• POWER: Emissions from a state-owned power plant in the nearby Tula region are by far the main source of sulfur dioxide (SO2) pollution in Mexico City, exceeding by 33 times the amount produced by freight and public transportation, according to OCCA an umbrella group championing clean air.
• HOTSPOT: Known as one of the top SO2 hotspots in the world, the Tula power plant (53 miles north of Mexico City) is the country’s largest (1,606 MW) and runs in part on heavy fuel oil. Groups are calling the Mexican power utility (CFE) to convert the Tula plant to 100% natural gas.
• AEROSOLS: “Every day, (Tula power plant) emissions cause a sulfur dioxide bath which in turn produces acid aerosols, affecting people’s health because they are microscopic particles,” said Adrián Fernández, an expert at Iniciativa Climática de México (ICM), one of the groups under the OCCA umbrella.
• EMITTER: As a nation, Mexico ranks number four among the top human-generated SO2 emitters, according to a 2019 report by the environmental group Greenpeace, just behind India, Russia, and China, with an estimated total output of 1,897 kilotonnes/year.
