Industrial Air Pollution in the Bay Area
Approximately 629 manufacturers and institutions across California’s Bay Area rely on 1,882 fossil fuel industrial boilers to power their facilities and produce a wide range of goods, from coffee and whiskey to cardboard and medicine.
These industrial boilers, responsible for emitting nearly 1,000 tons of nitrogen oxides (NOx) pollution and 96 tons of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) each year, are an underappreciated driver of smog, exacerbating poor air quality in communities that are already overburdened by pollution from the oil and gas sector, transportation, refineries, and other sources.
Use the map below to see how pollution from industrial boilers affects your community.
The Bay Area Air District’s Opportunity to Lead
Proven technologies such as industrial heat pumps and electric boilers can replace fossil fuel industrial boilers across a wide range of industries, modernizing equipment, eliminating on-site emissions and significantly reducing air pollution and harmful climate impacts.
The Bay Area Air District (BAAD) has a critical opportunity to tackle one of the region’s major sources of air pollution by adopting strong clean air standards for industrial heating equipment.
In 2023, Bay Area regulators made history by adopting the nation’s first zero-emission standards for residential heating equipment. These landmark rules—covering small boilers, water heaters (Rule 9-6), and home space heating systems (Rule 9-4)—set a zero-emission NOx standard marking a major step forward in protecting public health.
Now, BAAD can build on this momentum by adopting zero-emissions standards for larger boilers and furnaces used in large buildings and manufacturing facilities (Rule 9-7). These standards can accelerate the adoption of existing, commercially available technology like industrial heat pumps, protecting local communities and workers and securing Bay Area jobs in the process. These standards could avoid millions in annual health impacts, prevent 10,000 asthma attacks, and significantly reduce school and work absenteeism.
Industrial heat pumps can eliminate current NOx and PM2.5 emissions from industrial combustion operations in the Bay Area and would save an estimated $25-34 million in health-related costs.
Fast Stats
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41% of the schools in the Bay Area Air District are within 1 mile of a facility with industrial boilers.
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Overburdened communities are nearly 2.3x more likely to experience higher NOx exposure risk from industrial boilers.
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Overburdened communities are nearly 3.3x more likely to experience higher exposure risk of PM 2.5 from industrial boilers.
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