Northeast Power Plants Cut Emissions

Northeast Power Plants Cut Emissions

Oct 04 - Business Journal - Central New York, The

SYRACUSE - New York businesses and their counterparts across the Northeast are making significant strides in reducing nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions, according to a new report released by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

In its first annual "NOx Budget Trading Program 2003 Progress and Compliance Report," released Sept. 2, the EPA says that total ozone season (summer) NOx emissions from power plants and other large combustion sources in eight Northeast states (including New York) and the District of Columbia fell 30 percent from 2002 levels. The report's conclusion was that the federal NOx Budget Trading Program, a market-based cap and trade program, is successful in reducing summertime NOx emissions. NOx emissions are a prime ingredient in the formation of ground-level ozone - smog - in the Northeast, the EPA says.

NOx Budget Trading Program cuts, when combined with other NOx control programs, have reduced ozone season NOx emissions from sources in these states by 70 percent below 1990 levels, according to the EPA. Emissions reductions occurred despite power generation increases by the affected sources in 2003, the agency says.

Reductions also have occurred for both average emissions and shortterm peak NOx emissions that are a concern on hot, high electricitydemand days conducive to ozone formation. More than 99 percent of the affected units were in full compliance in 2003, according to the EPA. Units that were out of compliance received penalties requiring deeper emissions cuts in the future.

EPA administers the NOx Budget Trading Program - which in 2004 includes 19 states and the District of Columbia. Two more states will join in 2007. When fully implemented, the program will reduce a projected one-million tons of NOx emissions and improve air quality for more than 100 million people, the EPA contends. The NOx trading program was established by EPA under the 1998 Nitrogen Oxides State Implementation Plan (SIP) Call, or "NOx SIP Call," which required reductions in NOx emissions from power plants and other sources in eastern states that were -demonstrated to impair air quality in downwind states.

Building on prior efforts to reduce summertime NOx emissions in the Northeast, eight northeastern states and the District of Columbia began implementing the NOx Budget Trading Program in 2003. Sources in 11 additional states across the East and Midwest joined in May 2004. The 11 states that did not participate in the program until 2004 have also made progress in reducing NOx emissions in anticipation of entering the program, and in response to other NOx control programs, particularly annual NOx reductions under the Acid Rain Program, according to the EPA. NOx emissions in these states were approximately 50 percent below 1990 levels. In addition, sources in these states successfully monitored and reported emissions for the first time starting in 2003, the agency says. Rigorous emissions monitoring and reporting protocols are essential to the success of cap and-trade programs, it contends.