Faculty Fellow Lucy Hutyra’s Research on CO2 Emissions Tracking Featured in BU Today

Prof. Lucy Hutyra, a Faculty Research Fellow at the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, was recently featured in an article in BU Today highlighting a tool called Anthropogenic Carbon Emissions System (ACES) that she is developing with Conor Gately, a post-doctoral associate in the Department of Earth & Environment. Unlike global carbon dioxide inventories, ACES uses local data to create a “bottom-up” inventory of carbon dioxide emissions for every one kilometer square in the Northeast United States, accounting for emissions at the scale of “roads, residential buildings, commercial buildings, industrial facilities, power plants, airports, marine ports, shipping, and railway.”

The result is the finest grained maps of CO2 emissions in the Northeast, giving cities the data they need to take effective action. “Cities have the political will to change emissions, and they have policy levers to pull,” says Hutyra.

The tool is funded by NASA’s Carbon Monitoring System, and Gately has secured an additional grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to expand ACES to the entire continental United States.

Click here to read the full article from BU Today.

As a Pardee Center Faculty Research Fellow, Hutyra is working with Prof. Pamela Templer to establish the first urban nitrogen monitoring stations (in the City of Boston) as part of the National Atmospheric Deposition Program (NADP). Click here to read more.