Zama City - Sulphur fire and evacuation

October 31, 2008 by Walter Schneider.

Zamma [sic] City evacuated
By KEVIN CRUSH, Sun Media

2008 08 15

Zama City had to be evacuated after a fire at a sulphur plant Friday.

Fire broke out in a front end loader at the Apache Gas plant about 20 km south of the town at 1 p.m.

The loader was on top of a sulphur block at the time and when crews tried to get it off the block itself caught on fire.

The burning block produced hydrogen sulfide gas, which is deadly if inhaled, and sulfur dioxide which is also harmful….(Full Story)
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Note by folc.ca: There was a correction by officials, namely that the gas of concern was not hydrogen sulphide but that only sulphur dioxide (a product of the combustion of sulphur) was involved.

It seems that another item of information in the story requires correction. That is that the location of the sulphur-block that was on fire appears to be about exactly 15 km south-west of Zama City.

The evacuation of the residents of Zama City is of great interest to residents in Lamont County, especially to those in the vicinity of the proposed sulphur-forming facility intended to be constructed south-east of the intersection of Highway 45 and Range Road 202, 1.5 miles from the eastern border of the town of Bruderheim and 3.5 miles from the western border of the Town of Lamont.

Sulphur fires do happen. As shown in the webpages at folc.ca, they happen fairly often, and they can be and are started by front-end loaders used to handle sulphur.

AlthoughFront-end loaders feature prominently in HAZCO’s plans for their proposed sulphur-forming and shipping facility east of Bruderheim. Evacuations of residents in the vicinity of sulphur fires are a fact of life.  As per the article identified above, Mackenzie County Reeve Greg Newman stated, “With the limited access in and out of there and the potential for a major fire on the sulphur block, there was some concern,” and “I’d like to think we’re prepared for just about everything. We expect these kinds of things and we have the resources to prepare for them.”

That is in stark contrast to comparable expectations and the availability of resources to prepare for them in Lamont County.  HAZCO were repeatedly asked for details of evacuation plans in case of sulphur fires at their proposed plant. Other than to initially refusing to admit that sulphur fires at their sulphur facility could even happen or now claiming that it is extremely unlikely that they would ever pose a danger to nearby residents, as of now we have not seen any plans by HAZCO as to what will be done to evacuate and temporarily house the thousands of residents in the vicinity that would be put at risk through fires at their proposed sulphur facility.

Posted in Community & Industry, Explosions & Fires, Emission Incidents & Issues, Hazco, Sulphur-Dioxide | Print | No Comments »

Canadian heavy crude causes problems in Indiana

October 2, 2008 by Walter Schneider.

chicagotribune.com

EPA: BP violated Clean Air Act in Whiting

Associated Press
5:38 PM CDT, October 2, 2008

WHITING, Ind. - BP PLC violated the Clean Air Act by beginning to make modifications at its Indiana oil refinery along Lake Michigan to process Canadian crude before it received the proper permit, federal regulators said Thursday.

The allegation was included in an amended complaint by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The complaint alleges BP violated the law by making several unapproved changes in 2005 when it altered a unit at the refinery that converts heavy oils into lighter products such as gasoline.

The EPA said in November the modifications caused “significant increases” in sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, particulate matter and carbon monoxide emitted from the refinery….(Full Story)
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Comment by folc.ca : It is not clear at all what BP will do with the sulphur it will recover from the heavy crude it gets from Canada.  As of now the US does not permit storage of sulphur to block.

Posted in Pollution: Health Issues, Emission Incidents & Issues, Sulphur Logistics, Sulphur-Dioxide | Print | No Comments »

Alter NRG Corp. finalized purchase of Erco Site, in Lamont County, east of and adjacent to Bruderheim

September 17, 2008 by Walter Schneider.

Alter NRG Corp. announces the finalization of the plant siting for the first Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) power facility in Canada.

TSXV - NRG CALGARY, Sept. 15 /CNW/ - Alter NRG Corp. (”Alter NRG” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce that it has closed the previously announced acquisition of a project site in Bruderheim, Alberta (approximately 60 kilometers northeast of Edmonton) for $3.1 million, including $0.6 million in costs related to settlement of existing transmission commitments. The Company plans to use the site to develop Canada’s first IGCC facility with the first phase to be operational as early as 2010. On commencement of operations, the facility is expected to be capable of producing approximately 120 megawatts (MW) of electric power using a blend of natural gas as well as synthesis gas (syngas) produced using Alter NRG’s proprietary plasma gasification technology. The facility will be designed for carbon capture and storage (CCS) with approximately 600,000 tonnes per year of captured CO2 to be injected into nearby geological formations or used at nearby oilfields in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) projects….(Full Story)
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Comments by folc.ca : It is obvious that lawyers had a heavy hand in wording the long list of exceptions and cautionary notes stated at the end of the Alter NRG news release, under the heading, Advisory Respecting Forward-Looking Statements. The list of exemptions shown there is very long. In combination with that list, the following key statements contained in the Advisory loom large and heavy:

The forward-looking information and statements included in this news release are not guarantees of future performance and should not be unduly relied upon….

The Company cautions that the foregoing list of assumptions, risks and uncertainties is not exhaustive. The forward-looking information and statements contained in this news release speak only as of the date of this news release, and the Company assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances, except as may be required pursuant to applicable securities laws.

Translating the legalese into English for normal mortals and in the process condensing it into something that is more useful, what that means then is that, quite possibly, none of the information in the news release by Alter NRG is necessarily final or subsequently true after having been published.

The news release contains information that should worry people living close to the proposed Alter NRG power generating plant, some within less than half a mile, with the eastern boundary of Bruderheim being as close as half a mile to the plant.

The following identifies a few of the statements contained in the news release and also some of the concerns relating to them.

1. On commencement of operations, the facility is expected to be capable of producing approximately 120 megawatts (MW) of electric power using a blend of natural gas as well as synthesis gas (syngas) produced using Alter NRG’s proprietary plasma gasification technology.

Comment by folc.ca: Natural gas is a natural resource that is the primary fuel for home heating in Alberta. Alberta’s natural gas is also a resource that is rapidly being depleted, as a result of which the price of natural gas is escalating.  The production of electric energy from natural gas and its substitute, syngas, is wasteful and will increase the demand for natural gas and syngas. That will cause increases in prices for gas used for home heating.

2. The facility will be designed for carbon capture and storage (CCS) with approximately 600,000 tonnes per year of captured CO2 to be injected into nearby geological formations or used at nearby oilfields in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) projects.

Comment by folc.ca: The news release states nothing about the fact that CO2 is not a pollutant. More importantly, the news release makes absolutely no mention of pollutants that the plant will produce and how those will be dealt with, so as to prevent their injection into the environment, for instance, nitrous oxides and sulphur dioxide, of which especially the latter has the potential of creating serious and very harmful degradation of the local and general environment.

Nevertheless, there are issues of great concern that directly relate to the scheme for CO2 capture, transport and disposal.

The process of CO2 capture and injection into nearby geological formations requires transportation of an average of 1,700 tonnes of CO2 each day.  How will that be done and by what means?  If the transporting is by trucks, that means that there will be an enormous increase in road traffic, in the order of an average of at least 280 trucks a day (assuming an average of six tonnes of CO2 carrying capacity per truck), about 12 trucks every hour (assuming that the trucks operate around the clock) and considerably more than that if the trucking operations cease during the night.

Furthermore, the logistics of the whole process seem daunting and are not likely to work without flaws or bottlenecks.  If CO2 capture, transporting and injection into the ground should at any time and for any reason be below the required average of 1,700 tonnes per day, will the power plant be shut down, or will it make use of as yet unidentified buffer storage on site?  That storage facility will have to be substantially large and be capable of containing CO2 under great pressure.

Nothing is perfect.  The storage and transporting of large volumes of CO2 present dangers to people and property in the vicinity of the plant and transportation routes.  Aside from the increased likelihood of vehicle accidents in Bruderheim and vicinity, what are any other dangers the scheme of CO2 capture, transporting and injection will pose to residents in the area?

3. The project is expected to be completed in two phases in order to take advantage of near-term capacity needs in the Alberta power market.

Comment by folc.ca: Alter NRG cannot be faulted for wanting to take advantage of the increasing market demand for electric energy. However, the escalating shortage of electric energy is a result of the Alberta government’s failure to create effective policies for the construction of large-scale power plants for the generation of electric energy. That massive problem will not be solved by increasing reliance on Band-Aid solutions, such as energy production through wind-turbine farms (of primary benefit only to the main producer of wind turbines in North America: General Electric) and through natural-gas-fired power plants.

Electric energy production from natural gas or syngas will add to demand for natural gas and for syngas. That will drive up the price for home-heating fuel and for fertilizer (the price for fertilizer is presently at about $2,000 a tonne).

4. NGCC facilities are the cleanest fossil fuel power generation technology available today.

Comment by folc.ca : That statement is true, but it is not all of the truth. Aside from increasing the demand for natural gas — with associated price increases, the demand for increased production of natural gas will also increase the production of sulphur. Especially new natural gas sources produce sour gas, meaning gas that must be stripped of its large content of hydrogen sulphide before it can be injected into the Alberta gas distribution system.

The inventory of Alberta’s waste sulphur is presently at about $11 million tonnes. Large-scale use of natural gas will escalate Alberta’s problems with issues arising from stockpiling waste sulphur.

Canada is one of only two nations in the world (the Russian Federation being the other one) that presently and unreservedly permit the stockpiling of waste sulphur. Large scale electric energy production from coal can without a doubt be made to be as clean as that from natural gas. The current technology for that is to store waste sulphur produced from coal-fired power plants in the form of relatively inert gypsum (much like the gypsum pile at the Agrium Fertilizer Plant south of Redwater).

5. The regulatory process is underway, as regulatory permitting is critical for early implementation of the first phase. The Company expects timely issuance of the required permits.

Comment by folc.ca : Whatever it may mean that the “regulatory process is underway,” that process has not yet progressed to the point where any of the residents who are concerned parties in the vicinity of the proposed power plant have been formally notified of any hearings or other aspects of the required “regulatory process” and environmental reviews.

6. The second phase of the project will use petroleum coke and oilfield waste, which are both available in the nearby area, to create syngas using the Alter NRG proprietary gasification system.

Comment by folc.ca : Neither that statement nor anything else in the Alter NRG news release mentions that petroleum coke and oilfield waste contain potentially very large portions of sulphur and other pollutants that need to be stripped from either those primary fuel sources or from the syngas produced from them or from the flue gases of the Alter NRG power generating plant, so as to meet environmental pollution parameters dictated by Alberta Environment.

What will Alter NRG do with the pollutants, such as waste sulphur, it would produce at its proposed power generating plant to be located just a few hundred meters east of Bruderheim?

7. The Bruderheim facility will capture up to 90% of the CO(2) produced by the plasma gasifier (up to 1,700 tonnes per day) which is expected to be sold to oilfield producers in the nearby area for EOR.

Comment by folc.ca : What that means is that ten and more percent (how much more is left unspecified) of the CO2 produced will not be captured.

Still, the fact is that CO2 is not a pollutant, and that no one should worry about it, except people like Al Gore (who makes a good living from the brokering of carbon credits and from promoting the fears required to make that carbon credit brokering a viable enterprise).

However, we must worry about the pollutants that the Alter NRG news release does not mention at all. It is worrysome in the extreme that the Alter NRG news release does not mention any pollutants other than the ostensibly polluting but in reality environmentally-beneficial CO2.

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Without a doubt, benign and even environmentally-beneficial CO2 is a major component of the emissions of the power generating plant proposed by Alter NRG.  Still, another potentially benign and major component of the proposed power plant’s effluents, water (not mentioned by Alter NRG), will in all likelihood have a very detrimental impact on the environment in the immediate vicinity of the proposed power plant.

Water is a major by-product of the combustion of hydrocarbons. The water vapour that would come out of the flue stacks of the proposed power plant would be invisible for varying distances from the flue stacks. However, the distance of that invisibility varies with the weather — humidity and temperature.

In extremely cold weather, the water vapour turns into a large cloud that, depending on local weather conditions, lingers in the local environment and adds to the often and increasingly severe fogs that have become more and more prevalent in and around Bruderheim.

Given that the fog to be produced by the proposed power plant will contain sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxides, the fog will be acidic. Alter NRG stated nothing about that. That is extremely worrying and needs to be addressed in the environmental review process for the plant, of which, so far, we have heard absolutely nothing.

SULFUR COMPOUNDS (SOx)

The primary reason sulfur compounds, or SOx, are classified as a pollutant is because they react with water vapor (in the flue gas and atmosphere) to form sulfuric acid mist. Airborne sulfuric acid has been found in fog, smog, acid rain, and snow. Sulfuric acid has also been found in lakes, rivers, and soil. The acid is extremely corrosive and harmful to the environment….

Historically, SOx pollution has been controlled by either dispersion or reduction. Dispersion involves the utilization of a tall stack, which enables the release of pollutants high above the ground and over any surrounding buildings, mountains, or hills, in order to limit ground level SOx emissions. Today, dispersion alone is not enough to meet more stringent SOx emission requirements; reduction methods must also be employed….

Flue gas desulfurization systems are classified as either non-regenerable or regenerable. Non-regenerable FGD systems, the most common type, result in a waste product that requires proper disposal. Regenerable FGD converts the waste by-product into a marketable product, such as sulfur or sulfuric acid. SOx emission reductions of 90-95% can be achieved through FGD. Fuel desulfurization and FGD are primarily used for reducing SOx emissions for large utility boilers. Generally the technology cannot be cost justified on industrial boilers.

Emissions Cleaver Brooks Package Boiler Systems 2002 08 17

Note: Given the escalating world sulphur glut, converting “the waste into a marketable product” requires solutions that have not yet been found to be practical or viable. Still, it is wrong or only partially correct to state that “Generally the technology cannot be cost justified on industrial boilers.”

The controlling factor is not cost justification (that would make it a discretionary option) but environmental regulation and is therefore mandatory, not an option. –Walter

–Walter Schneider
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Related story:  Alter NRG powerplant east of Bruderheim put on ice (Oct, 22, 2008)

Posted in Community & Industry, Alternative Energy Sources, Town of Bruderheim, Explosions & Fires, Acid Rain, Hydrogen-Sulphide, Emission Incidents & Issues, Nitrogen-Oxides, Sulphur-Dioxide | Print | 1 Comment »

Alta. oilsands cause acid rain

February 18, 2008 by Walter Schneider.

Report issued by environmental group warns of ‘most destructive project on Earth’

Matthew Kruchak and James Wood, The StarPhoenix
Published: Saturday, February 16, 2008

Acid rain caused by Alberta oilsands production is pouring down on Saskatchewan and if governments don’t take note, any oilsands development in this province will contribute to the “most destructive project on Earth,” the Environmental Defence organization warns.

A report released Friday by the group says 70 per cent of the sulphur entering Alberta’s air ends up in Saskatchewan. Acid rain is produced by the interaction between water, sulphur and nitrogen oxides….(Full Story)

Posted in Community & Industry, Acid Rain, Emission Incidents & Issues, Sulphur-Dioxide | Print | No Comments »

Hazco reps answer questions from Lamont Town Council

January 3, 2008 by Walter Schneider.

Lamont Leader, 2007 12 11, p. 3

BY CATHY WEETMAN

Note by folc.ca: Cathy Weetman’s article is posted here with the permission of the Lamont Leader. The fact that the permission was granted does not imply in any way that the Lamont Leader is partial in its reporting of issues relating to industrial development in Lamont County. Any perception of conflict between Hazco’s statements (as reported in the Lamont Leader article) and the appended comments by folc.ca is a result of differences between Hazco’s assertions and folc.ca’s clarifications but does not reflect any bias by the Lamont Leader.

A delegation of four representatives from Hazco were in attendance at the November 27 Lamont Town Council meeting to address concerns raised by councillors over the company’s proposed sulphur processing terminal to be built east of Bruderheim.

Rob Mann, Director of Sulphur Services, Sylvia Holowach, Project Administrator, Andrew Timlick, Business Development, Sulphur Services, Gordon Johnson, with Worley, Parsons Comex, stayed for an hour to answer questions from council about the time line for the proposed project, how large the stack of sulphur pastilles would be, traffic congestion on Highway 15, air monitoring and emergency response by the local fire departments in case of a fire.

Mann reported HAZCO has now completed the Environmental Impact Assessment study and it is now under technical review. From there, the Natural Resources Conservation Board takes over the review, and if the project is approved at that stage, a public hearing will take place. The time-line from now until the public hearing and final approval will be at least a year, he added.

Mann was asked how much truck traffic would be added to the already congested Highway 15. He responded that initially, there would be 40 trucks making round trips daily to and from the site that would be using both Highways 15 and 45. [Emphasis by folc.ca; see also appended comment #1 –WHS]

Another concern brought up by council was the height of the stockpiled sulphur pastilles as opposed to the height of the windscreen. Council was told that the majority of dust would be coming from machinery working at the base of the stockpile [emphasis by folc.ca; see also appended comment #2], and due to the type of sulphur processing equipment, the formed pastilles are much firmer and less likely to crumble than those processed a few years ago. [Emphasis by folc.ca; see also appended comment #3. –WHS]

“The older processes of forming the pastilles made them more susceptible to the wind blowing and causing dust,” noted Mann. [Emphasis by folc.ca; see also appended comment # 2 –WHS]

As to whether local emergency response organizations such as the Bruderheim and Lamont fire departments would need to assist HAZCO with on-site fires, Mann replied that it would depend on the size of the fire. A Level 1 fire could be handled by personnel on site, while a Level 2 fire would require the assistance of a local fire department. In a worse case scenario, a Level 3 fire would require the assistance of NR Care if the plant personnel and fire departments are unable to extinguish the fire. Local fire departments would not require special equipment or training when handling a fire. [Emphasis by folc.ca; see also appended comment #4 –WHS]

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Comments by folc.ca

1. “Initially” is an important key word here. What counts is not so much the initial traffic volume but what the volume of truck traffic will eventually be. Given the volume of sulphur to be formed into pastilles according to Hazco’s intentions, the truck traffic volume would soon intensify to two and more times than what Hazco stated it will initially be. Hazco is fully aware of what the trend in the increase of the traffic volume will be.
2. The hardness of the formed sulphur whose “…formed pastilles are much firmer and less likely to crumble than those processed a few years ago.” Regardless of the forming process used, solidified sulphur has a hardness of 2, about as hard as a fingernail but is brittle and prone to cracking, crumbling and pulverization if put under pressure, such as by a vehicle tire. Robert Mann failed to identify the forming process and locations used that produced much softer pastilles in the past, while the process intended to be used by Hazco will employ forming machines of a type that have been in use by Shell’s Shantz Sulphur Facility for 20 years or more.
3. The sulphur dust to be generated in Lamont County will be due to a major difference between the sulphur-handling process at Shantz and that proposed by Hazco. At Shantz, the whole handling process is by means of a totally enclosed conveyor belt system and large storage silos, while Hazco’s proposal calls for open storage piles and transfer from their sulphur pile to the train-loading facility by means of front-end loaders.
4. Fire fighting, fire-crew readiness and risks. Standards for procedures used in fighting sulphur fires call for a minimum of two fire-fighters wearing self-contained breathing apparatus, with a minimum of a further two fire-fighters that are also equipped with self-contained breathing apparatus standing by in case the active fire-fighters require to be rescued. To my knowledge, so far no agreements are in place as to local fire teams becoming involved in fighting sulphur fires at the proposed Hazco sulphur facility if that should be necessary and desired. (Check the consequences of a recent sulphur fire in Calgary: Huge Fine Handed to Calgary Sulphur Processor.) When I mentioned Hazco’s assertion that “Local fire departments would not require special equipment or training when handling a fire,” to the fire chief of one of our local volunteer fire departments, his comment was: “If that’s they way they feel, let Hazco fight their fires by themselves.”
   No one should blame him for that attitude. After all, his crew consists of our relatives, neighbours and friends who would be risking their lives in potentially dangerous situations whose danger Hazco insisted all along is non-existent.

Posted in Community & Industry, Explosions & Fires, Emission Incidents & Issues, Hazco, Sulphur-Dioxide | Print | No Comments »

Ship toxins kill 60,000 a year: Study

November 8, 2007 by Walter Schneider.

Toronto Star

Environmental report says world’s fleet must switch to cleaner fuels and curb smokestack pollutants

Peter Gorrie
ENVIRONMENT REPORTER

International shipping companies must curb smokestack emissions that kill up to 60,000 people a year, including 9,000 in North America, warns a study released yesterday.

Unless the world’s ocean fleet switches to cleaner fuels, the annual global toll of premature deaths will hit 84,000 within five years, says the study in the American Chemical Society journal Environmental Science & Technology….

The damage comes from sulphur-laden Bunker C oil that powers the growing number of ships in trade and tourism. The sludgy fuel is “the dregs of the oil refining process,” and has nearly 3,000 times more sulphur than the diesel fuel burned in trucks in North America and Europe, Marshall said….

The annual number of premature deaths from all outdoor air pollution is estimated to be about 800,000, the study notes. Researchers estimated the marine pollution toll by measuring the emissions from the more than 55,000 ships, then, figuring out how much they add to the total pollution in the atmosphere. Finally, they calculate the expected number of deaths from that increase….

The solution, is simple, although expensive, Marshall said: Ships, too, should be required to burn low-sulphur fuel and install scrubbing devices. Emissions of sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxide from new and existing ships must be cut by as much as 90 per cent, no later than 2015, the study states…. (Full Toronto Star Story)
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Note by folc.ca

See also:

• Death from Shipping : New models estimate premature mortality from shipping emissions on a global scale. (Environmental Science & Technology, 2007 11 07)
• Related stories listed in the category Bunker Fuel at the LCE blog

Posted in Bunker Fuel, Pollution: Health Issues, Nitrogen-Oxides, Emission Incidents & Issues, Sulphur-Dioxide | Print | No Comments »

Eastman to Invest $200 Million to Reduce Air Emissions

November 8, 2007 by Walter Schneider.

Eastman, 2007 11 08

Eastman Proposes to Invest $200 Million in Equipment to Reduce Air Emissions

Company’s Effort is Part of $1.3 Billion “Project Reinvest” Announced Earlier this Year

KINGSPORT, Tenn.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Eastman Chemical Company has proposed to install additional air pollution control equipment on five industrial boilers at its Tennessee operations in Kingsport, Tenn. The company is in the process of selecting an engineering firm and construction should take place during 2009 to 2013. The $200 million capital project is part of the $1.3 billion dollar reinvestment plan, called “Project Reinvest” announced earlier this year for the Kingsport site….

“This will be the largest single air pollution control project ever undertaken at Eastman’s Tennessee operations,” said Parker Smith, vice president and general manager of Worldwide Manufacturing Support for Eastman. “We estimate an overall 60 percent reduction in emissions of sulfur dioxide from our facility. We are hopeful this project will not only assist Tennessee in meeting its regional haze goals under the Clean Air Act, but will also help our area here in Northeast Tennessee stay ‘ahead of the curve’ and remain in attainment of all relevant air quality standards.

Eastman’s plans are to install technology that will remove an estimated 90 percent of the sulfur dioxide emitted as a by-product from the burning of coal in the five boilers. The technology includes installing spray dryer absorbers, along with replacing electrostatic precipitators with fabric filters. Spray dryer absorbers use hydrated lime to neutralize sulfur dioxide emissions. They are also effective in removing emissions of hydrogen chloride, hydrogen fluoride, sulfuric acid, and mercury…. (Full Story)

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Note by folc.ca: What will they do with all of that polluted gypsum that they will produce when neutralizing their emissions? Oh well, it’s better than putting all of the SO2 and the other pollutants into the air.

Posted in Heavy-Metal Poisoning & Pollution, Nitrogen-Oxides, Emission Incidents & Issues, Sulphur-Related Construction Costs, Hydrogen-Sulphide, Sulphur-Dioxide | Print | No Comments »

Refinery investigates fire, reports on sulfur dioxide

October 30, 2007 by Walter Schneider.

Billings Gazette

By CLAIR JOHNSON
Of The Gazette StaffAn ExxonMobil investigative team looking into an explosion and fire at the Lockwood oil refinery Oct. 17 has finished its field work, but a cause has not yet been determined…. (Full Story)

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The fire burned for a few hours and caused 685 pounds of sulfur dioxide [SO₂] to be emitted during the incident.  Montana Sulphur & Chemical Co., which treats ExxonMobil’s sulfur-bearing gases, also reported flaring sulfur dioxide in a major malfunction after the refinery fire.

Montana Sulphur & Chemical Co. said it flared 5,673 pounds of sulfur dioxide over almost three hours in the late afternoon on Oct. 18.

On account of the explosion-and-fire-related SO₂ release, air monitoring equipment measured elevated SO₂ readings of 120 ppb, short of the safe threshold for Montana of 500 ppb.  Safe limits depend on duration of exposure.  No time interval for the measurement was identified in the article.

Alberta’s one-hour guideline for sulphur dioxide emission reporting is 170 parts per billion (ppb).  The 8-hour occupational exposure limit is 2,000 ppb or 2 ppm.   (Link, Source: Canadian Safety Council, Data Sheet, Occupational Safety and Health and Province of Alberta Occupational Health and Safety Act, Chemical Hazards Regulations)

Posted in Explosions & Fires, Sulphur-Dioxide | Print | No Comments »

Seawater-scrubbing of diesel exhausts on cruise ship

October 29, 2007 by Walter Schneider.

folc.ca

Holland America Lines test seawater-scrubbing of diesel exhausts on cruise ship

Massive sulphate disposal in seawater, is it safe, or will history repeat itself?

Walter Schneider

According to announcements by Holland America Cruise Lines and by Kristallon (the maker of the scrubber) earlier this year and later, one of the best solutions ever devised to reduce and curb cruise-ship-engine emissions, and thereby the massive sulphur-dioxide (SO₂) pollution produced by cruise ships, was about to be tested and is undergoing testing right now, with promising results.

The seawater scrubber on the cruise ship Zaandam (Inland route Vancouver to Alaska) will use 450 tonnes of seawater an hour to help convert SO₂ to sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) and to sulphate (SO₄^2-). The altered seawater from the conversion of the SO₂ by the seawater scrubber will be discharged - diluted at a ratio of 1:10 - into the ocean. The conversion of the remaining sulphuric acid contained in the discharge water will then be completed in the ocean, to convert the remaining sulphuric acid to sulphate.

In essence, such a conversion process will do what nature does anyway, but it will take a shortcut and eliminate atmospheric pollution and the impact of acid rain caused by cruise-ship emissions. When SO₂ is discharged into the air, it is transformed into sulphur-trioxide (SO₃) and then, upon contact with water in the air, changed to sulphuric acid and into sulphate. That produces acid rain.

A diesel-powered ship equipped with a seawater scrubber will locally discharge concentrated “acid rain” right into the ocean and, where a cruise ship cannot connect to an on-shore source of electric energy (there are none on the Vancouver-Alaska route), right into the water of the harbour where it is berthed.

Various studies that were commissioned to examine the issues involved concentrated on the “acid rain” issue. They mention sulphate-production and -dumping only in passing, if at all. Those studies that mention sulphate consider it to be harmless, but is it?

Sulphate is a source of oxygen for anaerobic bacteria. Anaerobic bacteria metabolize sulphate and produce, amongst other things, hydrogen-sulphide (evil-smelling in small concentrations and scentless but harmful and even extremely deadly in moderate concentrations). Aside from the fact that the dumping of sulphate causes anaerobic bacteria to thrive in seawater at the bottoms of bodies of water that are starved of oxygen (common in coast waters), the anaerobic bacteria cause a concern that none of the seawater-scrubber studies I examined mention at all.

Anaerobic bacteria that metabolize sulphate convert the all-pervasive mercury in water (its presence there being largely a result of atmospheric distribution of pollution by coal-fired power plants) to a form (methyl-mercury) that is bio-available but not bio-degradable. The danger of methyl-mercury in the biomass is that it becomes concentrated as it moves up through the food chain — by a factor of about 10 every time it passes from one level to the next. At times and in some localities methyl-mercury causes fish (who are one step removed from the top of the food chain) that are contaminated with excessive levels of methyl-mercury to become unsafe to eat.

Methyl-mercury poisoning in humans who regularly ingest fish or shellfish was first discovered in 1956 in Japan, where it produced the infamous Minamata disease and its devastating results. Minamata disease also manifested itself many years later in Canada, in humans that lived, and regularly ate fish, in areas downstream from pulp mills.

Are seawater scrubbers on cruise ships safe for humans? Who knows? One thing is certain. Although the cause of Minamata disease was known for many years, prior to 1970 it was not considered in calculating its impact on humans when pulp mills using mercury-polluted bleach and discharging mercury-polluted water into streams were constructed in Canada.

Minamata disease in Ontario, Canada, was discovered in 1970. The human misery and costs caused by Minamata disease in Ontario were enormous.

There are many settlements along the Inland Route to Alaska that subsist on fish. There are others that sell fish to the whole world. Will seawater scrubbers on cruise ships keep all consumers of fish from that area safe? Who knows? One would think that is worth taking a look at.

However, as of now it does not appear that anyone involved in studying seawater-scrubbing of diesel exhausts of any ship is looking beyond the goal of preventing most or all SO2 produced by ships from entering the atmosphere. The impact that the injection of a massive volume of sulphate will have on the local ecology in coastal waters, in relation to giving anaerobic bacteria a boost that will enable an escalation of the rate of conversion of precipitated mercury to methyl-mercury, appears not to be an issue that is being examined in connection with sulphate production by seawater scrubbers. Nevertheless, the relationship of anaerobic bacteria thriving on sulphate and causing an escalation of the production of methyl-mercury in the process is a fact. For example:

Coastal Environmental Quality Initiative, University of California
Contribution of Iron-Reducing Bacteria of Mercury Methylation in Marine Sediments, by Emily J. Fleming and D C. Nelson; Paper 040, Dec. 8, 2006 (212 kB PDF file)

Quote: [methyl-mercury] enters food chains where it bioaccumulates to concentrations that can cause impaired neurological function in a variety of higher organisms (fish, birds, humans). This toxic conversion has, in the scientific literature, been quite dogmatically attributed to activities of sulfate-reducing bacteria….

More reports and study reports can be accessed through a google-search (about 364 entries on the search-return list)

There may not be any cause for concern with the environmental impact of seawater scrubbers, but it is possible that it exists. If that is the case, and if seawater scrubbers still are permitted to be used, then many people will become severely and incurably ill, and ultimately the taxpayers will be left holding the bag.

Posted in Pollution: Health Issues, Bunker Fuel, Acid Rain, Heavy-Metal Poisoning & Pollution, Hydrogen-Sulphide, Emission Incidents & Issues, Sulphur-Dioxide | Print | No Comments »

Alberta oil sands fire forces mass evacuation of facility

October 19, 2007 by Walter Schneider.

Canadian Occupational Health & Safety News
October 15, 2007

Alberta oil sands fire forces mass evacuation of facility

FORT MCMURRAY (Canadian OH&S News) — More than a thousand workers from an Alberta-based energy company were sent home following an early morning oil sands fire at a facility 25 kilometres north of Fort McMurray earlier this month.

The fire began in a drum of Suncor Energy Inc’s Millennium Coker Unit (a key processing unit in an oil sands upgrader) at around 6 am on October 2, states a press release issued by the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board (EUB). It took approximately 45 minutes to extinguish the fire, adds Josh Stewart, spokesman for Alberta Environment…. (Full Story)

[Update by folc.ca - 2007 11 08: The link no longer functions. Moreover, the website of OHSCanada contains not a single reference to Suncor, a fire at Suncor or any evacuations there that can be accessed through either an Internet search or through OHS’ search facility at their website. That is outright Orwellian editing of recorded history.

Fortunately, the full article from which the quoted paragraphs were excerpted is still available on the Internet at a few other websites that, unlike the OHS article, are fully archived at the Internet Archive.

Unlike the recorded history of the society that George Orwell wrote about in “1984“, any incident thought worth recording by anyone is impossible to erase now, for as long as total control and censorship of the Internet is not handed over to our governments.]

Stories and comments on Suncor coker fire

Comment by folc.ca: Why should anyone in Lamont County care about the Suncor fire?

The Suncor site is 25 km away from Fort McMurray. The Oct. 2 Suncor fire caused the evacuation of more than a thousand workers. How many thousands of people would have had to be evacuated if the fire would not have been 25 km but only two 2 km away from Fort McMurray, the distance between Bruderheim and the proposed HAZCO waste-sulphur storage and handling site?

The evacuation zone identified in the emergency response measures proposed by HAZCO includes neither Bruderheim nor Lamont. Its boundaries extend no farther than 1.5 km away from the proposed HAZCO site.

HAZCO insists that explosions and fires involving sulphur fires and the release of massive volumes of sulphur dioxide produced by such fires are not a threat to the residents of Lamont County. However, as the record of such incidents at http://folc.ca shows, and as is also shown in the category Explosions and Fires at this blog, sulphur fires and even sulphur-storage, -forming and -handling fires happen, happen frequently and happen even in Alberta. Such fires caused evacuations, and at times loss of health and of lives for miles around.

HAZCOS’ proposed sulphur-forming and -shipping facility must not be permitted to be constructed in a location close to areas with high population density. That still leaves the question as to whether the risk of having such a facility is tolerable even in areas with low population density.

Is the acceptance of risk to health and lives a calculated one and a matter of degree? If so, then how many lives constitute too many lives?

The location of Shell’s Shantz sulphur-storage, -forming and -shipping facility was picked because it is more than 40km away from the Natural Gas processing and desulphurization facility at Caroline, so as to remove the risk to Caroline residents that sulphur-storage, -forming and -shipping poses.

If a 40km distance between a sulphur facility and the residents of nearby communities was deemed safe then, how come that HAZCO now insists on lowering that standard to a small fraction (2km) of what it was when a permit was granted for the construction of Shell’s Shantz facility?

In case you wonder about whose sulphur will be handled by HAZCO, the majority, if not all, of that sulphur is being, and will be, produced and owned by Shell.

Posted in Explosions & Fires, Community & Industry, Emission Incidents & Issues, Hazco, Sulphur Logistics, Sulphur-Dioxide | Print | No Comments »