The Hyperion project: Can it really be green?
By Dave Dreeszen Journal business editor | Posted: Sunday, May 25, 2008
ELK POINT, S.D. -- As South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds puts it, the proposed Hyperion Energy Center "is not your grandfather's oil refinery.''
ELK POINT, S.D. -- As South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds puts it, the proposed Hyperion Energy Center "is not your grandfather's oil refinery.''
But how does Hyperion's $10 billion project differ from refineries of the past? And what makes it "green,'' as the Texas energy firm claims?
Hyperion touts its environmentally friendly refinery, proposed for a site in rural Union County, as setting the "gold standard'' for the industry. Since the last all-new U.S. refinery was built in 1976, there have been substantial advances in pollution control technologies, according to Hyperion project executive J.L. "Corky'' Frank.
During that time, many existing refineries have replaced outdated equipment and expanded their capacity. But it's been done on older footprints, some dating to the turn of the 20th century.
"It's sort of like modifying a house and adding rooms on,'' Frank recently told the Journal editorial board. "You're trying to upgrade with something that is old .... ''
Hyperion proposes to refine 400,000 barrels of crude oil from Alberta, Canada, into clean-burning gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. The waxy, coal-like oil, extracted from the tar sand fields near Fort McMurray in northern Alberta, is so thick it must be treated or diluted to flow through a pipeline.
"Normally, that type of crude oil would produce large amounts of bottom-of-the-barrel products, like asphalt and residual fuel oil,'' said Frank, a former Marathon Oil executive and 30-year industry veteran. "This refinery, because it's going to be built from scratch, can take advantage of that low quality and turn it all into environmentally sound, green-type fuels that are low in sulfur and meet the most stringent requirements for petroleum products today.''
Critics argue it's difficult, if not impossible, for any plant refining the dirtier tar sands oil to be green. They contend the "sour'' crude contains a higher sulfur content and more heavy toxic compounds than the lighter "sweet'' crude imported from the Middle East and other regions.
"You have to add more processing units, you have to heat up the sludge, which creates more pollution,'' Denny Larson, a California-based consultant working to clean up the oil industry, told a local anti-Hyperion group last year.
Rod Spackman, public affairs manager for the Chevron USA oil refinery in El Segundo, Calif., which refines some heavier crude from central California, said he's not sure "why people get hung up'' over the type of crude refined.
"It's not inherently bad,'' Spackman said of heavier crude. "You have to process it differently. It certainly doesn't create any unique environmental challenges.''
Refining the heavier crude, however, does require a great deal of hydrogen, much of which Hyperion intends to produce on site with relatively new technology.
Integrated gasification combined cycle, or IGCC, would turn petroleum coke, a refining byproduct, into hydrogen, steam and electricity to power the refinery. Hyperion touts the IGCC for its lower emissions, compared with traditional coal-fired power plants. Specifically, according to Hyperion's Web site, the IGCC's emissions would be 1/30th of those from MidAmerican Energy's George Neal power plants just south of Sioux City.
In its 613-page air-quality permit application filed with the South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources, however, Hyperion said the refinery would not produce enough petcoke to sustain the IGCC's needs. The company said it's considering three different options for providing additional feedstock -- either buying more petcoke, buying coal or using natural gas.
Distillation, conversion
Hyperion's refining process is designed to begin by separating the different liquids and vapors contained in crude into components, according to weight and boiling point. After the oil is heated to temperatures higher than 700 degrees Fahrenheit, it's sent to a distillation tower. The temperature decreases gradually as the vapors rise through the huge towers, with the crude components condensing at different heights.
The process uses both atmospheric distillation, which occurs at approximately atmospheric pressure, and vacuum distillation, which occurs at a pressure less than atmospheric.
Distillation separates out the lighter, more valuable fuels, or about 50 percent of a barrel. What's left are heavier, bottom-of-the-barrel products that require additional processing.
The two main conversion units, a hydrocracker and a delayed coker, use high heat and pressure to force the heavier products to "crack'' into lighter materials, or transportation fuels. The units essentially rearrange the longer hydrocarbon chains into smaller molecules.
Hyperion elected not to use a Fluidized Catalytic Cracking Unit, commonly known as a "cat cracker,'' which is the highest emitting unit in most refineries. Frank said the FCC, which burns off the carbon collected during a continuous catalyst process, produces higher emissions than a hydrocracker, including fine particle dust.
Hyperion would have about 7 percent to 10 percent less gasoline production capacity than a typical refinery that uses a cat cracker, Frank said. However, with demand for diesel fuel expected to be strong in the Midwest market it plans to serve, Hyperion plans to produce more of that fuel.
Like a cat cracker, the hydrocracking unit uses extreme heat, pressure and a catalytic process. The fundamental difference is, the latter unit's reactions occur in an extremely hydrogen-rich atmosphere. First, carbon bonds are broken, followed by the attachment of hydrogen.
Frank said the hydrocracker gives the refinery greater flexibility in how much diesel and jet fuel it produces. The two fuels are similar in structure, with jet fuel being somewhat lighter and with no water content.
Once the crude goes through the distillation and conversion units, impurities are removed through a series of other processes. A hydrotreating process removes sulfur and nitrogen. A catalytic reforming unit is used to increase the octane level of gasoline, creating a clean-burning fuel that meets the performance standards of today's engines.
Delayed coker
Hyperion proposes to use two delayed cokers, thermal cracking units with columns that boil off the light fuels, leaving behind the petroleum coke, or petcoke, in large drums. A high-pressure water jet cuts the petcoke from the drum and drops it into a pit. From there, it's sent to a crusher.
Before burning in the IGCC, the petcoke is partially combusted with oxygen to form what is known as syngas, a clean-burning fuel. After hydrogen and sulfur are removed from the gas, electricity is generated through a three-step process. A gas turbine-generator burns the syngas, heat from the gas turbine creates steam, and the steam powers a steam turbine-generator. Some steam also goes to the refinery.
Pollution controls
For the refinery, Hyperion would use Best Available Control Technologies, or BACT, a set of pollution control measures established by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Hyperion describes BACT standards as constantly improving. BACT is more stringent than Reasonably Available Control Technology measures but less stringent than Lowest Achievable Control Technology standards.
Some of the other pollution control equipment and methodologies Hyperion plans to use include:
A relatively new process, called indirect alkylation, or In-Alk, that avoids the use of sulfuric acid and hydrofluoric acid.
Ultralow burners in process heaters to minimize the formation of NOx, a generic term for a group of highly reactive gases that contain nitrogen and oxygen in varying amounts.
Efficient heat exchange equipment to minimize the wasting of energy into the atmosphere.
Process gas compressor systems that provide for recovery and use of gases that would otherwise be burned in safety flares.
An activated carbon adsorption system for removal of mercury from the IGCC's syngas before combustion.
Internal floating roofs in storage tanks and seal-less piping components, such as bellows seal valves, to minimize leaks and emissions into the atmosphere.
A wastewater treatment plant that would minimize water use, collect runoff water and clean all water returned to the Missouri River.
Hyperion contends its energy center would be 80 percent cleaner than the average refinery in California, which boasts the nation's most stringent air quality standards.
According to its air-quality permit application, Hyperion's center would annually emit nearly 2,000 tons of carbon monoxide, 773 tons of nitrogen oxides, more than 1,000 tons of particulate matter and 863 tons of sulfur dioxide.
During a visit last week to Union County, Rounds -- citing U.S. Environmental Protection Agency figures for 2002 -- said Union County's carbon monoxide emissions, even with the refinery at full capacity, still would be about one-third of the comparable emissions in Minnehaha County. Most agree Minnehaha, home to Sioux Falls, the state's largest city, has good air quality, Rounds said.
"It sounds like a lot, but when you compare it with what we already have, it's insignificant,'' he said. "That's the message I'm trying to share with folks. They won't see a haze over the area. They're going to see clear blue skies.''
'Green' technology still emerging
Alec Cucil, a research scientist in the Houston area who formerly worked for a Shell refinery for nearly 15 years, said current testing procedures fail to accurately measure emissions from refineries and chemical plants. In the Houston area, his research group has found that actual emissions were 10 percent to 50 percent greater.
"There are technologies out there that have been around for 20 years that can give you a much better sense of what emissions are,'' said Cucil, who wrote his thesis on the concept of "green'' refineries. "My sense is if we could use those techniques, we would better define what a green refinery is.''
Dale Simbeck, a California-based consultant who specializes in refining and gasification technologies, said he considers the design of Hyperion's proposed refinery "very clean and very white,'' but not "green.''
Currently, there are no plants that fully meet Simbeck's definition of a green plant -- one that produces no black, or heavy, fuel products and recovers carbon dioxide, as well as other emissions. A Royal Dutch Shell refinery in the Netherlands is moving the most in that direction, Simbeck said. It uses technologies that divert about 8 percent of its carbon dioxide emissions to 500 actual greenhouses, which grow fresh vegetables, fruits and other plants.
Hyperion's IGCC would be designed as "carbon-sequester ready,'' which would allow the energy center to eventually capture up to 90 percent of its annual CO2 emissions, which amount to 17 million tons, according to the air-quality permit application.
"This IGCC puts us in position to capture large amounts of greenhouse gases at one point source where it occurs rather than scattered out at several different places,'' Hyperion project manager Preston Phillips told the Journal editorial board.
Because the gasification plant turns the petcoke into a gas before burning, it's easier to separate out CO2 than it would be if the coke were burned first, according to Hyperion.
Before it could capture the greenhouse gases, Hyperion would need to find a place to store them. Frank said those technologies are still emerging.
Simbeck compares carbon-sequester-ready designs to "being half pregnant.''
"The people that promote capture-ready the most are those who spend nothing to capture it but save space to do it at a later point,'' he said.
ELK POINT, S.D. -- As South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds puts it, the proposed Hyperion Energy Center "is not your grandfather's oil refinery.''
But how does Hyperion's $10 billion project differ from refineries of the past? And what makes it "green,'' as the Texas energy firm claims?
Hyperion touts its environmentally friendly refinery, proposed for a site in rural Union County, as setting the "gold standard'' for the industry. Since the last all-new U.S. refinery was built in 1976, there have been substantial advances in pollution control technologies, according to Hyperion project executive J.L. "Corky'' Frank.
During that time, many existing refineries have replaced outdated equipment and expanded their capacity. But it's been done on older footprints, some dating to the turn of the 20th century.
"It's sort of like modifying a house and adding rooms on,'' Frank recently told the Journal editorial board. "You're trying to upgrade with something that is old .... ''
Hyperion proposes to refine 400,000 barrels of crude oil from Alberta, Canada, into clean-burning gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. The waxy, coal-like oil, extracted from the tar sand fields near Fort McMurray in northern Alberta, is so thick it must be treated or diluted to flow through a pipeline.
"Normally, that type of crude oil would produce large amounts of bottom-of-the-barrel products, like asphalt and residual fuel oil,'' said Frank, a former Marathon Oil executive and 30-year industry veteran. "This refinery, because it's going to be built from scratch, can take advantage of that low quality and turn it all into environmentally sound, green-type fuels that are low in sulfur and meet the most stringent requirements for petroleum products today.''
Critics argue it's difficult, if not impossible, for any plant refining the dirtier tar sands oil to be green. They contend the "sour'' crude contains a higher sulfur content and more heavy toxic compounds than the lighter "sweet'' crude imported from the Middle East and other regions.
"You have to add more processing units, you have to heat up the sludge, which creates more pollution,'' Denny Larson, a California-based consultant working to clean up the oil industry, told a local anti-Hyperion group last year.
Rod Spackman, public affairs manager for the Chevron USA oil refinery in El Segundo, Calif., which refines some heavier crude from central California, said he's not sure "why people get hung up'' over the type of crude refined.
"It's not inherently bad,'' Spackman said of heavier crude. "You have to process it differently. It certainly doesn't create any unique environmental challenges.''
Refining the heavier crude, however, does require a great deal of hydrogen, much of which Hyperion intends to produce on site with relatively new technology.
Integrated gasification combined cycle, or IGCC, would turn petroleum coke, a refining byproduct, into hydrogen, steam and electricity to power the refinery. Hyperion touts the IGCC for its lower emissions, compared with traditional coal-fired power plants. Specifically, according to Hyperion's Web site, the IGCC's emissions would be 1/30th of those from MidAmerican Energy's George Neal power plants just south of Sioux City.
In its 613-page air-quality permit application filed with the South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources, however, Hyperion said the refinery would not produce enough petcoke to sustain the IGCC's needs. The company said it's considering three different options for providing additional feedstock -- either buying more petcoke, buying coal or using natural gas.
Distillation, conversion
Hyperion's refining process is designed to begin by separating the different liquids and vapors contained in crude into components, according to weight and boiling point. After the oil is heated to temperatures higher than 700 degrees Fahrenheit, it's sent to a distillation tower. The temperature decreases gradually as the vapors rise through the huge towers, with the crude components condensing at different heights.
The process uses both atmospheric distillation, which occurs at approximately atmospheric pressure, and vacuum distillation, which occurs at a pressure less than atmospheric.
Distillation separates out the lighter, more valuable fuels, or about 50 percent of a barrel. What's left are heavier, bottom-of-the-barrel products that require additional processing.
The two main conversion units, a hydrocracker and a delayed coker, use high heat and pressure to force the heavier products to "crack'' into lighter materials, or transportation fuels. The units essentially rearrange the longer hydrocarbon chains into smaller molecules.
Hyperion elected not to use a Fluidized Catalytic Cracking Unit, commonly known as a "cat cracker,'' which is the highest emitting unit in most refineries. Frank said the FCC, which burns off the carbon collected during a continuous catalyst process, produces higher emissions than a hydrocracker, including fine particle dust.
Hyperion would have about 7 percent to 10 percent less gasoline production capacity than a typical refinery that uses a cat cracker, Frank said. However, with demand for diesel fuel expected to be strong in the Midwest market it plans to serve, Hyperion plans to produce more of that fuel.
Like a cat cracker, the hydrocracking unit uses extreme heat, pressure and a catalytic process. The fundamental difference is, the latter unit's reactions occur in an extremely hydrogen-rich atmosphere. First, carbon bonds are broken, followed by the attachment of hydrogen.
Frank said the hydrocracker gives the refinery greater flexibility in how much diesel and jet fuel it produces. The two fuels are similar in structure, with jet fuel being somewhat lighter and with no water content.
Once the crude goes through the distillation and conversion units, impurities are removed through a series of other processes. A hydrotreating process removes sulfur and nitrogen. A catalytic reforming unit is used to increase the octane level of gasoline, creating a clean-burning fuel that meets the performance standards of today's engines.
Delayed coker
Hyperion proposes to use two delayed cokers, thermal cracking units with columns that boil off the light fuels, leaving behind the petroleum coke, or petcoke, in large drums. A high-pressure water jet cuts the petcoke from the drum and drops it into a pit. From there, it's sent to a crusher.
Before burning in the IGCC, the petcoke is partially combusted with oxygen to form what is known as syngas, a clean-burning fuel. After hydrogen and sulfur are removed from the gas, electricity is generated through a three-step process. A gas turbine-generator burns the syngas, heat from the gas turbine creates steam, and the steam powers a steam turbine-generator. Some steam also goes to the refinery.
Pollution controls
For the refinery, Hyperion would use Best Available Control Technologies, or BACT, a set of pollution control measures established by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Hyperion describes BACT standards as constantly improving. BACT is more stringent than Reasonably Available Control Technology measures but less stringent than Lowest Achievable Control Technology standards.
Some of the other pollution control equipment and methodologies Hyperion plans to use include:
A relatively new process, called indirect alkylation, or In-Alk, that avoids the use of sulfuric acid and hydrofluoric acid.
Ultralow burners in process heaters to minimize the formation of NOx, a generic term for a group of highly reactive gases that contain nitrogen and oxygen in varying amounts.
Efficient heat exchange equipment to minimize the wasting of energy into the atmosphere.
Process gas compressor systems that provide for recovery and use of gases that would otherwise be burned in safety flares.
An activated carbon adsorption system for removal of mercury from the IGCC's syngas before combustion.
Internal floating roofs in storage tanks and seal-less piping components, such as bellows seal valves, to minimize leaks and emissions into the atmosphere.
A wastewater treatment plant that would minimize water use, collect runoff water and clean all water returned to the Missouri River.
Hyperion contends its energy center would be 80 percent cleaner than the average refinery in California, which boasts the nation's most stringent air quality standards.
According to its air-quality permit application, Hyperion's center would annually emit nearly 2,000 tons of carbon monoxide, 773 tons of nitrogen oxides, more than 1,000 tons of particulate matter and 863 tons of sulfur dioxide.
During a visit last week to Union County, Rounds -- citing U.S. Environmental Protection Agency figures for 2002 -- said Union County's carbon monoxide emissions, even with the refinery at full capacity, still would be about one-third of the comparable emissions in Minnehaha County. Most agree Minnehaha, home to Sioux Falls, the state's largest city, has good air quality, Rounds said.
"It sounds like a lot, but when you compare it with what we already have, it's insignificant,'' he said. "That's the message I'm trying to share with folks. They won't see a haze over the area. They're going to see clear blue skies.''
'Green' technology still emerging
Alec Cucil, a research scientist in the Houston area who formerly worked for a Shell refinery for nearly 15 years, said current testing procedures fail to accurately measure emissions from refineries and chemical plants. In the Houston area, his research group has found that actual emissions were 10 percent to 50 percent greater.
"There are technologies out there that have been around for 20 years that can give you a much better sense of what emissions are,'' said Cucil, who wrote his thesis on the concept of "green'' refineries. "My sense is if we could use those techniques, we would better define what a green refinery is.''
Dale Simbeck, a California-based consultant who specializes in refining and gasification technologies, said he considers the design of Hyperion's proposed refinery "very clean and very white,'' but not "green.''
Currently, there are no plants that fully meet Simbeck's definition of a green plant -- one that produces no black, or heavy, fuel products and recovers carbon dioxide, as well as other emissions. A Royal Dutch Shell refinery in the Netherlands is moving the most in that direction, Simbeck said. It uses technologies that divert about 8 percent of its carbon dioxide emissions to 500 actual greenhouses, which grow fresh vegetables, fruits and other plants.
Hyperion's IGCC would be designed as "carbon-sequester ready,'' which would allow the energy center to eventually capture up to 90 percent of its annual CO2 emissions, which amount to 17 million tons, according to the air-quality permit application.
"This IGCC puts us in position to capture large amounts of greenhouse gases at one point source where it occurs rather than scattered out at several different places,'' Hyperion project manager Preston Phillips told the Journal editorial board.
Because the gasification plant turns the petcoke into a gas before burning, it's easier to separate out CO2 than it would be if the coke were burned first, according to Hyperion.
Before it could capture the greenhouse gases, Hyperion would need to find a place to store them. Frank said those technologies are still emerging.
Simbeck compares carbon-sequester-ready designs to "being half pregnant.''
"The people that promote capture-ready the most are those who spend nothing to capture it but save space to do it at a later point,'' he said.
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Ken Mouw wrote on May 27, 2008 4:26 PM:
"No" to the rezoning is to prevent something that might even be worse. "
ed wrote on May 26, 2008 4:11 AM:
John V wrote on May 25, 2008 7:24 PM:
Thinking wrote on May 25, 2008 5:54 PM:
And for anyone to suggest that the people who are opposed to the refinery are the ones who aren't thinking is ludicrous. "
Doubting Grandmother wrote on May 25, 2008 3:05 PM: