to these permitting programs, 100 and 250 tons per year, were based on traditional pollutants and were not designed to be applied to GHGs.
Fact Sheet – summary of the tools and background on permitting for GHGs (PDF)
Permitting Effects of the Tailoring Rule
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West Virginia
Contact Information
Emissions Inventories
304/926-0499
Extension 41291
General Information
GHG Reporting
to EPA
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Global Warming Potentials
(100-Year Time Horizon)
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Gas
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GWP
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CO2
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1
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CH4
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21
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N2O
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310
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HFC-23
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11,700
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HFC-32
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650
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HFC-125
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2,800
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HFC-134a
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1,300
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HFC-143a
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3,800
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HFC-152a
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140
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HFC-227ea
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2,900
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HFC-236fa
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6,300
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HFC-4310mee
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1,300
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CF4
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6,500
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C2F6
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9,200
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C4F10
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7,000
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C5F14
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7,400
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SF6
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23,900
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Source: IPCC (1996) and listed as Table ES-1 from the Executive Summary of the Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-2009, page 3:
*The CH4 GWP includes the direct effects and those indirect effects due to the production of tropospheric ozone and stratospheric water vapor. The indirect effect due to the production of CO2 is not included.
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