Since the Industrial Revolution, increased amounts of anthropogenic industrial GHG emissions from factories and power plants have combined with emissions from other sources to raise the global temperature and change the climate. Modern technology has accelerated the global warming process with the production of new industrial GHGs.

Industrial greenhouse gases (GHGs) are anthropogenic gaseous constituents of the atmosphere produced by human industrial processes that absorb and emit radiation at specific wavelengths within the spectrum of thermal infrared radiation, emitted by the Earth's surface, the atmosphere, and by clouds. This phenomenon causes the greenhouse effect, which contributes to global warming. The concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) among such emissions are now more than one-third higher than they were before the Industrial Revolution.

The Earth is artificially made even warmer by hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) from industrial activities that trap extra heat from the sun, causing changes in weather patterns around the globe. CO2, the most abundant GHG, is emitted from products and by-products of manufacturing sites, and from burning fossil fuels at large industrial facilities.

Natural gas, coal, and oil are the three types of polluting power plants, and they produce 40 percent of CO2 in the United States, coal being the biggest contributor. Brown coal produces more CO2 than black coal. In the United States, industrial CO2 emissions, resulting both directly from the combustion of fossil fuels and indirectly from the generation of electricity that is consumed by industry, accounted for 28 percent ofCO2 from fossil fuel combustion in 2006.

Industrial processes are among the six major sources of pollution in the United States and are responsible for over 60 percent of Canada's total emissions. In the United States, energy-related activities account for over three-quarters of anthropogenic GHG emissions, more than half of which comes from power plants and industrial processes. When emissions from electricity were distributed among various sectors, industry accounted for the largest share of U.S. GHG emissions (29 percent) in 2006. Overall, emission sources from industrial processes accounted for 4.5 percent of U.S. GHG emissions in 2006.

The six major industrial GHGs are CO2, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6). The major industrial greenhouse gases are released from manufacturing and production processes related to iron ore pelletizing, lime, iron and steel, titanium, pulp and paper, aluminum and alumina, cement, petroleum refining, chemicals and fertilizers, electricity (produced with oil, coal, and gas), natural gas pipelines, potash, base metal smelters, silicon carbide, nitric acid, ammonia, urea, limestone and dolomite use (such as flux stone, flue gas desulfurization, and glass manufacturing), soda ash, ferroalloy, zinc, phosphoric acid, titanium dioxide production, lead, coal mining, wastewater treatment, stationary combustion, composting, manure management, semiconductors, magnesium, and adipic acid.

At present, electric power generation is the largest contributor to industrial GHG emissions. Industrial methane comes from petroleum systems and coal mining (Clarke, 1997). Unintentional fugitive industrial methane emissions come from equipment leaks, natural gas distribution, and storage facilities. Nitrous oxide is generated during the production of nitric acid and adipic acid. The manufacture of liquid crystal display (LCD) screens releases nitrogen trifluoride (Friedrich, 2004). Reports in 2008 indicated a rise in airborne levels of nitrogen trifluoride from flat-panel screen technology (manufacture of LCD screens). Industrial activities also produce several classes of greenhouse halogenated substances that contain fluorine, chlorine, or bromine, such as potent greenhouse HFCs, PFCs, and SF6 gases. Sulfur hexafluoride is the most potent GHG the IPCC has evaluated.

Chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, are wholly human-made, new to the atmosphere, and widely used in aerosols, foam manufacture, air conditioning, and refrigeration. Other industrial sources include HCFC-22 production, semiconductor manufacturing, aluminum production, and magnesium production and processing.

Industrial emissions form a significant percentage of anthropogenic sources of GHGs that are blanketing the Earth and increasing the average global air temperature near the Earth's surface. Industrial processes can chemically transform raw materials, which often release waste gases such as CO2, CH4, and N2O, gases that can influence the atmospheric lifetimes of other gases. These emissions can affect atmospheric processes that alter the radiative balance of the Earth, such as cloud formation or albedo. The IPCC reported in 2007 that methane is twenty times as effective as CO2 at trapping heat in the atmosphere, and its concentration in the atmosphere has increased by 148 percent over the last 250 years.

Nitrous oxide is over three hundred times more powerful than CO2. Nitrogen trifluoride is thousands of times stronger at trapping atmospheric heat than CO2. Human industrial activity has produced very potent GHGs such as hydrofluorocarbons that trap more heat from the Sun than CO2 and other GHGs, making the Earth artificially warmer. As a result, extreme weather events will become more frequent, more widespread, and more intense in the times ahead. In addition to having high global warming potentials, SF6 and PFCs have extremely long atmospheric lifetimes, resulting in their irreversible accumulation in the atmosphere once emitted.

References

1. Clarke, A. G. Industrial Air Pollution Monitoring: Gaseous and Particulate Emissions. Environment Management Series 8. New York: Springer, 1997.

2. Friedrich, R., and S. Reis, eds. Emissions of Air Pollutants: Measurements, Calculations, and Uncertainties. New York: Springer, 2004.

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