Anna Townshend is managing editor of Plant Services and has been a journalist and editor for almost 20 years. In addition to writing and editing thousands of articles in her career, she has been an active speaker on industry panels and presentations. In this episode of Great Question: A Manufacturing Podcast, she reads her latest Maintenance Mindset article, where each week one of the Plant Services editors highlights important and interesting nuggets in the news about manufacturing and asset management.
Below is an excerpt from the podcast:
What if we could see greenhouse gases? Better yet, what if plant staff could identify toxic plumes or areas of high emissions through machine sensors? Scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) are working on it, specifically upgrading our ability to measure and analyze greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. They have their sights set on the more problematic of GHGs to measure—methane—and one that, at this point, could be doing more potential damage long-term than carbon dioxide. Scientists do have methods for gas measurement, but free-form dual-comb spectroscopy will be faster, more flexible and can perform more sensitive analysis (22 times higher sensitivity than traditional methods), potentially making it easier to identify emissions at the source.
For many process-based facilities, GHG emissions measurement is already a reality. Commitments to the 2015 Paris Agreement or Paris Climate Accord and achieving net zero GHG emissions by 2050, with a 50% reduction by 2030, will take much deeper emissions monitoring and reductions in industry and beyond.
Many industries are reporting annual GHG emissions, a total of more than 8,000 facilities as part of the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP). Every October EPA releases GHG emissions data from the previous year. Currently, power plants are the largest emitters, followed by oil and gas, and non-fluorinated chemical manufacturers, which produce ammonia, hydrogen, ethylene and other chemicals. GHG emissions are trending downward, according to GHGRP reporting, but not quickly enough.
EPA says: “For sources reporting to the GHGRP, emissions decreased by 4.4% from 2022 to 2023. Over the past thirteen reporting years (2011-2023), GHGRP reported direct emissions from sectors other than oil and gas (also excluding suppliers) declined by 27.1%. This decline is primarily caused by a 33.8% decline in reported power plant emissions since 2011.”
