Emissions Monitoring - all you need to know

The current calm in the pollution monitoring industry belies the challenges ahead. Requirements for reducting the emissions of air polltion have been evolving since middle of the 20th century and are currently a complex meddly of limits, targets and caps. Sources must not only comply with rigid emission limits but must also provide emissions data to a number of different agencies and bodies to comply with the different legislative formats and reporting systems at the regional, national and international level. The international community is currently working to improve the co-ordination between monitoring systems and the legislation they support - for example, the EU aims to improve the alignment between the Large Combustion Plant Directive and the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control Directive. But what will these and other changes in emission legislation mean for the pollution monitoring industry?

- more pollutants will require monitoring from a greater number of sources (for example, mercury is rapidly moving up the agenda in the EU, USA and Asia ahead of the legally binding UN EP Global Treaty on Mercury to be set in 2013);
- advanced systems and methods will be required to measure lower and lower concentrations of pollutants as emission limits tighten;
- speciation of pollutants such as PM10/2.5 will become a priority as non-attainment areas struggle to determine how best to target reductions;
- increased accuracy will become paramount as pollutants such as N2O, CH4 and possibly Hg are introduced to trading markets in the EU and USA. Once a monetary value comes into play, meaurement accuracy becomes an economic target as well as an environmental one. Emission factors may be called into question, with real data being used to confirm or refute;
- as legislation and action plans grow in number and stringency, the importance of monitoring and quantifying this pollution in an accurate and transparent manner will become a priority. Real-time and on-line reporting systems will be the aim for most large sources.

CEM, the International Conference on Emissions Monitoring, has grown in strength and popularity since its inaugural meeting in 1997. CEM 2009 will continue this position as the major international conference and exhibition specifically designed to cover the subject of source emissions monitoring in its entirety.

CEM2009 includes 5 sessions:
1 Emission factors and inventories - looking at the challenges of providing accurate data to meet national and national requirements
2 Certfication and accreditaion - these systems are shifting from being something desirable to something almost mandatory in many areas
3 PM10/2.5 - fine particles are possibly the greatest challenge to many countries at the moment with many EU member states and individual states in the USA facing the fact that they cannot comply with the tightening air quality standards without a better understanding of the speciation
4 Advanced techniques - as legislation calls for increased accuracy despite decreasing concentrations, advanced techniques offer a solution to this challenge
5 Case studies of standards in practice - just how easy it is to use CEN/ISO standards in the real world?

But the conference programme is only one part of the CEM2009 experience. The posters and extensive exhibition offer delegates the chance to chat and interact with those who may be able to answer the very questions that would solve the challenges they face. The social agenda is designed to maximise the time delegates have free to ask awkward questions, handle equipment and to relax into the extended network of the now well established CEM-community. And where better to do that than on the beautiful shores of Lake Maggiore?

For More information www.cem.uk.com or email info@cem.uk.com