9 Industrial
9.1 Introduction
Industrial facilities are major emitters stemming from high electricity demand, on-site fuel combustion, and industrial processes. The data presented here are aggregations of industrial point source reporting to state and federal agencies. Care must be taken to avoid double-counting in this sector, as industry includes emissions from power plants, waste facilities, and natural gas combustion that can be counted in other sectors. Natural gas combustion is the most difficult class to account for, as natural gas is delivered both within and without the services of utilities. Additionally, smaller emitters are not required to report to state and federal agencies, meaning a small but potentially significant slice of industrial emissions may be missing.
9.2 Results
9.2.1 2021 county and subsector breakdown
Industry accounted for 25.2% of total emissions in the 11-county region in 2021. County emissions vary widely and seemingly randomly due to the point source approach of industrial emissions, as opposed to the demand-side approach of electricity, residential building fuel, waste, and functionally on-road transportation. The largest example is that two oil refineries in Dakota County account for 36.1% of industrial emissions in 2021.
9.2.2 Baseline emissions
Regional industrial emissions have increased by -5.1% since 2005, although emissions prior to 2011 are modeled by anchoring to MN Pollution Control Agency industrial emissions, which may or may not adequately represent metro region emissions. Emissions compared to 2011, the earliest year of federally supplied GHG data, there is a much more modest observed increase of -10.1%.
9.2.3 Scaling to CTUs
As industrial emissions are provided as point sources, scaling to cities is already done. Note that the color ramp in the map below is on a log scale due to the oil refinery in Rosemount - pop-up values are reported as untransformed values, however.