Callahan is vice president of federal programs at Earth Networks, an environmental monitoring company based in Germantown that recently agreed — with the help of the National Institute of Standards and Technology — to expand the number of greenhouse gas sensors around the world. How does Earth Networks measure greenhouse gases?
The traditional way of quantifying greenhouse gas emissions is from a bottoms-up approach, where you take inventories of all the industrial sources of the gases and make assumptions about how much is being emitted into the atmosphere. What we’re doing — we’re actually installing these tall towers with sensors at the top that measure the concentrations of emissions in the atmosphere. You need to measure both — the sources of the emissions and the concentration that is actually in the air — in order to determine what kind of effect they are having on the environment.
What do you do with the information?
It has various purposes, one of which is for policymaking. To formulate potential policies like Cap and Trade, having accurate measurements of greenhouse gas emissions is very important.
Why is measuring greenhouse gases important?
It doesn’t really matter whether you believe in climate change or not. What it comes down to is if we’re going to know more about our environment and make sound policies in the future we need to get more information about what is actually happening in our atmosphere.
How many sensors are in the U.S. now?
Nationally, a half-dozen of these towers are out there. We are committing $25 million of our capital to fund the deployment of more of these sensors to rapidly expand the number of monitors that are available. This will translate into roughly 100 more sensors: 50 in the U.S., 25 in Europe and 25 throughout the rest of the world.
– Hayley Peterson
