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How an oil refinery works

construction-physics.com

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Re: How an oil refinery works

#171

Post by quickthrowman »

pfdietz wrote: post #161
didgetmaster wrote: post #61

I remember driving by a refinery years ago and it had two or three towers with big flames that were just burning off waste gas. This seemed wasteful to me. If it can burn, then it seems like it could be used for something productive. Do they still just burn off that gas?

One place where gas is flared off is landfills. Methane is produced by anaerobic decay and must be burned to reduce its climate impact. One unfortunate consequence of this is bird injury, particularly raptors. They like to perch on the flare stack, and when it flares to life... if they are lucky, only their feathers are damaged and they can be rehabbed. This can probably be ameliorated by design of the stack to avoid…

I know biogas digesters exist, but I am unfamiliar with the economics of such systems. It seems like a better way to deal with the methane than flaring it off, but cheap natural gas in the US might make it uneconomical to do so. I’d be curious if anyone has any insight into that.

Re: How an oil refinery works

#172

Post by pfdietz »

quickthrowman wrote: post #171
pfdietz wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One place where gas is flared off is landfills. Methane is produced by anaerobic decay and must be burned to reduce its climate impact. One unfortunate consequence of this is bird injury, particularly raptors. They like to perch on the flare stack, and when it flares to life... if they are lucky, only their feathers are damaged and they can be rehabbed. This can probably be ameliorated by design of the stack to avoid…

I know biogas digesters exist, but I am unfamiliar with the economics of such systems. It seems like a better way to deal with the methane than flaring it off, but cheap natural gas in the US might make it uneconomical to do so. I’d be curious if anyone has any insight into that.

People have looked at microturbines to burn landfill gas. It's not something one could just put into a natural gas pipeline as it's about 1/2 CO2. Even in microturbines it requires cleanup because of cosmetics. In a landfill, cosmetics decay to produce volatile organosilicon compounds, and when these burn they deposit silicon dioxide slag on turbine components.

Re: How an oil refinery works

#173

Post by [deleted] »

pfdietz wrote: post #161
didgetmaster wrote: post #61

I remember driving by a refinery years ago and it had two or three towers with big flames that were just burning off waste gas. This seemed wasteful to me. If it can burn, then it seems like it could be used for something productive. Do they still just burn off that gas?

One place where gas is flared off is landfills. Methane is produced by anaerobic decay and must be burned to reduce its climate impact. One unfortunate consequence of this is bird injury, particularly raptors. They like to perch on the flare stack, and when it flares to life... if they are lucky, only their feathers are damaged and they can be rehabbed. This can probably be ameliorated by design of the stack to avoid…

[deleted]

Re: How an oil refinery works

#174

Post by bluGill »

pfdietz wrote: post #163
ufmace wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that it's a physical plant thing. We have spent over a hundred years building hydrocarbon-based energy infrastructure. Much of that is still out there. Wind and solar have made a ton of progress in the last 15 years or so, but it's only really become substantially better financially in the last 5 or so years maybe. It's still going to take decades to actually replace most of that stuff, just as a matter of…

> a hundred years building hydrocarbon-based energy infrastructure One consequence of that is the enormous of amount of scrap steel that will become available as that infrastructure becomes obsolete. It will noticeably perturb the world steel industry.

The amount of steel in a refinery is tiny compared to what the world uses. Even if we could scrap them all in single day (as if it wouldn't take months to tear it down) it is a drop in the bucket of recycled iron.

Re: How an oil refinery works

#175

Post by caminante »

damnitbuilds wrote: post #142
mandeepj wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s worth mentioning here - the founder (Dhiru bhai) of Reliance used to pump gas in Dubai and that’s where he got the dream to start his own refinery one day. Dream one side, but just going about setting up such a giant production facility at an enormous scale is nothing short of an extraordinary achievement. Pretty sure he had overflow of grit, commitment, and all around strength, and of course high dose of highes…

Nah, he did it the old-fashioned way - by corruption and dirty dealing, then his family suppressed the people reporting the truth: https://archive.ph/i3FWt

They're still playing above the law and read anti-corruption regulations as "how to" manuals.

Re: How an oil refinery works

#176

Post by pfdietz »

bluGill wrote: post #174
pfdietz wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a hundred years building hydrocarbon-based energy infrastructure One consequence of that is the enormous of amount of scrap steel that will become available as that infrastructure becomes obsolete. It will noticeably perturb the world steel industry.

The amount of steel in a refinery is tiny compared to what the world uses. Even if we could scrap them all in single day (as if it wouldn't take months to tear it down) it is a drop in the bucket of recycled iron.

Global fossil fuel infrastructure (which is much more than refineries) is estimated to be 1.34 billion tons of steel (and 10 million tons of copper). That's a bit less than 1 year of output of the world steel industry.

Re: How an oil refinery works

#177

Post by vel0city »

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #90
vel0city wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They have surface reservoirs Sure sounds like potential issues for septic systems > protected watershed areas And they're protected by things like being choosy about approving septic systems I'd imagine > The "ground" is effectively the filter. And it requires so much "ground" to properly "filter", hence the mounds. > The problem is high water table So we both agree there's a high water table, and high water tables…

Gotta love that ivory tower smarmy attitude. >And it requires so much "ground" to properly "filter", hence the mounds. There is no point in building up if the ground is sufficient. MN has basically decided they're not gonna bother considering what that means and just make everyone do mounds at great expense. >So we both agree there's a high water table, and high water tables can give challenges for properly operating…

> MN has basically decided they're not gonna bother considering what that means and just make everyone do mounds at great expense.

This isn't even a factual statement.

> The majority of SSTS permitted in 2024 were Type I systems; approximately 43% were mound systems.

https://www.pca.state.mn.us/sites/default/files/wq-wwists1-6...

> Forcing everyone to manage runoff...when 99% of it is clean

Speaking of the drainage topic, its usually less about if its clean or not, it probably is generally "clean". Its about managing the proper flow and holding to make up for the new impermeable structures in place. Which I agree, should also be related to overarching plans of the city/county/state about where that water should go. It shouldn't just be a patchwork of little independent designs, but that's a part of that whole approval process. But just building more impermeable structures and expecting everyone else to deal with the issues they cause is quite a selfish take.

Re: How an oil refinery works

#178

Post by [deleted] »

bluGill wrote: post #170
jyounker wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. I grew up in Houston, and I assumed that the smell from these plants was pretty-much unavoidable. It's shocking (and I guess not all that surprising) that this is a choice that manufacturers make. I guess it really does depend on the economic power of the surrounding communities.

When? I don't know Houston, but I recall in MN a refinery that made the whole area stink for 10 miles around. 15 years latter I went by and the air was great even when driving buy the main gate. Soon after my brother in law got a job at that refinery and he told me that for a years they decided the EPA fines for releases were a cost of going business, but when management decided to clean up they were quickly able to…

[deleted]

Re: How an oil refinery works

#179

Post by addybojangles »

shhsshs wrote: post #9

As someone with no real-world petrochemistry experience, but much gaming experience, I was very surprised how familiar the crude oil processing diagram looks. Factorio and GregTech are two prime examples of fairly realistic oil processing lines (probably as accurate as any game would reasonably try to be).

ABSOLUTELY first thing that popped into my head, too.

Fantastic read.

Re: How an oil refinery works

#180

Post by [deleted] »

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #72
vel0city wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean to tell me the land of 10,000 lakes might have a shallow water table that might require mounds more often to prevent people poisoning groundwater with their literal shit? The horror. Without hard data about the site I'm probably going to side with the county on that one. As for your friend wanting to improve the lot but needs to do a lot of drainage fixes, he should lobby his community for property tax abate…

This sort of surface level ivory tower "nothing that proclaims to be positive for the environment" attitude underpins so, so much of the bullshit that makes us all poorer and worse off. >You mean to tell me the land of 10,000 lakes might have a shallow water table that might require mounds more often to prevent people poisoning groundwater with their literal shit? The horror. The "land of 10k lakes" doesn't get it's…

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