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Database shows pollution and output from area power plants
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BALTIMORE (Map, News) - The Brandon Shores power plant in Curtis Bay produced the most carbon dioxide pollution of any utility in the Baltimore-Washington region in 2000, according to a database that debuted Thursday.
The Brandon Shores plant also produced the most electricity of the area’s 54 power plants and generators, at 8.45 million megawatt hours. The area’s smallest energy producer in 2000 was at the Pentagon, providing 40 megawatt hours.
“Larger plants will often be more efficient,” said Kevin Ummel, a research assistant with the nonprofit think tank Center for Global Development who spent months working on the new database. “But because they are larger, they are producing more [carbon dioxide] in the aggregate.”
Brandon Shores is expected to produce the most carbon dioxide and energy in 2007 as well. This year, a new generator at the White House is expected to produce the region’s smallest amount of energy, 7.8 megawatt hours.
The database contains information from about 45,000 utility and power plants worldwide. The U.S. data for 2000 comes from the levels of carbon dioxide and megawatt-hours of energy reported to the Environmental Protection Agency by power companies.
Using technical information about each power plant provided by industry analysts, the center’s staff extrapolated 2007 numbers from the EPA’s 2004 data, Ummel said.
“The spirit of the site is not to name and shame,” he added. “It’s to reveal the best possible information about sources of emissions.”
A power plant that disputes the numbers published in the database can provide the staff with an emissions report, and it will be corrected, Ummel said. Since the database was put online, one Hong Kong company has requested changes to its numbers, he said.
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3:55 PM MST on Mon., Nov. 19, 2007 re: "Database shows pollution and output from area power plants"
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Examiner Reader said:
...So what is the database called and where is it?
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