Petroleum refining pollution source

The EPA has established four different control technologies for the petroleum refining industry best practicable control technology (BPT), best available technology economically achievable (BAT), best conventional pollutant control technology (BCT), and new source performance standards (NSPS). Table 13 shows the BPT and NSPS standards that must be met by the various subcategories (40 CFR Part 419). The limitations for BPT actually incorporate those of both BAT and BCT for this industry. 

The 1990 CAA Amendments listed 189 hazardous air pollutants. It also told EPA to establish regulations for each pollutant and to publish a schedule for regulating the sources thereof For the petroleum refining industry, EPA issued regulations for the following ... 

U ecently, interest in sulfur utilization in asphalt paving materials has been rekindled. One of the foremost reasons for this is the potential availability of surplus sulfur recovered from secondary sources in connection with meeting environmental pollution standards (I). These sources include sulfur recovered from sour gas, from refining of petroleum, and from smelter and powerplant stack gases. Another potential saving of energy and petroleum is possible by replacing part of the asphalt binder with sulfur (2). 

Liquid petroleum (cmde oil and the products refined from it) plays a pervasive role in our modem society. For example, about 286,000 tonnes of oil and petroleum products are used in Canada every day. The United States uses about 10 times this amount and, worldwide, about 11 million tonnes are used per day. Extraction, transportation, and widespread use of petroleum inevitably result in intentional and accidental releases to the environment. In addition, natural seepage of cmde oil from geologic formations below the seafloor to the sea surface also contributes to pollution of the marine environment. Based on analysis of data from a wide variety of sources, each year on average about 260,000 tonnes of petroleum spills into the waters off North America. Annual worldwide estimates of petroleum input into the sea exceed 1,300,000 tonnes. In Canada, about 12 spills of more than 40001 are reported each day, of which only about one spill is into navigable waters and most spills take place on land. In the U.S.A., about 25 such spills occur each day into navigable waters and about 75 occur on land. ... 

Hydrocarbons (particularly aromates and polycyclic hydrocarbons, but also n-alkanes, isoalkanes, cycloalkanes as well as unsaturated hydrocarbons), which enter the atmosphere in the course of petroleum and natural gas exploitation, during their treatment, transportation, storing and utilization of products, are important sources of air pollution. In the developed industrial countries the portion of hydrocarbon emissions constitutes as much as 9% of the total amount of emissions [20]. Table 5.23 presents data concerning emissions of hydrocarbons from a hypothetical refining plant with a treatment capacity of 5 million t yr, related only to storage and transport of petroleum and by-products in the refining plant [21]. 

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