The Netherlands and EU's status of industries

 that exceed the allowable exhaust standard for ammonia

Introduction

Scientists has differentiated Ammonia (NH₃) as a colourless, pungent-smelling and corrosive gas that is produced by the decay of organic vegetable matter and from the excrement of humans and animals. When released into the atmosphere, ammonia increases the level of air pollution. Once deposited in water and soils, it can potentially cause two major types of environmental damage, acidification] and eutrophication (where over-fertilisation causes oxygen depletion in water bodies as they become suffocated with weeds), both of which can harm sensitive vegetation systems, biodiversity and water quality (Centre for European Policy Studies, 2014).

Table 1. Uses of Ammonia

Source: Centre for European Policy Studies, 2014

The European Union and The Netherlands have regulated ammonia emissions in the European Union (EU) especially in agriculture, livestock, and manufacture. Ammonia emissions from agriculture mainly occur as a result of volatilisation from livestock excreta (the vaporisation of a dissolved sample), whether this occurs from livestock housing, manure storage, urine and dung deposition in grazed pastures, or following manure spreading on agricultural land. A smaller proportion of ammonia emissions result from the volatilisation of ammonia from nitrogenous fertilisers and from fertilised crops.

Figure 1. Top ten global ammonia producers, 2012 (k tonnes)

Source: Eurostat, 2013

The two main drivers of ammonia consumption are the use in the agricultural sector and the development of applications for industrial purposes; both have determined the increase of consumption of ammonia in the last decade. Interestingly, as shown in Figure 2,the moderate drop in consumption during the recent global economic downturn (2008- 2009) has been mostly triggered by a decline in the demand for industrial applications; this can be explained by the strong agricultural fundamentals in developing countries that managed to limit the fall in consumption.

Through its resource use, agriculture changes rural landscapes and contributes to resource depletion and degradation. Via substance emissions into the wider environment, agriculture may contribute to a complex series of ecological impacts, including human health effects, biodiversity loss and climate change. In the European Union, policy responses to environmental concerns have included the introduction of: resource use constraints and limits; emission and concentration limits; best available techniques, methods and practices. Nature conservation policies have also been implemented that set various agricultural constraints (European Environment Agency, 2015).

Agri-environmental indicators can be used to analyse, over time, the effects of agriculture on the environment and the interaction between the two, as well as the effectiveness and efficiency of agricultural and environmental policy measures. A Communication from the European Commission to the Council and European Parliament titled, ‘The development of agri-environmental indicators for monitoring the integration of environmental concerns into the Common Agricultural Policy’ (COM(2006) 508) identified 28 agri-environmental indicators (AEIs) to help with this assessment; Eurostat (2013) coordinates the work within the EEA on the development of these indicators.

A number of steps have been taken to limit the potential impacts of ammonia emissions. The European Parliament and Council’s Directive 2008/1/EC on Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) ― until 2013 ― requires industrial and agricultural activities with a high pollution potential to have a permit. This permit can only be issued if certain environmental conditions are met, so that the companies themselves bear responsibility for preventing and reducing any pollution they may cause. The Directive explicitly requires EU Member States to take measures to reduce ammonia emissions on livestock holdings that have at least 40 000 places for poultry, 2 000 places for production of pigs (over 30 kg) or 750 places for sows. In 2010 the IPPC directive was recasted and integrated into the Industrial Emissions Directive 0075/2010 together with 6 other EU directives regulating large industrial sites.

The Council’s Nitrates Directive 1991/676/EEC aims to protect water quality across Europe by preventing nitrates from agricultural sources polluting ground and surface waters and by promoting the use of good farming practices. The EU Member States agreed to national emissions ceiling (NEC) targets for 2010 under the European Parliament and Council’s Directive 2001/81/EC, with possible further emission reductions thereafter. The purpose of these national emission ceilings was to reduce the total emissions of the four pollutants responsible for acidification, eutrophication and ground-level ozone pollution (sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds and ammonia). These targets were subsequently broadly incorporated into the parallel and international UNECE Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollutants (LRTAP) ― the so-called Gothenburg Protocol; only the targets for the Czech Republic and Portugal were slightly less ambitious than under the NEC Directive.

There are two other key factors that have had an indirect impact on ammonia emissions from agriculture. The first is the EU’s Common agricultural policy: the decoupling of subsidies under the 2005 reform of the CAP has given an added impetus to the decline in livestock numbers (for cattle and sheep in particular) as farmers are no longer paid a subsidy for every breeding animal but rather a single farm payment, and; the transition to open markets upon accession led to sharp falls in animal prices and consequent declines in livestock farming in many of the Member States that joined the EU in 2004 or 2007. The second factor is the level of meat consumption in the EU and the change in composition of meat consumption across Europe’s households, which may in part be linked to economic factors (the rising price of meat) or to health issues (especially those linked to the consumption of ‘red’ meats).

The majority of EU Member States also met their individual LRTAP targets for 2010, the principal exceptions being Germany, Finland, Croatia, Denmark, Spain and the Netherlands; Liechtenstein and Norway also fell short of their targets. The downward pressure on ammonia emissions was further embraced with the ratification of a revised Gothenburg Protocol on the 4 May 2012 in Geneva. The amendments to the 1999 Protocol detail the national emission reduction commitments from 2005 level for main air pollutants including ammonia to be achieved in 2020 and beyond.

In 12 EU Member States, the level of reduction was already below the target set out in the revised Protocol, among which Bulgaria, Croatia and Cyprus were ahead by more than 10 percentage points (pp). The 2013 ammonia emissions in the Czech Republic, Austria, Germany, France and Estonia were still above the 2005 values. With a deficit of more than 9 pp, Estonia, Finland and Sweden were the countries that remained further away from their 2020 targets.

Figure 2. Global ammonia consumption (mlntonnes)

Further, in total, agricultural activities in the EU-28 resulted in the emission of 3.6 million tonnes of ammonia in 2013. This represented a decline of almost 30 % compared with the level emitted in 1990 (see Table 1). Nevertheless, agriculture was still responsible for the vast majority (93.3 %) of total ammonia emissions in the EU-28 in 2013 (see Figure 1). Specifically, manure management (the capture, storage, treatment and use of animal manure) accounted for almost three fifths of agricultural ammonia emissions in the EU-28 in 2013, agricultural soil emissions accounting for the rest. In the European Union, France accounted for almost one fifth (19.5 %) of ammonia emissions from agriculture in the EU-28 in 2013 and Germany accounted for the next highest proportion (17.6 %). However, the trends in emission levels between these two Member States contrasted starkly: ammonia emissions from agriculture declined by 16.8 % in Germany between 1990 and 2013 but remained relatively unchanged (？ 3.9 %) throughout the period in France. Among other EU Member States, developments were even more contrasting, with declines of 60？75 % in Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Slovakia, but with a rise in Spain (+ 11.0 %). The main contributory reason for the increase in ammonia emissions from agriculture observed in Spain was the increased density of cattle, swine and poultry production. By contrast, the considerable reduction in emissions from agriculture that were recorded in the majority of countries was due mainly to changes in the management of organic manures, to the decreased use of nitrogenous fertilisers and to some reduction in livestock numbers (especially for cattle). By way of example, the considerable reduction in ammonia emissions from agriculture in the Netherlands was principally due to a change in manure management practices: manure spreading onto the surface of the soil has been phased out and replaced by either injection or ‘band spreading’ with a rapid incorporation of manure into the soil. Most ammonia volatilises within the first 12 hours, so speed of incorporation into the soil reduces nitrogen loss considerably (Ibid, 24).

Table 3: 2010 NH₃ ceilings under the NEC Directive and the Gothenburg Protocol (kt)

^* Iceland and Turkey do not have a ceiling under either the NEC Directive or the Gothenburg protocol.

Source: Centre for European Policy Studies, 2014

The European Union’s total emissions of ammonia declined by 27.0 % between 1990 and 2013 to 3.8 million tonnes, a level below the reduced emission ceilings target of 4.33 million tonnes that was agreed for the individual EU Member States under the Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP) Convention. The decline in EU-28 emissions was sharpest in the period from 1990？95 (a 17.9 % reduction). After relatively unchanged levels from 1995？99, ammonia emissions then declined relatively steadily through until 2010 before stabilising in 2011 and continuing with a slight downward trend until 2013.

Table 2. EU-27 capacity and number of plants per country, 2013

COUNTRIES         CAPACITY (k tonnes)       NUMBER OF     % EU-27

According to the UNECE Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution, in order to ensure that no information can be attributed to any specific plant, data have been aggregated together per three major EU geographical regions. As already recalled, the sample covers 10 different member states; however, the number of ammonia plants per region/country is not included in the report for confidentiality reasons and in order to avoid any risk of identifying the plants included in the study: 

a.      Southern Europe(Italy, Malta, Portugal, Greece, Slovenia, Cyprus, Spain and Bulgaria) is responsible for 12% of total EU ammonia production capacity.

b.      Western Northern Europe(UK, France, Belgium, Ireland, Luxemburg, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, Finland, Denmark and Austria) is responsible 65% of total EU ammonia production capacity.  

c.              Eastern Europe(Lithuania, Romania, Czech Republic, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Slovakia and Poland) is responsible for 23% of total EU ammonia production capacity.  

In summary, agricultural activity was responsible for the majority of ammonia emissions in each of the EU Member States in 2013 compared to livelihoods and manufacturing sector. The wider adoption of new manure management and fertiliser application practices, of dietary changes that reduce nitrogen excretion from livestock, and of more efficient use of nitrogen remain the key supply-side drivers in reducing total ammonia emissions. Nevertheless, in a few countries the reductions from other sources (such as solid waste disposal on land in Bulgaria and waste water handling in Romania) are also key to the continued overall reduction in ammonia emissions.

References:

Centre for European Policy Studies (2014). “Final Report for a Study on Composition and Drivers of Energy Prices and Costs in Energy Intensive Industries: The Case of the Chemical Industry ？ Ammonia”

Council Directive promulgated 12 December 1991: Council Directive of 12 December 1991 concerning the protection of waters against pollution caused by nitrates from agricultural sources.

European Environment Agency (2013). Ammonia Consumption.

Eurostat (2013): EU-28’s Ammonia Consumption: History and Trajectories.

UNECE Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (2013)