Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
• Agroprocessing industries
: The various interactions and actions of the upstream
agroindustry will be discussed in Chapter 6. Associated downstream industries
are generally classed as agroprocessing-type industries. These are the industries
that transform the products from the agricultural, forestry, and isheries indus-
tries. The two general categories are (1) food industries and (2) nonfood industries.
• Hydrocarbon, hydro, and other energy resources
: Other energy sources include bio-
mass, hydrogen, solar, geothermal, wind, and tidal. Electric power generation
and distribution for the non-hydro power systems fall somewhere in-between
upstream and downstream depending on the type of energy resource being har-
vested. The major downstream industries are the various kinds of petrochemical
industries. It is probably safe to say that downstream utilization of the products
from this group of upstream industries is perhaps the largest of any of the catego-
ries of geoenvironmental resource usage.
• Production of goods and facilities
: These are the downstream industries that trans-
form the products issuing from upstream industries such as hydrocarbon extrac-
tion, agricultural products, and metal ore production. The products from these
downstream industries are either further transformed by other downstream
industries or used directly by individual consumers.
• Public and private services
: We classify these kinds of services as industries and as
downstream industries even though they do not necessarily deliver hard goods
to the consumer. The delivery of services, as goods, requires facilities and use of
technology and goods that in one way or another will interact with the geoenvi-
ronment. The effects or results of these interactions need to be examined.
4.4 Mineral Mining and Processing Downstream Industries
For convenience in discussion in this section, it is understood that when we use the term
industry
this will mean
downstream industry
.
4.4.1 Metallurgical Industries
The detailed treatment of resource extraction and processing associated with mineral
mining and processing of the raw earth and rock materials as upstream industries can
be found in Chapter 5. For this section, we want to outline the essential items for those
downstream industries established to process the metal ores, obtained from the upstream
industries, that directly or indirectly impact on the geoenvironment. From the illustra-
tive example shown in Figure 4.2 of the industries associated with mining-extraction
and processing as upstream and downstream types of industries, it is noted that the
mid-
stream-downstream
industries in the upper right corner of Figure 4.2 can be classiied as
either midstream or downstream industries, depending on whether the products from
these industries serve as source materials for other downstream industries or whether the
products directly serve the individual consumer. A good example of this is the
parts
indus-
try, i.e., the industries that produce products such as parts and elements for other indus-
tries that will assemble the parts and elements into consumer goods (assembly plants or
industries). Note that midstream industries become downstream industries when their
Search WWH ::
Custom Search