Tag Archives: Air Quality

Air Quality, Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD), Bay Area Refineries, Fenceline monitoring, Greenhouse gas emissions, Valero Benicia Refinery

Bay Area Air Board emissions plan draws response from Valero

Repost from The Benicia Herald
[Editor: The Benicia Herald is one of very few news outlets to cover the Bay Area Air Quality Management District’s far-reaching  and highly significant December 17 initiative on refinery emissions.  The first Herald article just covered the facts, and oddly, is not posted on the Herald’s website.  As a follow-up to that story, our local newspaper either sought out comments from the Refinery or responded to Valero’s overture, not sure which.  Either way, we were treated on Christmas Eve to a front page Valero Benicia promotion of its wondrous efforts to control its emissions, and the supposedly small part Bay Area refineries play in contributing to greenhouse gases.  Note especially Valero’s resolve to “participate in any new rulemaking to ensure rules are reasonable and cost effective.”   Reasonable rules would surely protect community health and safety, no?  And according to whose costs should regulatory effectiveness be weighed?   For other reports on the Air District initiative, see The Contra Costa Times, and the Oil & Gas Journal. See also primary documents: BAAQMD 12/17 agenda, (p. 73), and  REPORT: Bay Area Refinery Emissions Reduction Strategy (PDF) .  – RS]

Emissions plan draws response from Valero

Refinery official: ‘Proud’ to contribute to better air quality
By Donna Beth Weilenman, December 24, 2014

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District is hoping its new five-component strategy will reduce emissions from refineries in it geographic area.

The district’s Refinery Emissions Reduction Resolution, approved Oct. 15, sets a goal of 20-percent reduction in refinery emissions — or as much as is feasible — during the next five years.

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District is the regional agency responsible for protecting air quality in the nine-county Bay Area.

The announced strategy would show the Air District how to achieve that goal.

“Our new Refinery Emissions Reduction Strategy continues and reaffirms the air district’s commitment to significantly decrease harmful air pollution in our communities,” said Jack Broadbent, the district’s executive officer.

“This strategy will ensure that refineries are taking the strongest steps to cut emissions and minimize their health impacts on neighboring residents and the region as a whole.”

But refineries are just one industry that contributes to the San Francisco Bay Area’s air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, according to an official at Valero Benicia Refinery.

“By the district’s own data, Bay Area refineries make up only a small segment of overall emissions in the Bay Area air shed,” said Chris Howe, the refinery’s director of health, safety, environment and government affairs.

“These emissions have continued to decline over the last two decades,” Howe said, data which the Air District also acknowledged.

“We are proud of the significant contributions our refinery has made and will continue to make to improve air quality, especially with the installation of our flue gas scrubber in 2011,” Howe said, citing a major component of the Valero Improvement Project.

In addition, he said, “We will continue to participate in any new rulemaking to ensure rules are reasonable and cost effective when weighed against the many options the district has to regulate emissions in our air basin.”

Broadbent said the Air District’s announced strategy sets overall goals of a 20-percent reduction in both criteria pollutants from refineries and in health risks to area communities, both within the next five years. That is the strategy’s first component.

To do this, the Air District plans to investigate significant sources of those pollutants at the refineries themselves, and to examine a variety of additional pollution controls at those sources, he said. That’s the second component.

He said this would be done under the district’s focused Best Available Retrofit Control Technology program.

“Rulemaking is already under way to reduce sulfur dioxide from coke calciners and particulate matter from catalytic cracking units,” Broadbent said.

“Several other rules to reduce refinery emissions will be developed in 2015.”

The strategy’s third component would be the Air District’s approach to reduce health risks from toxic air pollution, Broadbent said.

He said it would begin with requirements to reduce toxic emissions from such refinery sources as cooling towers and coking units.

Site-wide health risks would be assessed, and sources for further emissions controls would be identified, with an eye toward health benefits, he said.

A fourth component would be evaluation of greenhouse gas emissions at the refineries and their reductions as a result of the cap-and-trade system put in place under Assembly Bill 32.

That bill, signed into law Sept. 27, 2006, requires the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to develop regulations and market mechanisms to reduce California’s greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2020.

CARB adopted a cap-and-trade program Dec. 17, 2010, allowing some emitters to buy credits at quarterly auctions for additional emissions.

Under the Air District’s strategy, refinery performance would be compared to third-party standards for best practices, with analysis of potential further opportunities for reductions, Broadbent said.

The fifth component concerns continuous improvement in emission reductions, for which refinery operators would be required on a periodic basis to evaluate the sources of most of their emissions to determine if more controls are needed.

Broadbent said the Air District would develop its package of rules in the coming year, and would be working with members of the public as well as refinery industry representatives to make any modifications in the proposed rules and to use the strategy to reach those stated goals.

In addition, the Air District will prepare its Petroleum Refining Emissions Tracking rule that requires updated health risk assessments, additional fence-line and neighborhood monitoring capacity and the compiling of an annual emissions inventory.

Simultaneously, the Air District will write a companion rule to set emissions thresholds and mitigate potential increases at refineries, Broadbent said.

Those rules are expected to be sent to the Air District’s board for adoption in 2015.

The San Francisco Bay Area’s five major oil refineries, including Valero Benicia Refinery, produce air pollution and greenhouse gases in the region, Broadbent said, and “these are already subject to more than 20 specific Air District regulations and programs, and their overall emissions have been steadily decreasing.”

The Air District’s website is www.baaqmd.gov.

Air Quality, Climate Change, Greenhouse gas emissions

Columbia University study: the U.S. can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050

Repost from The Earth Institute, Columbia University

New Report Shows How U.S. Can Slash Greenhouse Emissions

Researchers Map Low-Carbon Investments and Policy Changes
2014-11-20

A new report shows how the United States can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050, using existing or near-commercial technologies. The 80 percent reduction by 2050 (“80 by 50”) is a long-standing goal of the Obama administration, in line with the global commitment to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius.  The new report, issued by the Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project (DDPP), comes on the heels of the historic climate agreement last week between the United States and China, in which the U.S. government reiterated the 80 by 50 goal.

“This US Deep Decarbonization Pathways Report shows that an 80 percent reduction of emissions by 2050 is fully feasible, and indeed can be achieved with many alternative approaches. This reports shows how to do it,” said Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.  “I believe that the report provides a solid basis for negotiating a strong climate treaty in Paris in December 2015.“

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), and San Francisco-based consulting firm Energy and Environmental Economics, Inc. (E3) authored the report as part of the DDPP.  The DDPP is led by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network and the French Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations.

“This report shows it is feasible to dramatically cut greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. by 2050 without requiring early retirement of infrastructure,” said Jim Williams, chief scientist at E3 and lead author on the report. “Moreover, the economic assumptions in this analysis were intentionally conservative, and the results demonstrate that even then deep decarbonization is not prohibitively expensive.”

The study analyzed four different low-carbon scenarios covering different energy saving measures, fuel switching, and four types of decarbonized electricity: renewable energy, nuclear energy, fossil fuel with carbon capture and storage, and a mixed case. The scenarios achieved reductions of 83% below 2005 levels, and 80% below 1990 levels.

“All four scenarios we tested assumed economic growth,” said Margaret Torn, senior scientist and co-head of the Climate and Carbon Sciences Program at Berkeley Lab, faculty in the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California, Berkeley, and coauthor of the DDPP report. “All of our scenarios deliver the energy services that strong economic growth demands.”

The report finds that the net costs would be on the order of 1% of gross domestic product per year. But the report said that included a wide uncertainty range, from -0.2% to +1.8% of a forecast GDP of $40 trillion, due to uncertainty about consumption levels, technology costs and fossil fuel prices nearly 40 years into the future. The researchers assumed lifestyles similar to those today, and extrapolated technology costs based on present expectations.

“If you bet on America’s ability to develop and commercialize new technologies, then the net cost of transforming the energy system could be very low, even negative, when you take fuel savings into account,” said Williams. “And that is not counting the potential economic benefits of a low-carbon energy system for climate change and public health.”

The report suggests that a multifaceted technology approach is needed to meet the greenhouse gas reduction target. Buildings, transportation and industry need to increase energy efficiency. This includes building structures with smart materials and energy-efficient designs, and fueling vehicles with electricity generated from sources including wind, solar, or nuclear, as opposed to coal.

“One important conclusion is that investment opportunities in clean technologies will arise during the natural rollover and replacement of infrastructure,” said Williams. “The plan calls for non-disruptive, sustained infrastructure transitions that can deeply decarbonize the U.S. by 2050, and enhance its competitive position in the process.”

The U.S. DDPP Report is one of 15 DDPP country studies that are part of the global project. It aims to show practical pathways to deep decarbonization consistent with the globally agreed 2-degree Celsius upper limit on warming to reduce the likelihood of dangerous climate change.

Air Quality, Bay Area Air Quality Management District, Bay Area Refineries

Bay Area Air Quality Management District approves plan to cut pollution at oil refineries

Repost from The Contra Costa Times

Bay Area Air Quality Management District approves plan to cut pollution at oil refineries

By Denis Cuff , 12/18/2014

SAN FRANCISCO — Regional air pollution regulators on Wednesday approved a far-reaching blueprint to cut Bay Area oil refinery emissions by 20 percent.

Under the plan, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District board will consider a package of air pollution rules in 2015 to reduce emissions from five refineries.

More rigorous monitoring of refinery emissions will be required. To assure continued clean air improvements, refiners will be required periodically to assess their pollution and ways to reduce it.

“This strategy will ensure that refineries are taking the strongest steps to cut emissions and minimize their impacts on neighboring residents and the region as a whole,” Jack Broadbent, the air district’s executive officer, said.

The plan was approved unanimously by the air board, which regulates pollution in nine counties.

The five Bay Area refineries are Chevron, Shell, Valero, Phillips 66 and Tesoro.

Air Quality, Cap-and-trade, State regulation, Water quality

Washington Gov. Inslee: Make polluters pay for transportation projects

Repost from The Seattle Times
[Editor: For details, see the Governor’s website: Inslee announces slate of proposals to curb pollution, transition Washington to cleaner sources of energy.  This week saw dramatic action on the part of two US governors.  See also NY Gov. Cuomo bans fracking.  – RS]

Gov. Jay Inslee proposes a 12-year, $12 billion transportation plan, saying fees on the state’s biggest polluters will help fund improvements.

By Mike Lindblom, Dec. 16, 2014

Work continues on the Highway 520 bridge project, looking west toward Seattle from Medina. The new bridge is expected to be done in spring 2016; the existing bridge will be removed. The governor’s proposal includes $1.4 billion to extend a new six-lane 520 to Interstate 5.
Work continues on the Highway 520 bridge project, looking west toward Seattle from Medina. The new bridge is expected to be done in spring 2016; the existing bridge will be removed. The governor’s proposal includes $1.4 billion to extend a new six-lane 520 to Interstate 5. | Ellen M. Banner / The Seattle Times

After two years of watching gas-tax increases tank in the Legislature, Gov. Jay Inslee proposed Tuesday to take a new approach: Charge major polluters for the right to emit carbon.

Inslee’s plan, featuring a “cap-and-trade” system, would generate $400 million a year, he said, to cover nearly 40 percent of his $12 billion, 12-year transportation improvement plan. The remainder would come from bond debt, existing gas taxes, tolls and an assortment of vehicle fees.

The new six-lane Highway 520 bridge would be completed all the way to Interstate 5, using $1.4 billion, while the state would abandon the idea of tolling the I-90 Mercer Island floating bridge. An additional $1.3 billion would widen Interstate 405 from Bellevue to Renton.

Several projects have been on the drawing board for years, and even failed in a regional ballot in 2007.

Ferry riders would see a two-year freeze in fares, while a fourth ferry would be built to join the new Tokitae and two others under construction.

“We can clean our air and water at the same time we are fixing our air and our roads,” Inslee said in Medina, overlooking the 520 construction site. “It is indeed a twofer.”

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