New research from NAU found that a global database produced by the Climate TRACE consortium, co-founded by former Vice President Al Gore, is underestimating greenhouse gas emissions at power plants by an average of 50%.<\/p>\n
Professor Kevin Gurney<\/strong> of Northern Arizona University\u2019s School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems today published analyzing the carbon dioxide emissions from power plants in the recently released Climate TRACE database. He said these findings raise concerns because accurate and reliable information on greenhouse gas emissions is a critical ingredient for society\u2019s response to climate change.<\/p>\n \u201cI was interested in how accurately Climate TRACE could estimate power plant CO2 emissions when using exciting new techniques based on artificial intelligence,\u201d Gurney said. \u201cHowever, only about 4% of the U.S. facilities we analyzed use an AI-based approach. The remainder, 96%, use a very approximate method. This is where the large differences were found.<\/p>\n Gurney and his team matched the Climate TRACE power plants in the United States to a database produced by Gurney\u2019s laboratory, \u201cVulcan-power,\u201d which is cross-calibrated with multiple U.S. datasets including those from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile the Vulcan-power data exhibits uncertainty of about 15%, this is far lower than the differences found when we compared these facilities to the Climate TRACE database,\u201d said Pawlok Dass<\/strong>, a co-investigator on the study. \u201cThe CO2 emissions were, on average, 50% lower than those same emissions in the Vulcan-power database.\u201d<\/p>\n Gurney and colleagues believe that better standardization and scientific rigor will help in establishing good practices for greenhouse gas emissions estimation, helping to ensure that leaders have the most accurate information possible as they craft climate policies and allocate public dollars that will reduce emissions and curb climate change.<\/p>\n \u201cThis will make policy choices and money spent to reduce emissions most effective and correctly targeted,\u201d said Bilal Aslam<\/strong>, a Ph.D. student working on the emissions study.<\/p>\n \u201cWe will never estimate emissions with perfect accuracy, but we must ensure that the data shared with policymakers and the public meet the most rigorous scientific standards available,\u201d Gurney said.<\/p>\n Gurney, who specializes in atmospheric science, ecology and public policy, has spent the past two decades developing a standardized system quantifying greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. His Vulcan<\/a> and Hestia<\/a> projects, funded by multiple federal agencies, quantifies and visualizes greenhouse gases emitted across the entire country down to individual power plants, neighborhoods and roadways, identifying problem areas and enabling better decisions about where to cut emissions most effectively. His estimates have shown excellent performance when compared to direct atmospheric monitoring. Gurney<\/a> has authored more than 160 scientific publications, including a recent U.S. National Academy Report, \u201cGreenhouse Gas Emissions for Decisionmaking.\u201d He has been involved with the United Nations Climate Change Framework Convention and the Kyoto Protocol for more than 25 years and is a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"