 A new high-resolution, interactive map of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels is now available on Google Earth thanks to Project Vulcan. With a few clicks on Google Earth, anyone can now view pollution from factories, power plants, roadways, and residential and commercial areas for their state, county or per capita.
Individuals also can easily see how their county compares to others across the nation. A team led by scientists at Purdue University developed the maps and system, named Vulcan after the Roman god of fire. The system quantifies all of the carbon dioxide emissions that result from burning fossil fuels such as coal and gasoline.
Explore the Vulcan website for the Vulcan gridded data, methodological details, publications, plots and analysis. A major new initiative, launched from the Vulcan experience is currently being built - the Hestia Project - in which we plan to quantify greenhouse gas emissions for the entire planet at the building scale with complete driving processes. This work is supported by Purdue's Showalter Trust and Knauf Insulation.
Simon Ilyushchenko, an engineer at Google, volunteered his time to create the Vulcan layer. Google engineers are allowed to donate 20 percent of their time, or one day of their workweek, to a cause or project of their choice.Labels: google earth, project vulcan |
