November 2022 Volume 4

MATERIALS

Manufacturing industries are working hard to reduce their collective carbon footprint by any means possible, within technological and economical reach. Forging producers and their supply chain partners have taken major strides in assisting these efforts. Reductions in CO2 emissions are ranging from a forging company installing solar panels to power forging operations in the Midwest, to “green” steel manufacturing in the North of Sweden. Is hydrogen part of the answer to further CO2 reductions? Decarbonization and Sustainability in the Metals Industries By Dean M. Peters

Scientists have long been warning us about the effects of greenhouse gases on our environment and our weather. Greenhouse gases (GHGs) are those that trap heat in the atmosphere and their cumulative effects on the earth’s climate are becomingmore frequent and more pronounced. To be sure, the effects of greenhouse gases on Earth’s ecosystems have been subject to debate. Nonetheless, the preponderance of scientific research and empirical evidence supports the notion that the scientists are on to something that would be unwise for those who live on this planet to wantonly ignore. About Greenhouse Gases According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), “Greenhouse gases warm the Earth by absorbing energy and slowing the rate at which the energy escapes to space; they act like a blanket insulating the Earth. Different GHGs can have different effects on the Earth's warming.” There are two ways in which GHGs differ from each other: their ability to absorb energy (their "radiative efficiency") and how long they stay in the atmosphere (their "lifetime"). An index called the Global Warming Potential (GWP) was developed to compare the global warming impacts of different gases. It is a measure of how much energy the emissions of 1 ton of a gas will absorb over a given period of time, relative to the emissions of 1 ton of carbon dioxide (CO2). The larger the GWP, the more a given gas warms the Earth compared to CO2 over that time period, usually 100 years. Carbon dioxide is by far the most-emitted GHG, accounting for 79 percent of all GHGs emitted in 2020. This is followed by the other carbonaceous GHG, methane, which accounts for 11 percent. The remaining 10 percent of GHG emissions are nitrous oxide and fluorinated gases.

Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Carbon Dioxide Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the primary greenhouse gas emitted through human activities. It is measurable, and it is the standard by which the effects of other GHGs are measured. Its GWP, by definition, is 1. All other gases are indexed relative to it. It is naturally present in the atmosphere by the circulation of carbon among the atmosphere, oceans, soil, plants, and animals. However, human activities are altering the carbon cycle by adding more CO2 to the atmosphere and by influencing the ability of natural sinks, like forests and soils, to remove and store CO2 from the atmosphere. Human-related CO2 emissions are responsible for the increase that has occurred in the atmosphere since the industrial revolution. CO2 remains in the climate system for a very long time. Today’s CO2 emissions can cause increases in atmospheric concentrations of CO2 that will last thousands of years. By contrast, methane (CH4),

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