Since he joined RTI in 1985, Jeffrey Coburn has gained international recognition as an expert in evaluating emissions and controls for petroleum refineries and iron and steel foundries, and in the estimation of greenhouse has (GHG) emissions from landfills, refineries, and oil and gas facilities. He has led a variety of projects developing air emissions standards under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and the Clean Air Act. Mr. Coburn has also developed several contaminant source models that predict the fate of pollutants in landfills, waste piles, aerated and quiescent tanks and surface impoundments, land treatment units, and household showers. These models have been used as an integral part of multimedia, multipathway risk assessments, and several have undergone peer review by the EPA’s Science Advisory Board.
He has provided regulatory development support for three maximum achievable control technology standards for off-site waste operations, petroleum refineries, and iron and steel foundries. He also supported development of new source performance standard and risk and technology review for petroleum refineries and an area source, urban air toxic regulation for iron and steel foundries. Mr. Coburn was the key technical lead supporting the development of mandatory GHG reporting requirements for petroleum refineries and municipal solid waste and industrial landfills, and he has provided verification support for these sectors and for hydrogen production and petroleum and natural gas systems.
Mr. Coburn is a contributing author to the Solid Waste Disposal Sites chapter in the 2006 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories and spearheaded development of the “Waste Model” to help implement the new guidelines. He has conducted site visits to a variety of industries to observe and evaluate alternative emissions control techniques and provided technical support and supervision for several emissions source tests. His international experience includes developing a life-cycle risk assessment for petroleum gases following a European Community regulation called Registration, Evaluation, and Authorisation of CHemical (REACH) substances—which focuses on chemicals and their safe use—and conducting training workshops on emissions sources.
