ENV-11-09 Sweden’s Approaches to Refinery Emissions Inventories and Their Influence on the U.S. EPA

Description:

In 1978 British Petroleum (BP) and National Physical Laboratory (NPL) began a research project to use Differential Absorption LIDAR (DIAL) to measure volatile organic compounds (VOCs). By 1988 the DIAL system was used to measure VOC emissions at a refinery in Sweden. The emissions were 20 times higher than expected compared to the standard emissions estimating techniques. In 1989 local regulators in Sweden told all four refiners in the Gothenburg area to measure emissions instead of reporting emissions estimates. In the early 2000’s a new technique developed at Sweden’s Chalmers University called Solar Occultation Flux (SOF) was used in place of DIAL. The SOF results were similar to those found with DIAL; however, the cost was far less. The Environment Canada performed a DIAL study at a refinery in 2005 and found that emissions were about 15 times higher than expected. DIAL was first used in the U.S. in a study at Texas City in 2007. Another study was performed at the Shell facility in Deer Park, Texas. EPA used its Clean Air Act authority to encourage Tonawanda Coke Company to measure emissions with DIAL. Tonawanda found emissions of benzene to be about 10 times higher than reported. SOF was brought to the U.S. in 2006, 2009 and 2011. The 2006 and 2009 studies took readings near the Houston Ship Channel and Texas City Industrial Park areas. In both cases measured emissions were roughly 10 times higher than expected. This presentation will describe DIAL and SOF technologies, applications and plans for use by the environmental agencies.