Rapport

A life cycle perspective on the benefits of renewable electricity generation

Bouman, Evert

In this report, the benefits of the use of RES to produce electricity are investigated from a life cycle perspective. Six different impact indicators for the production of electricity are estimated for all Member States in the period 2005 to 2018 for a total of sixteen different renewable and non-RES. Results show variability in impact intensities across Member States and years, depending among others on fuel conversion efficiency (for electricity produced using combustion processes) and capacity utilization (for electricity producing from non-combustion processes, such as wind power). Finally, an estimate is given on gross avoided impact by comparing historic values to a counterfactual scenario where the level of electricity production from RES is frozen at 2005 level. Results show that the increased use of photovoltaic and wind power have contributed significantly to gross avoided impacts across the investigated impact indicators. A trade-off is that the increased use of PV appears to have increased potential ecotoxicity related impacts of the European electricity production system. The increased use of solid biomass for the generation of electricity and heat generally has a positive effect on avoided impacts, at the cost of increased potential land occupation. Overall, these finding can aid policy makers and private actors direct efforts towards specific areas which offer opportunities to decrease the impacts.

ETC/CME

Transboundary particulate matter, photo-oxidants, acidifying and eutrophying components

Fagerli, Hilde; Tsyro, Svetlana; Jonson, Jan Eiof; Nyiri, Agnes; Simpson, David; Wind, Peter; Benedictow, Anna Maria Katarina; Klein, Heiko; Mu, Qing; Denby, Bruce; Wærsted, Eivind Grøtting; Aas, Wenche; Eckhardt, Sabine; Hjellbrekke, Anne-Gunn; Solberg, Sverre; Platt, Stephen Matthew; Yttri, Karl Espen; Tørseth, Kjetil; Mareckova, Katarina; Matthews, Bradley; Schindlbacher, Sabine; Ullrich, Bernhard; Wankmüller, Robert; Scheuschner, Thomas; Bergström, Robert; van der Gon, Hugo A.C. Denier; Kuenen, Jeroen J.P.; Visschedijk, Antoon J.H.; Reimann, Stefan; Hill, Matthias; Claude, Anja

Meteorologisk institutt

Quantification of microplastic in fillet and organs of farmed and wild salmonids - a comparison of methods for detection and quantification - SALMODETECT

Gomiero, Alessio; Haave, Marte; Bjorøy, Ørjan; Herzke, Dorte; Kögel, Tanja; Nikiforov, Vladimir; Øysæd, Kjell Birger

Microplastic (MP) is of growing concern to environmentaland humanhealth. Thisstudy investigated three analytical approachesto measure MPin tissues of salmonids. The studyaimed to 1) determine and demonstrate the sensitivity of current analytical methods for MP in salmon tissues for the three different quantitative methods, 2) compare the utility of the different methods in terms of cost, time and sensitivity 3) quantify MP in a relevant selection of tissues of farmedand wildsalmon in order to establish likely indicator organs for future documentation purposes. We here present the results, compare themethodsand discuss uncertainties and needs for further method development.

NORCE Norwegian Research Centre

Prøvetaking og analyse av arsen (As) i omgivelsesluft ved Elkem Carbon. September 2019 – september 2020.

Hak, Claudia

På oppdrag fra Elkem Carbon AS, har NILU utført målinger av arsen (As) i omgivelsene til Elkem Carbon i Vågsbygd
(Kristiansand kommune). Bedriften ble pålagt av Miljødirektoratet å gjennomføre As-målinger i omgivelsesluft. PM10-prøver tatt med filterprøvetaker i boligområdet på Fiskåtangen (Konsul Wilds vei) ble analysert med hensyn på As med induktivt koblet plasma massespektrometri (ICP-MS). Rapporten dekker målinger i perioden 25. september 2019 – 28. september 2020. Årsmiddelverdien av konsentrasjonen av As ble målt til 2,38 ng/m3. Målsettingsverdien for tiltak i forurensningsforskriften på 6 ng/m3 ble overholdt med god margin. Årsmiddelverdien var marginalt lavere enn nedre vurderingsterskel på 2,4 ng/m3. Et langtransportert bidrag til de to høyeste registrerte As døgnkonsentrasjonene kan ikke utelukkes.

NILU

European air quality maps for 2017. PM10, PM2.5, Ozone, NO2 and NOx spatial estimates and their uncertainties.

Horálek, Jan; Schreiberova, Marketa; Schneider, Philipp; Kurfürst, Pavel; Schovánková, Jana; Doubalová, Jana

The paper provides the annual update of the European air quality concentration maps and population exposure estimates for human health related indicators of pollutants PM10 (annual average, 90.4 percentile of daily means), PM2.5 (annual average), ozone (93.2 percentile of maximum daily 8-hour means, SOMO35, SOMO10) and NO2 (annual average), and vegetation related ozone indicators (AOT40 for vegetation and for forests) for the year 2017. The report contains also NOx annual average concentration map for 2017. The trends in exposure estimates in the period 2005-2017 for PM10 and ozone, resp. in the period 2007-2017 for PM2.5 are summarized. The analysis is based on interpolation of annual statistics of the 2017 observational data reported by EEA Member countries in 2016 and stored in the Air Quality e-reporting database. The mapping method is the Regression – Interpolation – Merging Mapping. It combines monitoring data, chemical transport model results and other supplementary data using linear regression model followed by kriging of its residuals (residual kriging). The paper presents the mapping results and gives an uncertainty analysis of the interpolated maps.

ETC/ATNI