America’s Dirtiest Carbon Polluters, Mapped to Ridiculous Precision

When it comes to fighting climate change, you can’t manage what you can’t measure. Under the Trump administration, U.S. efforts to track planet-warming carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions face an existential threat, but that isn’t stopping one team of researchers from producing this essential data.

In a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature Scientific Data, the team presented findings from the fourth version of Vulcan, a dataset that captures every source of CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion across the United States at an incredibly fine scale. This latest release includes the map below, which pinpoints hot spots of fossil fuel CO2 emissions produced in 2022.

“The U.S. taxpayers have a right to this data,†lead author Kevin Gurney, a professor at Northern Arizona University’s School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems (SICCS), said in a release. “With the proposed rule to end the United States Environmental Protection Agency greenhouse gas reporting program, this data is more important than ever.â€

Zeroing-in on carbon sources

Gurney and his team have spent the last 20 years developing highly granular maps of CO2 emissions through the Vulcan project. This multi-agency-funded research effort aims to aid quantification of the North American carbon budget, identify carbon sources and sinks, and meet the technical and scientific needs of higher-resolution fossil fuel CO2 observations.

This new map clearly shows which parts of the U.S. were the worst emitters in 2022. Notice that the highest emissions (areas in red) correspond to areas of greater population density, such as the East Coast and major cities like Dallas, Texas. In general, emissions were much higher across the eastern half of the county, where most people live.

Despite its fine level of detail, this map is actually a high-level visualization of the data Vulcan provides. “The output constitutes many terabytes of data and requires a high-performance computing system to run,†co-author Pawlok Dass, a SICCS research associate, said in the release. “It captures CO2 emissions at unprecedented resolution—down to every city block, road segment and individual factory or power plant.â€

Emissions reporting amid hostility

Vulcan could soon help fill a major gap in emissions data. In September, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed ending the “burdensome†Greenhouse Gas Reporting (GHGRP) Program, claiming this will save American businesses up to $2.4 billion in regulatory costs while still meeting the agency’s statutory obligations under the Clean Air Act.

The GHGRP requires facilities that emit more than 25,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalent per year to report their emissions annually to the EPA. This rule applies to roughly 13,000 facilities that produce an estimated 85% to 90% of the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions.

The EPA’s proposal has been met with some opposition from both sides of the aisle, but whether this will be enough to keep it from moving forward remains to be seen. If a major blind spot in federal emissions tracking does emerge, research efforts like the Vulcan project could fill in—as long as they can keep their funding.

“In spite of the science funding cuts and threats to federal science data reporting, my team will continue to produce and share data critical to climate change and environmental quality,†Gurney said.

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