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A comparative assessment of resource efficiency in petroleum refining |
Jeongwoo Han a,⇑, Grant S. Forman b, Amgad Elgowainy a, Hao Cai a, Michael Wang a, Vincent B. DiVita c |
a Systems Assessment Group, Energy Systems Division, Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 S. Cass Avenue, Argonne, IL 60439, United states |
b Sasol Synfuels International, 900 Threadneedle, Suite 100, Houston, TX 77079, United States |
c Jacobs Consultancy Inc., 5995 Rogerdale Road, Houston, TX 77072, United States |
h i g h l i g h t s |
Investigate refineries with various complexities and operational flexibilities. |
Categorize refineries into three groups by crude density and heavy products yield. |
Estimate GHG emissions cost to produce more of the desirable fuels. |
Complex refineries can process heavier crude into more gasoline and distillate. |
Complex refineries are more resource efficient, but more energy and GHG intensive. |
a r t i c l e |
i n f o |
Article history: |
Received 12 January 2015 |
Received in revised form 4 March 2015 |
Accepted 10 March 2015 |
Available online 25 March 2015 |
Keywords: |
Petroleum refinery |
Life-cycle analysis |
Energy efficiency |
Resource efficiency |
Greenhouse gas emissions |
a b s t r a c t |
Because of increasing environmental and energy security concerns, a detailed understanding of energy |
efficiency and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the petroleum refining industry is critical for fair |
and equitable energy and environmental policies. To date, this has proved challenging due in part to |
the complex nature and variability within refineries. In an effort to simplify energy and emissions refin- |
ery analysis, we delineated LP modeling results from 60 large refineries from the US and EU into broad |
categories based on crude density (API gravity) and heavy product (HP) yields. Product-specific efficien- |
cies and process fuel shares derived from this study were incorporated in Argonne National Laboratory’s |
GREET life-cycle model, along with regional upstream GHG intensities of crude, natural gas and electricity |
specific to the US and EU regions. The modeling results suggest that refineries that process relatively |
heavier crude inputs and have lower yields of HPs generally have lower energy efficiencies and higher |
GHG emissions than refineries that run lighter crudes with lower yields of HPs. The former types of |
refineries tend to utilize energy-intensive units which are significant consumers of utilities (heat and |
electricity) and hydrogen. Among the three groups of refineries studied, the major difference in the |
energy intensities is due to the amount of purchased natural gas for utilities and hydrogen, while the |
sum of refinery feed inputs are generally constant. These results highlight the GHG emissions cost a refi- |
ner pays to process deep into the barrel to produce more of the desirable fuels with low carbon to hydro- |
gen ratio. |
2015 Argonne National Laboratory. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC |
BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). |
1. Introduction |
Increasing concerns with the consequences of climate change |
turns scrutiny towards the source and efficiency of energy produc- |
tion and consumption. Within this context, petroleum is a major |
source of global energy demand and a primary component of |
transportation fuels. In 2011, petroleum accounted for 34% of |
global energy consumption and 36% of global greenhouse gas |
(GHG) emissions [1], while the transportation sector in the US |
and the EU consumed 71% and 62% of total petroleum products, |
respectively, as shown in Fig. S1 [2,3]. |
Regulations are being developed in the US and EU to reduce pet- |
roleum consumption, encourage use of alternative fuels and pro- |
mote energy efficiency. In the US, the Renewable Fuel Standard |
(RFS) mandates the production of 36 billion gallons of renewable |
fuels with various GHG emissions reduction thresholds relative |
to conventional gasoline and diesel [4]. California implemented |
the Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) in 2009 to reduce the GHG |
intensity of transportation fuels [5]. The Renewable Energy |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2015.03.038 |
0016-2361/ 2015 Argonne National Laboratory. Published by Elsevier Ltd. |
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). |
⇑Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 630 262 6519. |
E-mail |
addresses: |
jhan@anl.gov |
(J. |
Han), |
grant.forman@us.sasol.com |
(G.S. |
Forman), |
aelgowainy@anl.gov |
(A. |
Elgowainy), |
hcai@anl.gov |
(H. |
Cai), |
mqwang@anl.gov (M. Wang), Vince.Divita@jacobs.com (V.B. DiVita). |
Fuel 157 (2015) 292–298 |
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect |
Fuel |
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/fuel |
Directive (RED) in the EU requires 10% of transportation energy |
consumption to be produced from renewable sources by 2020 |
[6]. The production of energy from these renewable sources must |
achieve a minimum 35% reduction in life-cycle GHG emissions |
against conventional, petroleum-derived baseline fuels, with the |
threshold being elevated to 50% in 2018 [7]. |
Notably, all of these regulations require a reliable estimation of |
life-cycle |
GHG |
emissions |
of |
alternative |
transportation |
fuels, |
including petroleum-derived gasoline and diesel baseline fuels. |