Allocation of energy use in petroleum refineries to petroleum products

Wang, Michael; Lee, Hanjie; Molburg, J.C.

doi:10.1007/bf02978534

Cited by 192 publications

(65 citation statements)

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“…Furuholt used data of eight general refining processes in Norwegian refineries to allocate refining energy use and emissions to gasoline and diesel [10]. Similarly, Wang et al used a detailed process-level approach for a notional refinery and demonstrated the difference between various allocation metrics (energy, market-value and mass) [11]. Recently, Elgowainy and Forman et al used a refinery Linear Programming (LP) model to simulate operation of 43 large US refineries in order to estimate life-cycle GHG emissions of major petroleum products such as gasoline, diesel and jet fuels [9,12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

A comparative assessment of resource efficiency in petroleum refining

Han

Forman²,

Elgowainy

et al. 2015

Fuel

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h i g h l i g h t sInvestigate 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 b s t r a c tBecause 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 refinery 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 efficiencies 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 refiner pays to process deep into the barrel to produce more of the desirable fuels with low carbon to hydrogen ratio.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

A comparative assessment of resource efficiency in petroleum refining

Han

Forman²,

Elgowainy

et al. 2015

Fuel

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“…Moreover, the use of different allocation methods in different schemes is not only confusing but also disturbing. After all, different allocation methods potentially lead to different assessments of a single bio-energy stream (Kim and Dale 2002;Wang et al 2004;Guinée and Heijungs 2007;Thomassen et al 2008;Bier et al 2012). To assess whether it can be expected that the different requirements in the schemes above result in different assessments, they are applied on a case study below.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysis of Thermodynamic Characteristic Changes in Direct Expansion Ground Source Heat Pump Using Hydrofluoroolefins (HFOs) Substituting for HFC-134a

2016

Climate Policy

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Purpose The increasing concern for adverse effects of climate change has spurred the search for alternatives for conventional energy sources. Life cycle assessment (LCA) has increasingly been used to assess the potential of these alternatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The popularity of LCA in the policy context puts its methodological issues into another perspective. This paper discusses how bio-electricity directives deal with the issue of allocation and shows its repercussions in the policy field. Methods Multifunctionality has been a well-known problem since the early development of LCA and several methods have been suggested to deal with multifunctional processes. This paper starts with a discussion of the most common allocation methods. This discussion is followed by a description of bio-energy policy directives. The description shows the increasing importance of LCA in the policy context as well as the lack of consensus in the application of allocation methods. Methodological differences between bio-energy directives possibly lead to different assessments of bio-energy chains. To assess the differences due to methodological choices in bio-energy directives, this paper applies three different allocation methods to the same bioelectricity generation system. The differences in outcomes indicate the importance of solving the allocation issue for policy decision making. Results and discussion The case study focuses on bioelectricity from rapeseed oil. To assess the influence of the choice of allocation in a policy directive, three allocation methods are applied: economic partitioning (on the basis of proceeds), physical partitioning (on the basis of energy content), and substitution (under two scenarios). The outcomes show that the climate change score is assessed quite differently; ranging from 0.293 kg to 0.604 kg CO 2 eq/kWh. It is argued that this uncertainty hampers the optimal use of LCA in the policy context. The aim of policy LCAs is different from the aim of LCAs for analysis. Therefore, it is argued that LCAs in the policy context will benefit from a new guideline based on robustness. Conclusions The case study confirms that the choice of allocation method in policy directives has large influence on the outcomes of an LCA. With the growing popularity of LCA in policy directives, this paper recommends a new guideline for policy LCAs. The high priority of robustness in the policy context makes it an ideal starting point of this guideline. An accompanying dialog between practitioners and commissioners should further strengthen the use of LCA in policy directives.

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“…It is therefore recommended that an allocation should be accomplished at the process level, whenever possible, by the international LCA standard ISO 14040 (ISO 2006). There have been various approaches (Wang et al 2004;Bredeson et al 2010;NETL 2008) to allocate refining energy at the process level. In this study, we referred to the U.S. National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) study (NETL 2008), since it provides a detailed description on the allocation approaches and the raw data, and the important parameters used in the study are based on the international sources, which can be readily applicable to Korean situation.…”

Section: Refining Energymentioning

confidence: 99%

Well-to-wheel analysis on greenhouse gas emission and energy use with petroleum-based fuels in Korea: gasoline and diesel

Jang

Song

2015

Int J Life Cycle Assess

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Purpose This study aims at performing the first comprehensive well-to-wheel (WTW) analysis on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and energy uses of petroleum-based automotive fuels, i.e., gasoline and diesel, in Korea. Although the Korean Renewable Fuel Standard is supposed to take effect in 2015, there are very few WTW results available in Korea. In this study, all relevant processes in the whole fuel cycle are covered, which will provide Korea-specific results to policy makers and stakeholders in Korea. Methods Input raw data were collected with the help of Korean petroleum industries and related association, as well as governmental institutions. Literature survey was carried out, especially for overseas processes in the crude oil recovery fields. The GREET model, developed by the U.S. Argonne National Laboratory, was adopted as a tool for WTW calculation, and most of the data were replaced by using the Korean specific information. Additional analysis was also performed for the refining process which was the most energy-intensive in the fuel life cycle. A process-level allocation method was used in calculating the refining energy use of individual petroleum products, which could reflect the detailed refining processes. Results and discussionThe well-to-pump (WTP) GHG emissions of Korean gasoline and diesel are calculated as 12,047-12,677 and 11,025-11,643 g CO 2 eq./GJ Final_fuel , respectively. The main difference comes from the higher GHG emission in the refining process of gasoline than in diesel. As compared to other countries, the WTP results of Korean fuels are smaller than those of the USA and Europe mainly due to higher refining efficiency, while larger than those of Japan with a significant difference in GHG emissions regarding crude oil recovery. In the WTW results with all the Korean vehicle models in 2014 considered, similar weight of diesel models demonstrates overall lower WTW emissions than gasoline models, since the former has both lower WTP GHG emissions and better fuel economy than the latter. Conclusions In this study, a comprehensive WTW GHG analysis on Korean gasoline and diesel was performed to provide Korea-specific results to policy makers and stakeholders. The analysis was based on the official data provided by Korean petroleum associations and companies as well as literature survey and our own analysis. There is a relatively large uncertainty from the refining process, which should be further investigated to improve the accuracy of the results.

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Allocation of energy use in petroleum refineries to petroleum products

Cited by 192 publications

References 2 publications

A comparative assessment of resource efficiency in petroleum refining

A comparative assessment of resource efficiency in petroleum refining

Analysis of Thermodynamic Characteristic Changes in Direct Expansion Ground Source Heat Pump Using Hydrofluoroolefins (HFOs) Substituting for HFC-134a

Well-to-wheel analysis on greenhouse gas emission and energy use with petroleum-based fuels in Korea: gasoline and diesel

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