Estimated mercury emissions from coal combustion in the households sector in Poland

Coal consumption secures more than 50% of needs of Polish economy for primary energy carriers and the consumption of hard coal alone amounts 70-80 million Mg annually. Almost 14% of hard coal consumption - up to 11 million Mg per year - fall to households in Poland. Coal combustion in domestic furnaces and boilers is regarded as the main source of emissions into the atmosphere, referred to as the low-stack emission. The matter of the paper is the assessment of the emission of mercury from the households sector as the result of coal combustion. The results of the assessment were collated with GUS data on mercury emission from this sector. A change in the annual emission of mercury from the household sector has been proposed and justified, assuming that the whole low-stack emission of mercury is the result of coal combustion only.