Analysis of Energy Use and CO2 Emissions in the U.S. Refining Sector, With Projections for 2025

CATEGORY: ENERGY MANAGEMENT
Environ. Sci. Technol., 2012, 46 (7), pp 3697–3704
Analysis of Energy Use and CO2 Emissions in the U.S. Refining Sector, With Projections for 2025
David S. Hirshfeld* and Jeffrey A. Kolb
dave@mathproinc.com
MathPro Inc., P.O. Box 34404, Bethesda, Maryland 20827, United States
Abstract
Authors employ linear programming modeling of the U.S. refining sector to estimate total annual energy consumption and CO2 emissions in 2025 for four projected U.S. crude oil slates.
The baseline is similar to the current U.S. crude slate.  The other three contain larger proportions of higher density, higher sulfur crudes than the current or any previous U.S. crude slates. Refining heavier crude slates would require significant investments in new refinery processing capability, especially coking and hydrotreating units. These findings differ substantially from a recent estimate which predicts that processing heavy oil or bitumen blends could increase industry CO2 emissions by 1.6–3.7 gigatons/year.
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