Citation:

Thoma, E., R. Duvall, AND I. George. Rubbertown NGEM Demonstration Project Update Meeting #6, Rubbertown Community Advisory Council (RCAC) Meeting, September 12, 2019. Rubbertown Community Advisory Council (RCAC) Meeting, Louisville, KY, September 12, 2019.

Impact/Purpose:

Many traditional point and mobile sources of air pollution have a known emission origin (e.g. stack, vent, or tailpipe) with predictable temporal profiles. These sources typically benefit from accurate source emissions test data and engineering models (e.g. fuel-based emission factors), leading to well-developed inventories. However, some types of stationary air pollution sources have much higher uncertainty in both emissions and impacts because they are difficult to measure and model and can exhibit significant stochastic behavior. Refineries, chemical plants, oil and gas production sites, waste facilities, and other industrial/commercial operations can emit air pollutants from complex sources such as fugitive equipment leaks, waste ponds and sewers, unconfined operations, process startups/malfunctions, and improperly controlled systems. Unlike traditional sources, this category of emissions can be spatially distributed and temporally variable or randomly occurring, with a source’s location or even its existence sometimes unknown. In many cases, emissions from these sources can be profoundly affected by atmospheric conditions, creating complicated near-source dynamics. A key to achieving better understanding and management of these sources lies in the development and application of new measurement and near-source modeling approaches that can help identify and characterize emissions, advance knowledge of impacts, and enable efficacious mitigation strategies. These topics are explored under EPA’s Next Generation Emissions Measurement (NGEM) research conducted under ORD’s Air and Energy (AE) Program. As described in the below abstract, this following product advances the NGEM research topic.

Description:

EPA and the Louisville Metro Air Pollution Control District (LMAPCD) are working together to test new approaches to better understand and manage emissions from industry. This effort, called the “Rubbertown Next Generation Emissions Measurement (NGEM) Demonstration Project”, started in September 2017 and will continue into 2020. The project is described in following Science in Action fact sheet (https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2017-09/documents/rubbertown_ngem_external_science_in_action_final_draft_090517.pdf). Periodically EPA meets with interested parties in Louisville to provide an update on the project. On September 12, 2019, NRMRL’s Eben Thoma will present the following slides titled “Rubbertown NGEM Demonstration Project, Update Meeting #6” at the Rubbertown Community Advisory Council (RCAC) Meeting attended by community groups, industry, and other parties. The attached slides provide a general update on progress, select interim findings, and potential future research directions. This is the sixth such update since project inception.

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