2.A.2 - Lime Production

The statements made below regarding source category 2.A.2 refer solely to the amounts of burnt lime and dolomite lime produced in German lime works. Other lime-producing processes are included in NFR 2.C.1 and 2.H.2.

Because of the wide range of applications covered by the sector's products, lime production is normally more isolated from economic fluctuations than is production of other mineral products such as cement. Production has fluctuated relatively little since the end of the 1990s. Dolomite-lime production, of which significantly smaller amounts are produced, basically exhibits similar fluctuations.

The pertinent emissions level is obtained by multiplying the amount of product in question (quick lime or dolomite lime) and the relevant emission factor.

The German Lime Association (BVK) collects the production data for the entire time series on a plant-specific basis, and makes it available for reporting purposes. Production amounts are determined via several different concurrent procedures; their quality is thus adequately assured (Tier 2). Most companies are also required to report lime-production data within the framework of CO₂-emissions trading. The EU monitoring guidelines for emissions trading specify a maximum accuracy of 2.5%. It is additionally assumed that 2% of the burnt lime is separated as dust in all years of the reporting period from 1990 onwards via appropriate exhaust gas purification systems and is not returned to the production process. This is taken into account by a potential 2% increase in activity rates.

Due to recommendation during NEC-Review 2021 the calculation of CO emissions from lime production is allocated to process emissions based on default-EF. The other EF are country-specific values from different research projects.

Table 1: Emission factors for quick-lime production

Table 2: Emission factors for dolomite production

All trends in emissions correspond to trends of emission factors in table above. No rising trends are identified.

Emission trends in NFR 2.A.2

At the moment, no category-specific improvements are planned.