Guidance Methods/Expert Peer Review
Air Quality Modeling
Software Design
Completion of stakeholder review of proposed and final environmental rulemakings for on-road and off-highway vehicle, engine and equipment manufacturers as well as transportation fuel producers. Evaluation of regulatory alternatives for stakeholder consideration. Preparation of formal commentary as part of rulemaking process.
Regulatory Impact Analyses
Lifecycle Analyses, Conventional and Renewable Fuels
Emission inventory development at all levels of temporal and spatial scales including in support of photochemical air quality model simulations. Examples include national planning emission inventory development for Canada; facility-level inventories for roadways, airports, shipping ports, rail yards and oil sands mining/extraction operations; and US regulatory plan development including State Implementation Plans. Pollutant/species include criteria pollutants, greenhouse gases and toxic compounds.
Litigation Support
Compliance Planning
Development of environmental compliance and product planning for on-road and off-highway vehicle/engine manufacturers (new sales) and fleet owners (in-use).
Design of emission inventory estimation and processing software; review of data sources used to populate regulatory environmental models. Platforms/languages include FORTRAN, Visual Basic, database (SQL/Access) and spreadsheet. Examples of software developed and reviewed include MOVES, NONROAD, MOBILE, OFFROAD and EPS. Spreadsheet example includes a "best-practices" emission inventory analysis tool for lead (Pb) emissions from piston-engine aircraft.
Application of lifecycle analyses of transportation fuel development using GREET, Biograce and GHGenius models to determine criteria pollutant and greenhouse gas impacts. Technical evaluations to support renewable, low-carbon fuel applications for California, U.S. EPA and European Union. Statistical analysis of fuel parameters and fuel additives to evaluate environmental impact.
Emission Inventory Development
Application of steady-state Gaussian dispersion models for micro-scale air quality modeling. Experience includes roadway and facility evaluations using CALINE, CAL3QHC, CAL3QHCR, ISC and AERMOD.
Development of guidance emission inventory methods for photochemical modeling applications, for off-highway mobile sources and for general aviation aircraft. Completion of expert peer reviews of various transportation sector sources and transportation fuel production for the U.S. EPA, Environment Canada and Coordinating Research Council.
Completion of best-practices, state-of-the-science emission inventory analyses to support Expert Testimony and litigation efforts.
Oak Leaf Environmental Inc.