Pickup Trucks and Oil Refinery Discussion - A Jay and Jimmie Production

May I suggest you obtain a passport and try a little traveling? There are plenty of small cars in the EU, very few giant SUV's - only the wealthy can afford something like a Range Rover or Land Cruiser - yet they have a lower crash and fatality rate per km than we do

Kinetic Energy = 1/2 mass * velocity ^2

Crash two small cars into each other, of similar mass, and they will manage the crash forces reasonably well. Crash two quad cab pickups into each other, they don't do so well. Let's not forget there is no Federal requirement for roof integrity, so if it goes upside down, it pancakes

Your assertion about the crash "safety" of full size pickups and SUV's is easily proven false based on real-world NHTSA data. This data is public domain and easily obtained at the NHTSA website

Of course, I'm just a dumb consulting engineer. It appears a lot of engineers and scientists drive those dinky little evil Prius cars. We must have been exposed to nasty reagents in Chem class, did something to our reasoning skills

As a final thought, for crissakes, nobody is going to "take" your pickup away. What the hell is wrong with dealerships in Minnesota? Ever go to California? The far stricter California emissions standards, with mandatory annual I/M programs, doesn't seem to have stopped the sale of pickups and SUV's. Far from it

 

Re: I have betrayed you all.....sorta

So, how are those rollover ratings?

Oh woohoo, let's hear it for higher PM10 and NOx. Since the Federal EPA standards have always lagged CARB, now you may have to wait another 2-3 years for stricter emissions requirements

Oh cah-rist, that has to be a joke. Bull and S***. I have relatives in California, they're unaware of anybody being "restricted" from buying "certain vehicles"

I would think with the higher fuel prices and Minnesota dealerships stuck with acres of unsold pickups and SUV's, they could care less about California emissions. I was wrong

Since that piece of horses*** "Don't Take My Truck wah waaahhhh!" sight is sponsored by Minnesota car dealerships, it proves how dumb they are. Imagine if the bill had passed, especially with a requirement for annual I/M. I've been to the Twin Cities a few times, there are plenty of junkers around there. They'd be forced off the road

THat means a lot of folks would be at a dealership, either looking at a new car, or paying bucks to have O2 sensors or catalytic converters replaced. Of course, there are plenty of rednecks out there who figure catalytic converters are some sort of Commie Plot and even cut the damn things off

The dealerships actually stood to MAKE MORE MONEY. Again, this only proves why they are now suffering

Anyway, no sense worrying about it now. It could take another 10 years before such a bill in floated again. Maybe in the meantime enough folks will come to their senses to demand nation-wide adoption of CARB standards.

I for one would love to see all those ugly POS turbodiesel pickups go through an annual I/M. A lot of the rednecks who buy them will mod them with tuner kits, so everytime they step on the pedal, huge cloud of black smoke

 

Re: I have betrayed you all.....sorta

It's not "negative" when you report the facts. Oh, guess you didn't bother to check out the official NHTSA stats. I see that many trucks and suv's upside down after every blizzard

To regulate HC, CO, NOx, and PM10 emissions from transport vehicles. Those emissions are proven to impact human mortality and morbidity. Maybe not as much in a windblown flatlander city like Winnipeg or the Twin Cities, but there are many health benefits

How do you figure? Define "right track" and what that track is supposed to include

California emissions standards are being debated here and I fully support them. First of all, that means the immediate removal of MMT as an anti-knock additive, so no more airbourne manganease emissions. I also fully support I/M programs here, get all those clunkers off the roads

Since light duty trucks and suv's make up more of total sales than all those fuel efficient cars, it actually skews the CAFE back down. We have technology to make fuel efficient large vehicles, but I also believe in letting market forces - steeply rising fuel prices - do that for us

Oh, how many cars get 35 mpg or better? Most of them are smaller than the Prius, not exactly the kind of macho hairy chested ride most folks are deluded into buying

You can thank those whacky environmental laws for that. Ever been to Eastern Europe or China on business? When they say the air is so thick you can cut it with a knife, that's pretty close to reality.

Of course, if you don't like environmental laws, I say repeal them. We should remove the catalytic converters and go back to straight-run gas with lead antiknock additives.

Oh bulls***. If I see 10 turbodiesel GM/Ford/Dodge pickups, maybe 1 is actually "working." The rest are daily drivers with spotless leather interiors and DVD players, that have to stagger under the load of a bag of groceries from Safeway. The off-road they see is is a gravel driveway

The pretend-tough folks who drive them never haul, never tow, but always seem to complain about what it costs to fill the thing up. Count the mortgage for a house they don't need, credit cards maxed out, truck payments, etc, they will get no sympathy from me

When? To meet the new Tier 2 Bin 5 Federal diesel standards - which are weaker than CARB standards- automatically excludes a lot of turbodiesel designs sold in the EU and other parts of the world.

The EU is considered to have "tough" emissions standards, but their latest EuroIV for diesel still allows 3 times the NOx and 7 times the PM10 that our current Federal standards allow. Even the proposed EuroV won't meet our T2B5

One thing they don't tell you is that all that extra emissions stuff on a diesel really kills the fuel economy. VW has had to adjust - lower - the ratings of newer TDI models sold here.

Mercedes promised us around 40 highway when the R320 CDI debuted here. About the same time, Canada toughened diesel emissions, though still not as tough as the US

So that Mercedes that promised 40 was downrated to 34 highway. Is it worth paying that much extra over the gasoline V6 version? Nope, not anymore

So now you're switching the topic from the light duty market to the heavy duty market. BTW even the new highway tractors have emissions control. A neighbor of mine near my hobby farm runs a small fleet of Kenworth T2000, those "gay" looking aerodynamic tractors

He ordered Cummins and it came with DPF and a sticker warning to use ULSD. He figures in less than 2 years - when he buys his next new truck - it will have Urea tacked on.

He was initially against tough emissions standards, but now is a very strong supporter of it. One thing he noticed right away, that new T2000 no longer leaves a black soot stain on the trailer corner, like the older tractors did. Matter of fact, in 4 months he put over 100,000 km on that tractor, and the exhaust pipe is clean as a whistle

Even working on it in his shop, he noticed it no longer seems as if the thing is trying to choke him just driving into the shop or backing out. But I'm sure a lot of ignorant owner-operators will try to rip out the DPF

Oh cah-rist, here we go again! Wth is this about California running Minnesota? I will admit, the respect I used to have for Minnesota has dropped a few notches

 

Re: I have betrayed you all.....sorta

FINALLY something we both agree on! I guess tonight all the planets are aligned or something equally improbable

But seriously, consider all the light duty vehicles with bad brakes, bad siuspension parts, bald tires, etc etc etc that are chugging along right next to you. I say either keep them repaired, or get them off the road

As far as diesel, I do *not* want to see us replacing most of our light duty gasoline fleet with diesel engines. I've been to the EU often enough to not want the NOx, PM10, and dioxin here. A lot of folks don't realize that diesel exhaust contains dioxin

Another issue, even if the smog aspect of light duty diesel engines was fixed, is the cost of diesel fuel here in North America. In the EU, diesel fuel receives far more favorable treatment, it is taxed much lower than here.

So for the vast majority of car owners, a diesel is a no-brainer. That is why almost half of the light duty fleet in the EU is diesel powered

Here, diesel is priced higher than gasoline. If we have to shift process streams at a refinery to crank out a lot more distillate, expect that price to skyrocket at the pump

With emissions, the fuel economy "gain" isn't as high as expected for diesel engines. I'll use the Mercedes R wagon I mentioned in earlier posts

The R320 CDI starts at $65,000 Cdn. Converting litres per 100km to miles per Imperial gallon, it's rated 25 city and 34 highway

The R350 is a V6 motor, starts at $63,000 Cdn. Rated 20 city, 28 highway. SO the diesel version gains around 25% city, 24% highway. That's typical for what we can expect from light duty diesels now, not the +50% numbers being tossed around. When you factor in how much more diesel fuel is, were is the "gain?"

So you can tell I'm not thrilled by diesel. I'm even less thrilled by imported oil. Tell me, what happens if OPEC dumps the dollar for the Euro?

 

Re: I have betrayed you all.....sorta

Very sensible

Unfortunately, that is correct

$1.32 a litre. There are 3.78 litres per US gallon, so $4.99 a gallon. As I'm sure you've noticed, a net oil exporting country has higher pump prices than a net oil importing country does. How's that for chutzpah?

Not quite. A lot of the reason has to do with EROEI (Energy Return On Energy Invested), which is how expensive it is to get the oil out of the ground.

For example, a lot of that formerly cheap Mid East oil had EROEI of +150:1, even 300:1. You'd literally poke a hole in the ground and oil would gush out. THose days are gone

We're not running out of oil, we've run out of cheap oil. There is plenty of oil out there, but it's so hard to get to that it makes current oil prices look cheap

Consider the oil off the East Coast and West Coast of the US and Canada. If you're stuck building a GBS platform in a mile of water, drilling +15 miles to get to the oil, your EROEI is 15:1 if you're lucky.

As an example, Hibernia in Atlantic Canada. This project has eaten up billions of taxpayer dollars, the oil is so expensive it must be above $65 a barrel to break even. When this field was opened in the early 1990's, oil was under $20 a barrel. It was a huge money loser

The oil field in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, is now in steep decline, it peaked in the mid 1990's and is EROEI 30:1 and under. The remaining field will be so difficult to extract they're in no rush to try, hence the lazy speed of fixing the pipeline "corrosion" problems. ANWR presents similar EROEI and peaking issues, though we will probably go ahead and try

Shale is often talked about, like the Tar Sands in Alberta. That has an EROEI of 16:1 and under. The Canadian taxpayer has shoveled a lot of money into that scheme, only very recently has it gone to break-even and now slight profits

Refineries are another example. Did you know that the ratio of crude to process water consumption is almost 1:1? We also have 50% of the refineries we did 30 years ago

The oldest, most inefficient refineries have disappeared. The newest refinery is 35 years old. It says something that especially with recent record oil company profits, nobody has built a modern, clean, efficient oil refinery

Environmentally, it would be far cleaner to dismantle the old refineries and build modern ones with digital control bus technology. A lot of refineries in North America still run on 5-15 psi pneumatic control, which was considered obsolete in the late 1970's

As you can tell, this is a complex issue. If you would like to know more about petrochemical engineering, please let me know. Personally, I get off on crude distillation units, reformers, fluidized catalytic crackers, and alkynators

 

Re: I have betrayed you all.....sorta

You mean The Jay And Jimmie Show?

Personally, I would love a thread on oil refinery technology. Also extraction technology. Did I mention I really get off on catalyzers and crackers, and tray pumparounds/reflux?

I think it's past my bedtime ....

 

Re: I have betrayed you all.....sorta

Sorry about the delay. Let me know if you want me to set up a thread on oil refineries

I'll have to come up with diagrams that are easy to understand. I have plenty of refinery diagrams, but they're all in P&ID format (Process and Instrumentation Diagram). To the uninitiated, they're very confusing and hard to follow

And Jon should probably move our sidetracked discussion to a different thread, to keep his Smart topic easier to follow

NOTE: As per edit, here is a generalized process schematic of a generic oil refinery.

 

Ok tomorrow I will discuss the first stage of the refinery process, the CDU or Crude Distillation Unit. I will try to keep it as simple as possible, avoiding any obvious engineer-speak.

This will include discussion of the trays within the CDU, and the pumparounds/reflux. Also, I will discuss desalting, and the biggest change to CDU technology to improve efficiency and yield

Our weather is preventing me from having reliable Internet access. We've had torrential rain most of the day, resulting in my POS Satellite Internet thing fading out. Around 4pm the weather really picked up, with intense lightning too. My comment, as I exactly remember it:

"HOLY S***!!!!"

Also a tornado watch. If things are still standing tomorrow, we'll explore the CDU

 

Hello John

Well, a lot of that depends on how the process equation is balanced within the refinery. If you need to produce more gasoline, you produce less diesel, and v-v. Demand for gasoline is much higher than for diesel fuel in North America

Tax rates are also a lot different for diesel vs gasoline. In the EU, at least in most EU member countries, diesel is taxed at a much lower rate than gasoline. I'm not sure why, gasoline is the cleaner choice for smog prevention

jay

 

The Refinery Process, step 1: Desalting

Anyway, here is a grossly simplified explanation of the process that is used to turn crude oil into useful things like gasoline and diesel. I’m going to have to come up with my own drawings – god help you - as every drawing I have is in the form of a P&ID (Process and Instrumentation Diagram), which is all but impossible for the layperson to follow

The first step is the crude must be desalted. A lot of the cheap crude out there from the Mid East and especially Venezuela has high salt content. If not removed, there would be severe corrosion problems in the process piping, the distillation columns, not to mention the issue of that sodium fouling the catalysts in the FCC.

“Raw†crude also has a lot of clay, sand, drilling mud, and other contaminants in suspension. It’s essential to “wash†the crude to get as much of the crap out as possible, which is what the desalter is used for

To desalt the crude, it’s partially preheated and mixed with water. Oh, you were wondering why I had mentioned earlier an oil refinery has almost a 1:1 ratio of crude to process water consumption? This is just the start

Once the crude has been mixed and partially heated, it is sent through the desalter. The desalter works by “washing†the crude with a lot more clean process water, in a directed spray. Stoke’s Law provides for water and oil to naturally separate.

Additionally, a strong electrostatic field is generated inside the desalter. This electrostatic field enhances coalescence of the water droplets. To enhance efficiency and crude flowthrough, a multistage design is most often used

The result of desalting is crude that has had most of the salt removed. There is also contaminated brine concentrate, and contaminated wash water that must be treated before it can be safely ditched or disposed

 

To answer the question "doesn't diesel take less refining than gasoline"

Yes and no, with current and proposed T2B5 emissions, NO. First of all, you can get a lot more "bang for your buck" by refining gasoline. We now have technology - which I will touch on later in this series - that can catalyze and reform what used to be waste aromatics that were flared off

To get the sulfur down to low enough levels to get any sort of useful life out of a DPF, the diesel needs a lot of extra hydrotreating and hydrocracking. That adds to the cost

"Straight run" gasoline or diesel is actually very poor quality stuff. It tends to have poor ignition qualities, and a lot of residuals that increase pollution. Again, I'll touch on that later