Establishing and Handling Air Emission Factors for Pulp and Paper Facilities, 1996 Environmental Conference Proceedings

Emissions estimates have been used, almost exclusively, for many years to develop permit applications and emissions reports that are required by various regulatory agencies. The accuracy and variety of process emission factors has dramatically improved and expanded over the last few years which has prompted many changes to the emission factors used by individual pulp and paper installations. In TRI reporting and in the Title V permitting process, many facilities are now facing the task of justifying changes to emission factors to regulators, and also of explaining how emission factors may have changed the compliance status of the mill. Understanding the need to maintain consistent and defensible process emission estimates for reporting at each mill facility. Stone Container Corp had baseline emission inventories constructed for 12 U.S. facilities, and had a personal computer (PC) based tool developed for emissions estimating. tracking and forecasting. This tool was designed as a relational database to provide emission estimates, tracking and forecasting using process/production data and emission factors. Emission factors from recent NCASI MACT studies, AP-42, mill specific stack test data and material balance calculations were used to establish baseline emissions for criteria pollutants. all 189 hazardous air pollutants (HAPS). and volatile organic compounds from each emission source at a facility. With the baseline emissions inventory the database can be used for preparing Title V permit applications and amendments, tracking emissions for compliance, establishing emission parameters for MACT, TRI Form R reports. SARA Title III reports, emissions trading and as a facility planning tool to asses the impact of process and production changes to emissions caps. This paper will discuss the experiences, lessons learned and major issues involved with creating the baseline emission inventories. It will also discuss how this information is incorporated into and used in the database.