A comparison of air emissions of thermal power plants in South Africa and 15 European countries

Abstract

Data recorded in the recently established European Pollutant Emission Register (EPER) is potentially useful for benchmarking of the environmental performance of industrial activity against European practice. Entries in the category of large power plants in the reporting year 2001 for 15 European Union (EU) countries were evaluated to estimate total and fuel specific emissions of NOx, SO2, particulate matter, and CO2. Since the EPER data quality is unknown and since it records only absolute values for emissions and thus does not allow for an eco-efficiency analysis, environmental or sustainability reports made available online by a subset of the operators were sourced to compile a set of specific emissions (per kWh of electricity generated) for the major fossil fuel types, viz. natural gas, fuel oil, coal and lignite. With a few exceptions, notably for PM10 for eight countries and NOx in one case, the large power plant data reported to the EPER is shown to be sufficiently representative of fossil-fuel based generation of electricity and is trustworthy. The fuel mix differs considerably, and together with the varying standard of pollution control technologies, this results in a wide variation in the combustion-related environmental burdens of the generated electricity. Emissions data for South African thermal electricity generation was sourced from Eskom’s 2000 environmental report; in absolute terms they are the highest in this comparison, and in specific terms amongst the three highest per unit of electricity generated from coal.