What will changes in emission legislation mean

What will changes in emission legislation mean for the pollution monitoring industry?

The current calm in the pollution monitoring industry belies the challenges ahead. Requirements for reducing the emissions of air pollution have been evolving since middle of the 20th century and are currently a complex medley of limits, targets and caps. Sources must not only comply with rigid emission limits but must also provide emissions data to a number of different agencies and bodies to comply with the different legislative formats and reporting systems at the regional, national and international level. The international community is currently working to improve the co-ordination between monitoring systems and the legislation they support - for example, the EU aims to improve the alignment between the Large Combustion Plant Directive and the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control Directive. But what will these and other changes in emission legislation mean for the pollution monitoring industry?

• more pollutants will require monitoring from a greater number of sources (for example, mercury is rapidly moving up the agenda in the EU, USA and Asia ahead of the legally binding UN EP Global Treaty on Mercury to be set in 2013);
• advanced systems and methods will be required to measure lower and lower concentrations of pollutants as emission limits tighten;
• speciation of pollutants such as PM10/2.5 will become a priority as non-attainment areas struggle to determine how best to target reductions;
• increased accuracy will become paramount as pollutants such as N2O, CH4 and possibly Hg are introduced to trading markets in the EU and USA. Once a monetary value comes into play, measurement accuracy becomes an economic target as well as an environmental one. Emission factors may be called into question, with real data being used to confirm or refute;
• As legislation and action plans grow in number and stringency, the importance of monitoring and quantifying this pollution in an accurate and transparent manner will become a priority. Real-time and on-line reporting systems will be the aim for most large sources.
  
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