See also
Zurich Openmod Workshop Do-a-thon on industrial demand
Google Doc on industrial demand from do-a-thon
hotmaps project and it's gitlab account.
Overview
Direct emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases occur both from fossil fuel combustion for process heat and from chemical processes (e.g. calcination in cement manufacture or iron ore reduction in steel manufacturing). Indirect emissions come from e.g. the use of electricity.
Furthermore, industry products may include embedded carbon, e.g. in plastics, that may be released if the plastics are incinerated. In this case, emissions are usually included in the Electricity and Heat Production sector (see National Inventory Submissions, 2017, UNFCCC ).
Tackling emissions in the industrial sector involves a case-by-case analysis of each industrial sector.
Many Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) have good representations of the industrial sector, but many more detailed energy models do not.
Industrial energy use and emissions also have a knock-on effect on life cycle analysis (LCA) of technologies in the rest of the energy sector.
Circular economy practices have the potential of achieving significant CO2 reductions in the industry, e.g. recycling avoids the need for virgin materials and the emissions associated with its manufacturing.
Data
European Union
EU per country statistics of emissions and energy balances in each sector are available.
The JRC-IDEES database includes electricity and fuel consumption for every EU-28 country from 2000 to 2015. (registration is required to download the database)
EPRTR : http://prtr.ec.europa.eu/#/home
Registry of poluting industrial facility
Release of poluant per year
EU-ETS registry : https://ets-registry.webgate.ec.europa.eu/
Process heat
Industrial processes often need heat. This heat can be categorised by temperature, e.g. low (below 100 C), medium (100-400 C) and high (above 400 C).
For the EU, low-temperature heat represents roughly 25%, mid-temperature, 30% and high-temperature 45%. The following references provide temperature-resolved process heat statistics for the EU. ( Rehfeldt et al. 2018, Naegler et al. 2015).
Different technologies can provide heat at different temperatures.
Conventional sources of process heat are the burning of fossil fuels. For example, the flame temperature of methane is 1950 C.
Alternative sources would be:
- Solar thermal (only for low temperature)
- heat pumps (particularly for low temperatures)
- concentrated solar power (which can reach very high temperatures)
- geothermal heat
- electricity (electric furnaces, microwaves, infrared radiation, induction, electron beams, electric arc and plasma technologies up to 2000 C, see Lechtenböhmer et al, 2016)
- nuclear heat (traditional reactors can reach 400-600 C, but newer high temperature designs can go higher)
- biomass
- fossil fuels with carbon capture and sequestration (CCS)
- synthetic fuels (such as hydrogen, which has a flame temperature of 2111 C)
By sector
Iron and steel
There are two routes to produce steel. The primary route, also known as integrated steelworks, employs blast furnaces in which coke is used to reduce iron ore into iron with high process emissions.
The secondary route uses electric arcs and scrap metal significantly reducing the associated emissions. Direct reduced iron can also be used in the secondary route.
The Acerlor Mittal factory in Hamburg uses methane, instead of coke, to reduce the iron.
The possibility of reducing iron ore with hydrogen instead of coke being explored in H2Future, HYBRIT and SALCOS projects.
Non-Ferrous Metals
There are two routes to produce aluminium. In the primary route, alumina is produced from bauxite (aluminium ore) and transformed into aluminium. Both processes are energy intensive. In the secondary route, scrap aluminium is remelted and CO2 emissions are drastically reduced.
Non-metallic mineral products (Cement, Ceramics, Glass)
To make cement, limestone (calcium carbonate) is turned into lime (calcium oxide) by baking it at high temperatures. The conversion releases large amounts of CO2 emissions.
Several alternative raw materials and cement substitutes are under research (see In-depth analysis in support of the Commission communication COM(2018) 773).
Carbon Capture and Utilization/Storage is another strategy to reduced cement emissions (see Farfan et al. 2019).
Ceramics and glass manufacturing could be electrified (see Lechtenböhmer et al, 2016)
Concrete also absorbs CO2 from air.
Chemicals
Besides energy-related and process-related emissions, this sector includes carbon-embedded in plastic that will be released if they are incinerated at the end of their lifetime. Currently, plastic-embedded CO2 emissions are similar to the sum of energy-related and process-related emissions (see Circular Economy)
Carbon-based products (naphtha, liquid petroleum gas, methane) are used as feedstocks in the chemical industry.
Dataset on virgin production routes in the chemical sector: Mappig Global Flows of Chemicals: From Fossil Fuel Feedstocks to Chemical Products, Levi and Cullen, 2018
Naphtha and other hydrocarbons can be synthetically obtained through the Fischer-Tropsch process.
Pulp and paper
There are no process emissions associated with this sector and its complete electrification seems to be possible.
The black liquor obtained as waste product when digesting pulpwood into paper pulp can be gasified to obtain syngas.
Studies
Studies of reducing emissions in the industrial sector. Most of them include scenario-based analysis.
IPCC 5th Assessment Report on Mitigation (Working Group III) in Industry (Chapter 10)
Comparative analysis of options and potential for emission abatement in industry – summary of study comparison and study factsheets, Fraunhofer Institut für System- und Innovationsforschung,
In-depth analysis in support of the Commission communication COM(2018) 773, A Clean Planet for all. A Europea long-term strategic vision for a prosperous, modern, competitive and climate neutral economy
Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on an EU Strategy for Heating and Cooling
The Circular Economy. Transformative innovation for prosperous and low-carbon industry, Material Economics
Mission Possible. Reaching net-zero carbon emissions from harder-to-abate sectors by mid-century, Energy Transitions Commission
