But the moving pieces here bear watching.  Remember that petroleum refining is the the process of making lots of different length molecules and then sorting them out.  Bunker fuel is the heavy stuff that's left after you've taken everything else off the column, from kerosene to gasoline to diesel to #6 oil.  Which means that the phase out is suddenly creating a problem for refineries who have a lot of this heavy fuel on their hands and suddenly no market.

And here's how everything is connected: there are a massive number of efforts underway right now to build power plants at petroleum refineries.  Any guess on what the fuel is going to be?

Grist can you keep this topic open for a little while longer, please?

A few preliminary comments ... first that the emissions generated off SoCal extend seaward about 200 miles (400 km) and what they are measuring is transport, plume concentration, and plume duration (exposure).  This is slightly different from in-port studies conducted by Cal ARB that go out 40 miles.

Second, we're not talking "Bunker C" here.  The heavy fuels are known as IFO 380 and IFO 180, where IFO means "intermediate fuel oil."  True, with very clean crude oil stocks below 2.7% sulfur, the stuff is basically a "straight run" with a certain boiling point and fuel qualities such as flash point.  However, many crude oil feedstocks are quite high in sulfur and do not meet IMO requirements and thus are blended with distillates with a higher boiling point. Technically, things like asphalt and bitumen are refinery bottoms, and whatever cannot be marketed as asphalt and bitumen is turned into coke (a process that makes a great deal of CO2 by the way).

I was not asked to review this work but will check with Dr. Corbett about their assumptions for stack plume rise, plume transport, secondary aerosol reactions, and mechanical fallout, and whether these were steady-state or dynamic real-time.  This is wave of the future stuff, folks.

Thanks for posting this.  

Onward through the fog

Burning this stuff at a refinery means that it can accumulate there as well.  If it's out to sea it won't accumulate on land anyway.   If they burn it at the refinery, they have to clean the sulfur out sometime, either before or after?

Good point about acidification but particulate matter (PM-10 micron) and diesel particulate are what hurt and kill people, I think the point here.  Sulfur dioxide has a bad way of forming ammonium sulfate aerosol as a secondary atmospheric reaction. None of this particulate, black carbon, organic carbon, or sulfate aerosol if very good for anyone.

The purpose of some of Dr. Corbett's earlier work (not sure if published yet) was to evaluate whether a Sulfur Emission Control Area (SECA) for the U.S. West Coast, as was implemented by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) for the Baltic Sea.  This would require cleaner fuels or allow dirtier ones if a scrubber was used on the ship.  

The California Air Resources Board (ARB) has introduced regulations to require cleaner fuels while ships are in port, such as their auxiliary engines.  It was a good rule but certain shipping interests sued on the grounds that neither the ARB or EPA has any jurisdiction over international shipping, and plus the U.S. Congress had never adopted to IMO treaty regarding ship air emissions (a very sorry but true fact).  Thus the ARB "rules" are completely voluntary at this time.  
-sam

Onward through the fog