Posted on 07/21/2005 8:04:50 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
SAN FRANCISCO – Oil refineries will have to cut the air pollution they generate while burning gases under a groundbreaking rule approved by smog regulators. The rule, which the Bay Area Air Quality Management District adopted Wednesday, is the first of its kind in the nation. Air quality officials throughout the country are closely monitoring it, and regulators in Southern California aim to impose similar restrictions later this year.
Community groups in Richmond had long complained about flares, which occur when refineries burn excess gases. Air quality officials found that flaring spewed out eight tons of pollution a day, including six tons of volatile organic compounds, which contribute to smog.
Under the new Bay Area rule, refineries can let off flares only for safety reasons. Violators will have to file reports explaining why they exceed limits.
"Flares are an important safety-control device when refineries have excess gases" that they must burn off to avoid explosions, said Jack Broadbent, the chief executive officer of the Bay Area district. "But we had a situation where refineries were relying on flares as a routine way of running the facility."
In the Los Angeles region, the South Coast Air Quality Management District began monitoring flaring in response to complaints about the practice at refineries in coastal communities south of Los Angeles. Flaring emissions turned out to be worse than suspected.
South Coast officials intend to impose new rules this fall capping the excess emissions and fining violating refineries.
"We are going to develop a rule that has a little more teeth" than the one approved by the Bay Area district, said Laki Tisopulos, assistant deputy executive officer in charge of new rules for the South Coast district.
Refineries have tried to cut flaring since air quality agencies began monitoring the practice. In the Bay Area, emissions have plummeted 75 percent, and in the Los Angeles region, 70 percent.
Joe Sparano, president of the Western States Petroleum Association, said these reductions show that the regulations are unnecessary. He said, however, that the oil industry wouldn't object to them as long as flaring is allowed to avoid safety problems and refinery shutdowns, which could further inflate the state's gasoline prices.
that's one way of putting it.
Aren't realtors supposed to divulge that a refinery close by belches flames, smoke and gases occasionally.
It goes with the territory, like when ya buy a house on a flood plain..
Great, this should help motivate more companies to build more needed refineries to help lower the price of gasoline.
On the other hand, less flares would help lower the amount of excessive hot air and flatuance already existing in the bloviating Bay area.
Keep your tanks full.
SO9
Or under an existing airport flight path.
The liberal BBB at it again. (Buncha Bitchy Busybodies)
Not sure if you are from the Golden State, but this rule will likely ENSURE that SF area residents will pay 4.00+ per gallon in the near future, and they will blame the oil companies for those woes, not themselves.
Overheard in the interrogation room ... "the good news is that the DA will not prosecute you on the flag burning charge so you avoid the $1.50 fine. The bad news is that you will be charged on a violation of the Kyoto accord which our city council has adopted in full. That carries a 25 to life sentence."
Not from there, but I visit Los Gatos often.
They will pay $4.00 for gas when they can get it, and they will be lucky if they can get all they want.
So9
Not $4.00 let's see it go to $10.00 that will help California build alternative energy sources. (/sarcasm)
Maybe they could run their smokestacks into the bay to filter the pollutants....kinda like a bong. San Franciscans can relate to that.
Not necessarily a lowering of efficiency... Open burning of gasses like this is incredibly inefficient by nature. You're burning a source of energy with no attempt to recover its internal energy. In years past, this was common practice, as the amount of energy released wasn't recoverable at a cost-competitive level. New technologies in gas turbines has allowed many refineries to take this former waste stream and use it for generating a substantial percentage of the power they need to operate. These turbines are now actually relatively cheap, so they pay for themselves in short order. If you have a storage system to allow for the waste gas to escape to (kind of like the in-line tank most people have on their water heater), there's very little need to ever release gases by flaring.
So the judgement on these rules should come down specifically to how the rules are written and implemented... but this does NOT necessarily require lower efficiencies in refineries. Efficiencies can actually increase. Ain't technology great? :)
How long before the SF Stupidvizewhores replace the giant Coke bottle with a bong at the SF downtown stadium, whatever they call it these days, it sits right by the bay too?
This doesn't really mean much for San Francisco air quality. Most it just gets blown inland to Sacramento and Stockton.
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