Quote:
Originally Posted by darcane
Now who is propagating myths?  |
Ok, guilty as charged.
'cept Elon didn't start it,
Nissan did. I've double-checked with my dad, a 30 year petroleum engineer, and he said it varies tremendously, but 8 kWh sounded fair. It's a shame that Washington state refinery stats got blended with Arizona, Alaska and Hawaii in the Argonne report. Talk about lost in the wash!
The big hole in that report is that it didn't count onsite-generated electricity. I don't buy the cogeneration argument that it wouldn't have been generated if the refinery wasn't using it. All refinery inputs become either a product or a waste, and a hazardous waste at that. You can bet that any liquid or solid waste with fuel value will be burnt before it is hauled off as havardous waste (or blended into the still bottoms/asphalt). Refineries have flares burning 24/7 as a safety device ready for emergency gas venting, but also because they have a lot of process waste/surplus gas that they'd rather burn than take a loss on (through added processing of a low value product or by creating a market oversupply). This article claims that waste gas being flared off was equal to 25% of US natural gas consumption in 2011.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_flare
In my refinery hometown of Pascagoula MS, it was common to find tarry specks of flare fallout all over our cars in the morning, because the 'emergency venting' always seemed to happen at night. I'd bet that Bellingham WA residents have similar experiences. Oil refining is a nasty, secretive business.