A Discussion of Concerns if Proposed Refinery Flare Rules are Applied to the Chemical Industry

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Title A Discussion of Concerns if Proposed Refinery Flare Rules are Applied to the Chemical Industry
Creator Boley, T.M.
Contributor David, B.C.
Date 2015-09-10
Spatial Coverage Salt Lake City, Utah
Subject 2015 AFRC Industrial Combustion Symposium
Description Paper from the AFRC 2015 conference titled A Discussion of Concerns if Proposed Refinery Flare Rules are Applied to the Chemical Industry
Abstract The EPA proposed refinery flare rules in June, 2014. The comment period on these rules closed in October, 2014 and the rules are scheduled to be signed by the EPA administrator in June, 2015. The rules, when finalized, will be applicable to the refining industry, but can be expected to be used as the basis for future flare rules for other industry groups. The first set of rules for the chemical industry, where new flare provisions are expected, is for the ethylene industry. The refinery flare provisions present a number of problems if they are applied to the Chemical Industry. In the refinery rules, the EPA has proposed combustion zone performance parameters for two flare category types - "all flares" and air assisted flares. The current rules set requirements for steam assisted, non-assisted, air assisted and hydrogen rich flares. There are seven basic flare categories that have different performance parameters that need to be regulated differently. There are steam assisted, air assisted, non-assisted, hydrogen rich, pressure flares, ground flares and enclosed flares. This paper will review each of these flare categories and discuss regulatory options and issues for each flare category. For non-assisted and hydrogen rich flares, test data will be presented that shows no change is needed from the current regulations for these flare categories. If any of EPA's proposed combustion parameters are applied to non-assisted or hydrogen rich flares and changes are needed related to fuel addition to these flares to comply with new combustion zone performance parameters, the available data shows that these changes are predicted to result in minimal emission reduction benefit. The new performance parameters will potentially require large amounts of additional of fuel to operate to any of the new combustion zone performance parameters with minimal emission reduction benefit.
Type Event
Format application/pdf
Rights No copyright issues exist
OCR Text Show
ARK ark:/87278/s6qp0hqj
Setname uu_afrc
ID 1387845
Reference URL https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6qp0hqj
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