The Dutch TROPOMI space instrument creates daily global maps of carbon monoxide (CO) in the atmosphere. Researchers from SRON and TNO have now measured CO emissions over a full year from the 21 largest European steel plants, including Tata Steel.
Level playing field
Satellites are uniquely suited to measure emission sources around the world, consistently with the same instrument and in a transparent manner. This creates a level playing field for companies that have to comply with emission regulations. For example, future European space missions such as CO2M and TANGO will measure the most important greenhouse gas—CO2—to verify compliance with the Paris climate agreement.
TROPOMI
The Dutch TROPOMI instrument on ESA’s Sentinel-5p satellite measures emissions of the pollutant gas CO with daily global coverage. Companies in the EU with high CO emissions need to report those on an annual basis. Steel plants—the largest industrial CO emitters—are a good example. But companies use different methods for this, which are not always based on direct measurements.
consistently determine CO emissions
A Dutch research team, including first author Gijs Leguijt (SRON/TNO), has now demonstrated that they can use satellites to consistently determine CO emissions from factories. They have used TROPOMI to map the CO emissions over all of 2019 from the twenty-one largest European steel plants. Together these are responsible for 77% of European and 7% of worldwide steel production. The satellite measurements confirm the reported values for the majority of the monitored plants.
Publication
Gijs Leguijt, Joannes D. Maasakkers, Hugo A. C. Denier van der Gon, Arjo J. Segers, Tobias Borsdorff, Ivar R. van der Velde, and Ilse Aben, ‘Comparing space-based to reported carbon monoxide emission estimates for Europe’s iron and steel plants’, Atmospheric chemistry and physics