December 2011, North America

The latest report of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation regarding the North American Power Plants Air Emissions was released last December 7^th, 2011. It contains valuable and useful information, as is not only a report, but also a database that is for public access.

The report examines air pollution from 3,000 fossil fuel-fired power plants in the North American region; which are responsible not only for the production of two thirds of the region´s electricity; but also of the generation of harmful pollutants, greenhouse gases, mercury concentrations and long distance pollution transfers. The analyzed information used 2005 as based year, which is the last reporting year.

The report presents detailed information on the electric power sector which accounts for most of the greenhouse gas emissions than any other industrial sector. It provides the profiles of the region´s industry on a plant-by-plant basis and their air emissions of six important contaminants (from which, 3 are also the main responsible for climate change), i.e. carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, methane, sulfur dioxide, mercury and particulate matter. The importance of these compounds is of such that for the case of Sulfur Acid, major contributor of acid rain, the mentioned plants are responsible for 71% of the total reported emissions from industrial facilities in North America.

This report is also detailed in proposing a deep look at factors others than fuel type, such as electricity generation, capacity, age, power plant efficiency; obtaining emission figures that are not necessarily high from the top electricity generators.

The report can be accessed online at: www.cec.org/powerplants, as well as database information for 3,144 fossil fuel power plants. The data can also be downloaded and it can be viewed using google earth.