Refineries like this produce 13 percent of the man-made carbon dioxide.
Oil Refining
Petroleum refineries are among the largest energy consumers in the world. The petroleum refining industry uses almost 30 percent of all energy used in global manufacturing and contributes over 20 percent of world wide carbon emissions. United States uses more petroleum than any other energy source, in fact petroleum supplies more than 38 percent of our country's energy demand. Only about half of the energy is used as fuel; the rest is burned to create energy for industrial processes.1
A high temperature gas-cooled reactor has substantial advantages over conventional fossil fuels. With current fossil fuel prices and the anticipated increased attention and controls applied to carbon emissions, the high temperature gas-cooled reactor appears to be an attractive alternative to burning fossil fuels to refine crude oil.
There are three incentives for nuclear heat in the refinery-lower energy costs: lower carbon dioxide emissions, and increased conversion efficiency per barrel of oil. However, it may also require major modifications to a current refinery infrastructure to support nuclear process heat. While the details are refinery specific, the massive scale of a modern refinery implies that multiple modular high-temperature reactors would be required.