IPCC Volume 3 · Scope 1
Industrial processes and product use
Emissions from chemistry, not from burning: limestone giving up its carbon in a kiln, nitric acid plants releasing N₂O, plasma etching fluorinated gases in a chip fab. Seven IPCC chapters, each with one trap worth knowing.
On this page you'll learn
- The equation for each industry
- Why process emissions and fuel emissions are always two records
- The double counts each chapter guards against
- Scope
- 1
- Publisher
- IPCC 2006 Volume 3
- Category codes
mineral_process,chemical_process,metal_process,electronics_process,non_energy_product,ods_substitute,other_product_use
Not the fuel
Why this matters
A cement kiln burns fuel (Scope 1 stationary combustion) and releases CO₂ from the limestone it heats (this page). A works that enters only one reports roughly half its emissions. The same is true of an ammonia plant's reformer and a steelworks' coke.
Minerals: cement, lime, glass, carbonates (Ch 2)
| Industry | Equation |
|---|---|
| Cement (2A1) | clinker × EF × CKD correction |
| Lime (2A2) | lime × EF |
| Glass (2A3) | glass × EF × (1 − cullet ratio) |
| Other carbonate use (2A4) | carbonate × EF × fraction calcined |
CO₂ only. Limestone used as aggregate, filler or whiting doesn't calcine, so IPCC's list of non-emissive uses is refused outright: multiplying by the factor anyway would invent an emission that didn't happen. Agricultural lime belongs to managed soils.
Chemicals (Ch 3)
| Industry | Equation |
|---|---|
| Ammonia (2B1) | NH₃ × EF − urea × 44/60 |
| Nitric and adipic acid (2B2–2B4) | product × EF × (1 − destruction × utilisation) |
| Carbide, titanium dioxide, soda ash (2B5–2B7) | tonnes × EF |
Abatement goes both ways
Some published nitric acid factors already include abatement (2 kg N₂O/t for NSCR plants against 9 for an unabated plant). Applying a destruction factor again takes it down another 95%. Adipic acid is published uncontrolled at 300 kg N₂O/t; a plant with thermal destruction emits about 4.5. Slate knows which rows are already abated.
Metals (Ch 4)
Iron, steel and coke, ferroalloys, lead and zinc: tonnes × factor. The coke in a blast furnace is a reducing agent, not fuel: its carbon leaves through chemistry, and is reported here, separately from fuel actually burned.
Watch out
IPCC's footnote: the factors for basic oxygen (BOF) and open hearth steel include blast-furnace iron making; electric arc (EAF) doesn't. An integrated works reporting 1.35 t CO₂ per tonne of pig iron and 1.46 per tonne of BOF steel has counted its blast furnace twice.
Electronics (Ch 6)
Plasma etching and chamber cleaning release seven fluorinated gases: CF₄, C₂F₆, CHF₃, C₃F₈, NF₃, SF₆ and C₆F₁₄. None is CO₂, methane or N₂O, and the lowest GWP among them is 6,630. Tier 1 is substrate area × factor; Tier 2 asks how much gas went in, how much the process used up, and what by-products it made.
Lubricants, waxes and solvents (Ch 5)
- ODU
- fraction oxidised during use: about 0.2 for oils, 0.05 for greases
Only the oil that burns during use counts here. The rest is waste later. Lubricant mixed into two-stroke fuel is combustion and belongs under mobile combustion; entering it here as well counts it twice. A site that knows its own ODU replaces the default, rather than applying a correction on top.
Substitutes for ozone-depleting substances (Ch 7)
HFCs and PFCs in foams, aerosols, fire suppression and refrigeration leave over years. IPCC publishes what share of the charge escapes in the first year, each year of life, and at end of life, so this is a method over a bank, not a factor.
Note
Five of IPCC's foam rows add up to more than 100% of the charge (one-component foam: 95% in year one plus 2.5% a year for 50 years). Slate caps cumulative emissions at the charge.
SF₆ and N₂O products (Ch 8)
SF₆ in electrical switchgear (GWP 23,500 under AR5) and N₂O from medical and food uses. Switchgear use rates differ by region: 2.6% of nameplate capacity a year in Europe, 14% in the United States. Only three regions are published; a site elsewhere is refused rather than given the nearest.
Watch out
IPCC's US switchgear use factor already includes disposal. A US estate that also enters disposal counts it twice.