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Historical Air Emissions from United States Petroleum Refineries

Historical Air Emissions from United States Petroleum Refineries

Full Title: Historical Air Emissions from United States Petroleum Refineries
Author(s): Brian Nguyen and Thomas A. Nelson
Publisher(s): SAGE Environmental Consulting LP and American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM)
Publication Date: April 1, 2015
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):

The Clean Air Act requirement for USEPA to review and update NSPS and NESHAP regulations will maintain and potentially augment air emissions controls in the future as noted earlier. Therefore, emissions have actually been inversely related to increases in distillation capacity and crude oil density and sulfur content over the last 23 years. Figure 6 provides a comparison of the criteria pollutants versus annual production rates of the major petroleum refining product types. Based on the comparisons, the US petroleum refining industry has been able to increase production of finished motor gasoline (an approximate 33 percent increase from 1990 to 2011) and kerosene-type jet fuel, and distillate fuel oil (an approximate 40 percent increase from 1990 to 2011), while reducing emissions of criteria pollutants during the same
period of time.

Table 1 summarizes trends in US refining processing and CAP and HAP emissions over the period of investigation. Even though US petroleum refining crude distillation capacity has increased 16 percent and the associated crudes have increased in density and sulfur content, industry SO2 emissions have decreased 91 percent and total HAP emissions have decreased 66%. These reductions in emissions are closely related to industry compliance with federal and state air pollution control rules. As refineries install equipment to process heavier crudes and/or increase sulfur processing capacity, emissions are likely to continue to decline due to both technology improvements and increased stringency of existing regulations.

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