Nielsen, O.-K., Winther, M., Mikkelsen, M.H., Hoffmann, L., Nielsen, M., Gyldenkærne, S., Fauser, P., Plejdrup, M.S., Albrektsen, R., Hjelgaard, K. & Bruun, H.G. 2013. Annual Danish Informative Inventory Report to UNECE. Emission inventories from the base year of the protocols to year 2011. Aarhus University, DCE – Danish Centre for Environment and Energy, 699 pp. Scientific Report from DCE – Danish Centre for Environment and Energy No. 53. http://www.dmu.dk/Pub/SR53.pdf
This report is Denmark’s Annual Informative Inventory Report (IIR) due March 15, 2013 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 2011.
The air pollutants reported under the LRTAP Convention are SO2, NOX, NMVOC, CO, NH3, As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Hg, Ni, Pb, Se, Zn, dioxins/furans, HCB, PAHs, TSP, PM10 and PM2.5.
The annual emission inventory for Denmark is reported in the Nomenclature for Reporting (NFR 2009) format. In December 2008 new reporting guidelines were decided by the EMEP Executive Body. Many of the new elements and demands in the reporting guidelines have not been implemented yet. The reason for this is that they require significantly more resources, which are not currently available.
The issues addressed in this report are: trends in emissions, description of each NFR category, uncertainty estimates, recalculations, planned improvements and procedures for quality assurance and control. The structure of the report follows to the extent possible the proposed outline.
Information contained in this report is available to the public on the Danish Centre for Environment and Energy (DCE), Aarhus University’s homepage:
and this report and the NFR tables are available on the Eionet central data repository:
http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/dk/Air_Emission_Inventories/Submission_EMEP_UNECE
DCE-Danish Centre for Environment and Energy, Aarhus University, is on behalf of the Danish Ministry of the Environment 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. DCE 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.
In 1990, the relative contribution in acid equivalents was almost equal for the three gases SO2, NOx and NH3. In 2011, the most important acidification factor in Denmark is ammonia nitrogen and the relative contributions for SO2, NOX and NH3 were 6 %, 36 % and 58 %, respectively. However, with regard to long-range transport of air pollution, SO2 and NOX are still the most important pollutants.
The main part of the SO2 emission originates from combustion of fossil fuels, i.e. mainly coal and oil, in public power and district heating plants. From 1980 to 2011, the total emission decreased by 97 %. The large reduction is mainly due to installation of desulphurisation 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 23 % of the total emission. 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 13 % of the total SO2 emission in 2011. This is due to the use of residual oil with high sulphur content.
The largest sources of emissions of NOX are road transport followed by other mobile sources and combustion in energy industries (mainly public power and district heating plants). The transport sector is the sector contributing the most to the emission of NOX and, in 2011, 47 % of the Danish emissions of NOX stems 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 energy industries have decreased by 75 % from 1985 to 2011. In the same period, the total emission decreased by 55 %. The reduction is due to the increasing use of catalyst cars and installation of low-NOX burners and denitrifying units in power plants and district heating plants.
Almost all atmospheric emissions of NH3 result from agricultural activities. Only a minor fraction originates from road transport (2.2 %) and stationary combustion (0.3 %) in 2011. This share for road transport increased during the 1990’ties and early 2000’s due to growing use of catalyst cars. In more recent years the share is again decreasing due to more advanced catalysts being implemented. The major part of the emission from agriculture stems from livestock manure (84 %) and the largest losses of ammonia occur during the handling of the manure in stables and in field application. Other contributions come from use of mineral fertilisers (6 %), N-excretion on pasture range and paddock (3 %), sewage sludge used as fertiliser, crops and ammonia used for straw treatment (8 %) and field burning (less than 1 %). The total ammonia emission decreased by 37 % from 1985 to 2011. This is due to the active national environmental policy efforts over the past twenty years.
The emissions of NMVOC originate from many different sources and can be divided into two main groups: incomplete combustion and evaporation. Road vehicles and other mobile sources such as national navigation vessels and off-road machinery are the main sources of NMVOC emissions from incomplete combustion processes. 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 and the extraction, handling and storage of oil and natural gas. The emissions from the energy industries have increased during the nineties due to the increasing use of stationary gas engines, which have much higher emissions of NMVOC than conventional boilers. The total anthropogenic emissions have decreased by 58 % from 1985 to 2011, largely due to the increased use of catalyst cars and reduced emissions from use of solvents.
Mobile sources and non-industrial combustion plants contribute significantly to the total emission of this pollutant. Transport is the second largest contributor to the total CO emission. In 1990 a law forbidding the burning of agricultural crop residues in the fields was implemented, which caused a significant reduction in CO emission. The emission decreased further by 48 % from 1990 to 2011, largely because of decreasing emissions from road transportation.
The particulate matter (PM) emission inventory has been reported for the years 2000 onwards. The inventory includes the total emission of particles Total Suspended Particles (TSP), 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 residential plants (67 %), road traffic (10 %) and other mobile sources (9 %). For the latter, the most important sources are off-road vehicles and machinery in the industrial sector and in the agricultural/forestry sector (32 % and 37 %, respectively). For the road transport sector, exhaust emissions account for the major part (63 %) of the emissions. The PM2.5 emission increased by 2 % from 2000 to 2011, due to an increasing wood consumption in the residential sector counteracted by a decrease in emission from the transport sector and to a less degree from manufacturing industries and construction.
The largest TSP emission sources are the residential sector and the agricultural 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 63 % of the TSP emission from road transport.
In general, the most important sources of heavy metal emissions are combustion of fossil fuels and waste. The heavy metal emissions have decreased substantially in recent years, except for Cu. The reductions span from 28 % to 92 % for Zn and Pb, respectively. The reason for the reduced emissions is mainly 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, the latter being essential for catalyst cars. The major source of Cu is automobile tyre and break wear (93 % in 2011) and the 35 % increase from 1990 to 2011 owe to increasing mileage.
The main sources of emissions of Cd to air are combustion in energy industries (mainly combustion of wood, wood waste and municipal waste) and manufacturing industries (mainly combustion of residual oil). In the transport sector emissions from passenger cars is the main source contributing with 55 % of the sectoral emission in 2011. The emission from non-industrial combustion is dominated by wood combustion in residential plants which accounts for 76 % of the sectoral emission in 2011. Emissions from combustion in residential plants have increased by 98 % since 1990. The decreasing emission from energy industries are related to the decreasing combustion of coal.
The largest sources of Hg emissions to air are waste incineration and coal combustion in energy industries. Due to improved flue gas cleaning and decreasing coal combustion the emissions from Energy industries decreased by 76 % from 1990-2000. The trend has continued in the following years and the corresponding decrease from 1990-2011 is 90 %. Non-industrial combustion is dominated by wood combustion in residential plants while emissions from the waste sector mainly owe to cremation. The variations in emissions from industrial processes owe to shut down in 2002 followed by re-opening and a second shut down in 2005 of the only Danish electro-steelwork.
The main Pb emission sources are combustion in residential plants and energy industries and transport. In earlier years combustion of leaded gasoline was the major contributor to Pb emissions to air but the shift toward use of unleaded gasoline for transport have decreased the Pb emission from transport by 94 % from 1990-2011. In the non-industrial combustion sector the dominant source is wood combustion in residential plants. The trend in the Pb emission from non-industrial combustion from 1990 to 2011 is almost constant. This is due to a decrease in emission caused by the shift towards unleaded gasoline, as this sector includes other mobile sources in household, gardening, agriculture, forestry, fishing and military. This is counteracted by an increase in the emission from residential plants. The decreasing emission from Energy industries (96 % from 1990 to 2011) is caused by the deceasing coal combustion.
The present emission inventory for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) includes four PAHs: benzo(a)pyrene, benzo(b)fluoranthene, benzo(k)fluoranthene and indeno(1,2,3-cd)pyrene. Benzo(b)fluoran-thene and Benzo(a)pyrene contribute the major PAH emission by 31 % and 30 %, respectively. The most important source of PAHs emissions is combustion of wood in the residential sector making up 85 % of the total emission in 2011. The increasing emission trend is due to increasing combustion of wood in the residential sector. The PAH emission from combustion in residential plants has increased by 118 % from 1990 to 2011.
The major part of the dioxin emission owes to wood combustion in the residential sector, mainly in wood stoves and ovens without flue gas cleaning. Wood combustion in residential plants accounts for 60 % of the national dioxin emission in 2011. The contribution to the total dioxin emission from the waste sector (27 % in 2011) owes to accidental fires, especially building fires. The emissions of dioxins from energy industries mainly owe to the combustion of biomass as wood, wood waste and to a less extend agricultural waste
Stationary combustion accounts for 98 % of the estimated national hexachlorobenzene (HCB) emission in 2011. This owes mainly to combustion of municipal solid waste in heating and power plants. Wood combustion in households is an important source, too, and has increased by 260 % since 1990 due to increasing wood consumption. The HCB emission from stationary plants has decreased 82 % since 1990 mainly due to improved flue gas cleaning in MSW incineration plants. The emission from residential plants has increased due to increased wood consumption in this source category
In general, considerable work is being carried out to improve the inventories. Investigations and research carried out in Denmark and abroad produce new results and findings which are given consideration and, to the extent which is possible, are included as the basis for emission estimates and as data in the inventory databases. Furthermore, the updates of the EMEP/CORINAIR guidebook (Now the EMEP/EEA Guidebook), and the work of the Task Force on Emission Inventories and its expert panels are followed closely in order to be able to incorporate the best scientific information as the basis for the inventories.
The implementation of new results in inventories is made in a way so that improvements, as far as possible, better reflect Danish conditions and circumstances. This is in accordance with good practice. Furthermore, efforts are made to involve as many experts as possible in the reasoning, justification and feasibility of implementation of improvements.
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. This submission includes recalculated inventories for the whole time series. The reasoning for the recalculations performed is to be found in the sectoral chapters of this report. The text below focuses on recalculations, in general, and further serves as an overview and summary of the relevant text in the sectoral chapters. For sector specific planned improvements please also refer to the relevant sectoral chapters.
Improvements and updates of the Danish energy statistics are made regularly by the producer of the statistics, the Danish Energy Agency. In close cooperation with the DEA, these improvements and updates are reflected in the emission inventory for the energy sector. The Danish energy statistics have, for the most part, been aggregated to the SNAP categorisation.
The inventories are still being improved through work to increase the number of large point sources, e.g. power plants, included in the databases as individual point sources. Such an inclusion makes it possible to use plant-specific data for emissions, etc., available e.g. in annual environmental reports from the plants in question.
For stationary combustion plants, the emission estimates for the years 1990-2010 have been updated according to the latest energy statistics published by the Danish Energy Agency. The update included both end use and transformation sectors as well as a source category update.
In response to a recommendation during the EU ESD review in May-August of 2012 a recalculation was made regarding LPG use. In previous inventory submissions the LPG use in road transport was calculated bottom-up in the Danish road transport model. However, the difference between the bottom-up calculated LPG use and the official energy statistics was not handled. In the 2013 submission, the residual LPG use has been allocated to stationary combustion in residential plants. The allocation has been done in dialogue with the Danish Energy Agency. In general, the change in emission is very small. For most years, this has meant an increase in the reported emissions, but for some years in the early part of the time series the emissions have decreased.
The disaggregation of emissions in 1A2 Manufacturing industries and construction has been recalculated based on further improvements to the methodology that was implemented in the 2012 submission. This has caused a reallocation of emissions. The main change being that less emission are allocated to 1A2f Other and that emissions reported for especially 1A2c Chemicals, 1A2d Pulp, Paper and Print and 1A2e Food Processing, Beverages and Tobacco have increased.
A recalculation for stationary combustion was done as a consequence of the recalculation described for national navigation. An additional amount of fuel oil was allocated to stationary combustion in manufacturing industries and stationary combustion in agriculture and forestry.
A reallocation of emissions has been made from 1A1a Public Electricity and Heat Production to 1A4a Commercial/Institutional. This is caused by a different categorization of some combustion plants.
The reported SO2 emission from 1A1b in 2005-2010 is lower than last year due to reallocation of emissions from refineries.
The following recalculations and improvements of the emission inventories have been made since the emission reporting in 2012.
The total mileage per vehicle category from 1985-2010 have been updated based on new data prepared by DTU Transport and minor fuel statistical changes from the Danish Energy Agency. Most importantly, the annual mileage for all vehicle types has been revised based on data from the Danish vehicle inspection and maintenance programme. Further, fuel efficiency data for new sold passenger cars in Denmark has been used to modify the default fuel consumption factors proposed by COPERT IV. Also, revisions have been made to the cut-off mileage for N2O emission deterioration for catalyst cars, being in line with the updated version of COPERT IV.
The percentage emission change interval and year of largest percentage differences (low %; high %, year) for the different emission components are: SO2 (0 %; 0.2 %, 2010), NOx (3.1 %; 10.7 %, 2009), NMVOC (-3.2 %; 16.1 %, 2009), CO (-11.7 %; 5.8 %, 1985), NH3 (-14.1 %; 20.7 %, 2010) and Particulates (0.3 %; 10.6 %, 2009).
The ferry share of round trips has been updated for the years 2008-2010 causing minor emission changes for domestic navigation. The following largest percentage differences (in brackets) for domestic navigation are noted for: SO2 (0.2 %), NOx (-0.1 %), NMVOC (0.0 %), CO (0.0 %), NH3 (0.0 %) and Particulates (0.1 %)
The number of machine pool tractors has been updated for the years 2008-2010, causing minor emission changes. The following largest percentage differences (in brackets) for agriculture/forestry/fisheries are noted for: SO2 (0.1 %), NOx (0.2 %), NMVOC (0.1 %), CO (0.1 %), NH3 (0.5 %) and Particulates (0.3 %).
Emission factors derived from the new road transport simulations have caused some emission changes from 1985-2010.The following largest percentage differences (in brackets) for military are noted for: SO2 (0 %), NOx (-7 %), NMVOC (-3.7 %,), CO (2.8 %), NH3 (10.4 %) and Particulates (0.7 %,).
An error in the annual reports from the crude oil terminal has been corrected, resulting in a decrease of the NMVOC emission in 2010 of 221 Mg corresponding to 2.4 % of the total fugitive NMVOC in 2010.
The implied emission factor is updated for 2010 due to the emission reduction initiatives at the crude oil terminal and harbor terminal, resulting in a decrease of the NMVOC emission in of 396 Mg corresponding to 4.3 % of the total fugitive NMVOC in 2010.
A reallocation of SO2 emissions from one of the two Danish refineries has been implemented for the years 2005-2010. The reallocation has been carried out in close cooperation with the contact person at the relevant refinery. The changes have led to an increase of the SO2 emission in the NFR category “1 B 2 a iv Refining / storage” of 32 to 182 Mg (min: 2006, max: 2007) corresponding to 3.1 % and 12 % of the total fugitive SO2 emission in 2006 and 2007, respectively.
Natural gas distribution has been recalculated for 2009 and 2010 according to the annual reports from two of the Danish distribution companies. The recalculation has increased the fugitive NMVOC emission by 31 Mg and 1 Mg corresponding to 0.3 % and 0.01 % of the total fugitive NMVOC in 2009 and 2010 respectively.
A minor change has been applied as the 2010 annual report from a natural gas storage facility has become available. The increase of the NMVOC emission is 4 Mg corresponding to 0.04 %.
Emission of SO2 from brickworks and facilities for production of expanded clay products has been included for 1990-2011. EFs for SO2 has been estimated as weighted average for the years 2008-10 based on information from environmental reports from the relevant companies. The emissions have been adjusted for energy related emissions.
Time series have been completed to 1985 for 2A5, 2A6 and 2A7d.
Time series have been completed to 1985 for chemical industry regarding SO2, NOx, NMVOC and NH3.
Emissions from food and drink have been added for the years 1985-1989. Activity data for sugar have been changed for 2010 and activity data for coffee have been changed for 2006, 2008-10 due to changes in the statistics.
Improvements and additions are continuously being implemented due to the comprehensiveness and complexity of the use and application of solvents and solvent containing products in industries and households. The main recalculations and their implications on the emissions in the 2013 reporting include the following:
Compared with the previous NH3 and PM emissions inventory (submission 2012), some changes and updates have been made. These changes cause a decrease in the NH3 emission (2007 – 2009), an increase in the NH3 emission in 2010 and an increase in the PM emission in 2000-2010.
Emission of NH3 has decreased 1-2 % in the period 2007-2009 and increased 0.1 %in 2010 compared to the submission 2011. The main reason for the decrease is an adjustment of normative figures for the period 2007-2010. For 2010 a change of the number of animals for some categories is made and this influences the emission to increase. The number of animals is changed for fur animals due to updated numbers from Statistics Denmark and for weaners, fattening pigs and hens due to and error in the calculations.
Activity data for sewage sludge have been changed for 2010 due to updated data from the Danish AgriFish Agency.
Emission of PM increased all years due to correction of some data for non-dairy cattle and laying hens. Furthermore is the production cycle in 2010 changed for weaners, fattening pigs and hens due to changes in the number of animals.
No recalculations were made for sector 6.C. Waste Incineration.
For sector 6.D. Waste Other several recalculations were made. Activity data for composting of garden and park waste from the waste statistics include wood chippings, in previous submissions this relatively small part of the activity was subtracted in the whole time series with help from surrogate data (available for 1997-2000). The influence that this exclusion of wood chippings had on the activity data (3-6 %) could not justify the increase in uncertainty that it caused. Therefore, wood chippings are now included, adding in average 4 % to the total composting activity data.
For accidental building fires, emission factors for particles and heavy metals have been increased with a factor 1000 after personal contact with the author of the reference. Furthermore, a small mistake in the calculation of full-scale equivalent activity data for container fires has been corrected, giving a decrease for 1981-2010 between 2 % (2007) and 5 % (2009). Since container fires are just a small part of the fires contributing to emissions from accidental building fires, this recalculation is miniscule.
For accidental vehicle fires, an update in vehicle population data has given a very small decrease in the FSE activity data for accidental truck and passenger car fires.
