ASABE Technical Library - Abstract

Abstract. In August 2013, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency‘s (EPA) published their new methodology for updating the Compilation of Air Pollution Emission Factors (AP-42). The “Recommended Procedures for Development of Emissions Factors and Use of the WebFIRE Database” instructs that the ratings of the current AP-42 datasets be directly converted to the new Individual Test Rating (ITR) system. This study used PM10 data gathered from a cotton ginning industry-supported project initiated in 2008 to evaluate the implications of converting the current AP-42 dataset ratings versus rerating them using the ITR process. This study used the methods contained in “Recommended Procedures for Development of Emissions Factors and Use of the WebFIRE Database” to develop two sets of emission factors for 17 cotton ginning systems: one using converted and the other using rerated AP-42 datasets. Due to their low ITRs, no converted, current AP-42 datasets were retained for emission factor averages. When rerated with the ITR process, the new ratings ranged from 29-91 (out of a possible 100), allowing many datasets to be included in emission factor averages. To prevent the loss of data, we propose that all current AP-42 emissions datasets should be rerated using the new ITR system.