National Highlights from the 2013 Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program
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Mandatory reporting of GHGs became law in October 2009 for sources emitting 25,000 metric tons or more of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) per year in the United States. Reporting began in 2010 and in 2011, the EPA published the first GHGRP report setting a benchmark for future management and control of GHGs from these large sources.
This group of large sources that are direct emitters represents about half of all U.S. GHG emissions, but not total U.S. GHS emissions. Specifically, the GHGRP data do not include biogenic sources from agriculture and land use changes such as in forestry. The GHGRP also does not include the emissions of businesses with emissions that do not meet the 25,000 metric ton threshold and are not required to report.
Also not included are indirect emissions from products provided by suppliers, such fossil fuels or certain industrial gases that emit GHGs when combusted, released or oxidized. These emissions are distributed nationwide, and do not occur at the supplier, rather they occur through consumer activities like use of gasoline for vehicles. Combined, emissions from direct emitters and from suppliers’ information account for approximately 85 to 90 percent of U.S. GHG emissions.
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In reporting year (RY) 2013, more than 8,000 facilities and suppliers reported including:
- 7,879 facilities in nine industry sectors reporting as direct emitters,
- 965 suppliers, and
- 92 facilities reporting underground injection of C02.
The nine sectors reporting as direct emitters are:
- Power plants,
- Petroleum and natural gas systems,
- Refineries,
- Chemicals,
- Waste,
- Metals,
- Minerals,
- Pulp and paper, and
- Other.
The largest reporting sector by number of facilities was petroleum and natural gas systems with 2,164 facilities, followed by waste with 1,611 facilities and in third place, power plants with 1,572 facilities. Some facilities fall into more than one category and are thus counted multiple times.
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Compared to the first two reporting years, the total number of direct emitting facilities has increased from 7,592 in 2011 to 7,808 in 2012 and up again to 7,879 in 2013. During the same time period, however, total direct emissions fluctuated, going from 3,314.2 million metric tons (MMT) CO2e in 2011, decreasing -4.51 percent to 3,164.8 MMT CO2e in 2012 and then increasing 0.62 percent in 2013, a spike the EPA said “was driven by a similar increase in power plant emissions.” Overall, GHGRP reported emissions have declined by 3.9 percent from 2011 to 2013 with power plant emissions decreasing 9.8 percent since 2010.
In total, in 2013, 3.18 billion metric tons of CO2e were reported by direct emitters. Broken out by type of GHG, CO2 ranked number one by far, accounting for 91.4 percent of all reported GHGs emissions at 2.9 billion metric tons. In second place was methane (CH4) representing about 7 percent, followed by nitrous oxide (N2O) at approximately 0.8 percent and fluorinated gases, including hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), at 0.7 percent.
In 2013, 80 percent of reporting facilities had emissions less than 250,000 metric tons CO2e, however, the 629 largest-emitting facilities (those emitting more than one million metric tons CO2e) accounted for almost 2.7 billion metric tons CO2e. Cumulatively, these emissions represent 84.8 percent of the total 3.18 billion metric tons CO2e reported and are mainly emitted by power plants, as well as in lesser quantities by petroleum refineries and facilities in the chemicals and metals sectors.
Tomorrow we will look closer at emissions from different reporting sectors.