AP-42 Emission Factors: Like Area 51, But Even More Controversial

摘要

The EPA publication AP-42, Compilation of Air Pollutant Emission Factors, is at the same time one of the most useful and one of the most controversial of that agency's publications. For those of you not familiar with it, this compilation originated in the early 1960's. I still have a May 1965 predecessor to AP-42 compiled by Martin Mayer that is all of 51 pages long (in double-spaced typewriter font), including 14 pages of appendices. It is titled "A Compilation of Air Pollutant Emission Factors For Combustion Processes, Gasoline Evaporation, and Selected Industrial Processes," and likely contained all the emissions information available to the federal air agency at that time. Over the years, AP-42 (indicating that it was the 42nd air gollution document published by the U.S. Public Health Service, which had the responsibility for the federal air program prior to the creation of EPA) has grown enormously. The current edition is accessible on the Internet and comprises hundreds of pages. In addition to emission factors, AP-42 contains valuable concise descriptions of hundreds of industrial processes and their emission points.