Summary

I Background information on emission inventories

Annual report

This report is Denmark’s Annual Emissions Inventory Report due May 2005 to the UNECE-Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP). The report contains information on Denmark’s inventories for all years from the base years of the protocols to 2003.

The gases reported under the LRTAP Convention are SO2, NOX, NMVOC, CO, NH3, As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Hg, Ni, Pb, Se, Zn, dioxiner/furaner, PAH’s, TSP, PM2.5 and PM10.

The annual emission inventory for Denmark is reported in the Nomenclature for Reporting (NFR) format as requested in the reporting guidelines. The complete sets of NFR files are given in the report.

The issues addressed in this report are: Trends in emissions, description of each NFR category, uncertainty estimates, recalculations, planned improvements and procedure for quality assurance and control. The structure of the report is, as far as possible, the same as the National Inventory Report to UNFCCC.

This report and the NFR tables are available to the public on the National Environmental Research Institute’s homepage

(http://www.dmu.dk/1_Viden/2_Miljoe-tilstand/3_luft/4_adaei/default_en.asp).

Responsible institute

The National Environmental Research Institute (NERI) under the Danish Ministry of Environment is responsible for the annual preparation and submission to the UNECE-LRTAP Convention of the Annual Danish Emissions Report and the inventories in the NFR Format in accordance with the Guidelines. NERI participates in meetings under the UNECE Task Force on Emission Inventories and Projections and the related expert panels where parties to the convention prepare the guidelines and methodologies on inventories.

II Trends in emissions

Acidifying gases

Figure S.1 shows the emission of Danish acidifying gases in terms of acid equivalents. In 1990 the relative contribution in acid equivalents was almost equal for the three gases. In 2003 the most important acidification factor in Denmark was ammonia nitrogen and the relative contributions for SO2, NOX and NH3 were 9%, 40% and 51% respectively. However, regarding long range transport of air pollution SO2 and NOX are still the most important pollutants.

 

Figure S.1. Emissions of NH3, NOX and SO2 in acid equivalents.

SO2

The main part of the SO2 emissions originates from combustion of fossil fuels, i.e. mainly coal and oil, on public power and district heating plants. From 1980 to 2003 the total emission has decreased by 93%. The large reduction is mainly due to installation of desulphurization plants and use of fuels with lower content of sulphur in public power and district heating plants. Despite the large reduction of the SO2 emissions these plants make up 56% of the total emission. From 2002 to 2003 the emissions have increased by 23% due to a large export of electricity to the other Nordic countries. Also emissions from industrial combustion plants, non-industrial combustion plants and other mobile sources are important. National sea traffic (navigation and fishing) contributes with about 11% of the total SO2 emission. This is due to the use of residual oil with high content of sulphur.

NOX

The three largest sources to emissions of NOX are combustion in energy industries (mainly public power and district heating plants), road transport and other mobile sources. The transport sector is the sector contributing the most to the emission of NOX and in 2003 37% of the Danish emissions of NOX stem from road transport, national navigation, railways and civil aviation. Also emissions from national fishing and off-road vehicles contribute significantly to the NOX emission. For non-industrial combustion plants the main sources are combustion of gas oil, natural gas and wood in residential plants. The emissions from public power plants and district heating plants have decreased by 47% from 1985 to 2003. In the same period the total emission has decreased by 32%. The reduction is due to increasing use of catalyst cars and installation of low-NOX-burners and de-nitrifying units on power and district heating plants.

NH3

Almost all atmospheric emissions of NH3 result from agricultural activities. Only a minor part originates from road transport. This part is, however, increasing due to increasing use of catalyst cars. The major part of the emission from agriculture stems from livestock manure (79%) and the biggest losses of ammonia occur during the handling of the manure in stables and when spreading on fields. Other contributions come from crops (15%), use of mineral fertilisers (6%), sewage sludge used as fertiliser and ammonia used for straw treatment (less than 1%). The total ammonia emission has decreased by 32% from 1985 to 2003. This is due to the offensive national environmental policy during the last twenty years.

Other air pollutants

NMVOC

The emissions of NMVOC originate from many different sources and can be divided into two main groups: Incomplete combustion and evaporation. The main sources to NMVOC emissions from incomplete combustion processes are road vehicles and other mobile sources such as national navigation vessels and off-road machinery. Road transportation vehicles are still the main contributors even though the emissions have declined since the introduction of catalyst cars in 1990. The evaporative emissions mainly originate from the use of solvents. The emissions from energy industries have increased during the nineties because of increasing use of stationary gas engines, which have much higher emissions of NMVOC than conventional boilers. The total anthropogenic emissions have decreased by 39% from 1985 to 2003 mainly due to an increasing use of catalyst cars and reduced emissions from use of solvents.

CO

Even though catalyst cars were introduced in 1990, road transport still has the dominant share of the total CO emission. Also other mobile sources and non-industrial combustion plants contribute significantly to the total emission of this pollutant. The drop in the emissions seen in 1990 was a consequence of a law forbidding burning of agricultural waste on fields. The emission decreased by 23 % from 1990 to 2003 mainly because of decreasing emissions from road transportation.

PAH’s

The present emission inventory for PAH (poly aromatic hydrocarbons) includes the four PAH’s reported to UNECE: Benzo(a)pyrene, benzo(b)fluoranthene, benzo(k)fluoranthene and indeno(1,2,3-cd) pyrene. The most important sources to emission of PAH are combustion of wood in the residential sector and road transportation. The increasing emission trend is due to increasing combustion of wood in the residential sector.

Particulate Matter

The particulate matter (PM) emission inventory has been reported for the years 2000-2003. The inventory includes total emission of particles TSP (Total Suspended Particles), emission of particles smaller than 10 µm (PM10) and emission of particles smaller than 2.5 µm (PM2.5).

The largest PM2.5 emission sources are the residential sector (47%), road traffic (19%) and other mobile sources (17%). For the latter the most important source is off-road vehicles and machinery in the agricultural/forestry sector (58%). For the transport sector exhaust emissions account for the major part (82%).

The largest TSP emission sources are the agricultural sector and the residential sector. The TSP emissions from transport are also important and include both exhaust emissions and the non-exhaust emissions from brake and tyre wear and road abrasion. The non-exhaust emissions account for 24% of the TSP emission from transport.

Heavy Metals

In general the most important sources of heavy metal emissions are combustion of fossil fuels and waste. The heavy metal emissions have decreased substantially the last years. The reductions span from 15% and 96% for Cu and Pb, respectively. The reason for the reduced emissions is mainly the increased use of gas cleaning devices at power and district heating plants (including waste incineration plants). The large reduction in the Pb emission is due to a gradual shift towards unleaded gasoline being essential for catalyst cars.

III Recalculations and Improvements

In general considerable work is going on to improve the inventories. New investigations and research carried out in Denmark and abroad are as fare as possible included as the bases for the emission estimates and included as data in the inventory databases. Further, the updates of the EMEP/CORINAIR Guidebook and the work in the Task Force on Emission Inventories and its expert groups are followed closely in order to get knowledge to be able to incorporate the best scientific information as the bases for the inventories. The further important references in this regard are the IPCC Guidelines and IPCC Good Practice Guidance.

The implementation of new results in inventories is made in a way so that improvements better reflect Danish conditions and circumstances. In improving the inventories care is taken to consider implementation of improvements for the whole time-series of inventories, to make it consistent. Such efforts lead to recalculation of previously submitted inventories.

For the national total emissions the general impact of the recalculations made in 2005 is small. The most important recalculations for the various sectors are mentioned below.

Stationary combustion

Recalculation is mainly a result of an update of fuel rates according to the latest energy statistics. The update included the years 1980-2002.

Further the PM emission factors for residential plants have been changed considerably as a result of a Nordic project focussing on these factors. The applied emission factors are much higher than in the former inventories.

Some additional improvement causing only very limited changes of the estimated total emission from stationary combustion are discussed in section 3.2.5.

Transport

Recalculation is mainly a result of improvements of emission factors. For road transport 1990-1991 POP emission factors have been updated in order to correct errors in the inventories for these years. For railways an update of NOX, NMVOC, CH4, CO and PM factors for diesel in 2002 has been carried out. Previously, 2001 factors were used. For civil aviation several new turboprops are included in the list of representative aircraft. The change affects also the fuel use split between domestic and international aviation. For navigation for 2002 the diesel fuel use has been updated according to the official Danish energy statistics from DEA.

Further details are presented in section 3.3.

Fugitive emissions

Emissions from offshore activities have been updated using the methodology described in the Emission Inventory Guidebook 3rd edition. The sources include emissions from extraction of oil and gas, on-shore oil tanks, on-shore and offshore loading of ships. The emission factors are based on the figures given in the Guidebook except for the on-shore oil tanks where national values are used.

Industry

NH3 emissions from treatment of slaughterhouse waste is now included in the inventory.

Solvents

A new approach for calculating the emissions of Non-Methane Volatile Organic Carbon (NMVOC) from industrial and household use in Denmark is introduced. It focuses on single chemicals rather than activities. The procedure is to quantify the use of the chemicals and estimate the fraction of the chemicals that is emitted as a consequence of use.

Agriculture

Few changes are made for the ammonia emission 1985 – 2002, but they influence the total emission with less than 1% (refer to section 6.7). There are no changes in the emission of particulate matter.

The National Environmental Research Institute (NERI), which are responsible for the emission inventory, has established data agreements with the institutes and organisations to assure that the necessary data is available to work out the emission inventory in time. The main part of the emission is related to the livestock production and many of the data is based on Danish standards, which necessarily request for better documentation.

This year, in co-operation with the Danish Institute of Agricultural Science, a detailed description of the methodology used to calculate the emission of both the ammonia and greenhouse gases has been published (Mikkelsen et al. 2005). Presently, this report is only available in Danish.

 

Full report in pdf-format (14.000 kB).