Environmental comparison of straight run diesel and cracked diesel

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Publication Details

Author list: Kochaphum C., Gheewala S.H., Vinitnantharat S.

Publisher: Elsevier

Publication year: 2012

Journal: Journal of Cleaner Production (0959-6526)

Volume number: 37

Start page: 142

End page: 146

Number of pages: 5

ISSN: 0959-6526

URL: https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-84865476314&doi=10.1016%2fj.jclepro.2012.06.023&partnerID=40&md5=d815d0258eb7c8d72ee495b8d268634f

Languages: English-Great Britain (EN-GB)

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Abstract

Diesel is produced conventionally by distilling crude oil which also results in lower value heavy distillates. Recently, complex refineries have higher value-added diesel from these heavy distillates. However, this requires additional energy. Hence, it is interesting to evaluate what effect the economic value addition has on the use of non-renewable resources and greenhouse gas emissions. This study was conducted to compare the gate-to-gate energy related impacts i.e. Global Warming Potential (GWP) and Abiotic resource Depletion Potential (ADP) between straight run diesel (S-HSD), produced by a simple refinery and cracked diesel (C-HSD), produced by a complex. The results showed that the C-HSD required more energy than the S-HSD because of the energy used by the additional processes. 1 L of the S-HSD generated 0.048 kg CO 2 eq while that of the C-HSD generated 0.372 kg CO 2 eq. In contrast, the C-HSD has a lower ADP than the S-HSD proving that the production of diesel from the heavy distillate indeed helps conserve natural resources. 1 L of the S-HSD generated 0.022 kg Sb eq. while that of the C-HSD generated 0.017 kg Sb eq. Producing the C-HSD helps conserve natural resources but has higher GWP than the S-HSD. However, there are possibilities to reduce GHG emissions from the C-HSD production by energy efficiency improvement. ฉ 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords

Abiotic resource depletion potential, Cracked diesel, Energy efficiency improvement, Straight run diesel