Hydrocarbon Processing - January 2022 - 31

Special Focus Sustainability
B. GOOSSENS, ABB, Frankfurt, Germany
Taking a measured approach to climate change
through continuous emissions monitoring systems
The need to reduce emissions has never been greater. A reindustrial
activity.3
port1
published by the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) has been labeled a " code red for humanity "
by the United Nations (UN). The report highlights that the
Earth's surface temperature was 1.09°C higher in the decade
between 2011-2020 than between 1850-1900, that the past
5 yr have been the hottest on record since 1850, and that the
recent rate of sea level rise has nearly tripled compared with
1901-1971. The report indicates that human influence is very
likely the main driver of the global retreat of glaciers since the
1990s and the decrease in Arctic sea ice.
As a heavily industrialized sector with a global impact, the
oil and gas industry has a major role in tackling climate change.
According to a report by McKinsey, the oil and gas sector must
reduce its emissions by at least 3.4 gigatons of carbon-dioxide
equivalent per year (GtCO2
e/yr) by 2050 compared to a business-as-usual
approach.2
Initiatives such as the Oil and Gas Methane Partnership
(OGMP) will play an important role in reaching these reduction
targets. The OGMP is part of the Climate and Clean Air
Coalition to Reduce Short-Lived Climate Pollutants (CCAC)
initiative led by the UN Environment Program (UNEP), the
European Commission (EC) and the Environmental Defense
Fund (EDF). Sixty-two companies with assets on five continents,
representing 30% of the world's oil and gas production,
have joined this partnership. The new OGMP 2.0 framework is
now the gold-standard reporting framework that will improve
the reporting accuracy and transparency of anthropogenic
methane emissions in the oil and gas sector.
The need for measurement. For targets to be met, emissions
must be measured and monitored. Continuous emissions
monitoring systems (CEMS) are available to monitor a wide
array of emissions. Available options range from standard systems
for natural-gas-fired boilers to measure emissions such as
carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides to highly
sophisticated, multi-component systems for waste-incineration
plants measuring water soluble pollutants such as hydrogen
fluoride, hydrogen chloride and ammonia.
The combination of environmental pressure, tightening regulations
and a broader range of technology options is seeing a rising
uptake of CEMS in industrial applications. The ARC Advisory
Group forecasts a 4.8% growth in CEMS adoption between
2018-2023, with most of it being driven by Asia, as key players
such as China, Southeast Asia and India increase their levels of
Growth is also expected to be generated by
operators involved in electric power generation, incineration
and chemicals manufacturing, which collectively represent the
world's largest markets for emissions monitoring systems.
Different types of CEMS. When it comes to CEMS solutions,
users can select from a diverse choice of technologies that
allow emissions to be accurately measured in a wide variety of
refinery, petrochemical and chemicals applications. This includes
the use in both production processes to measure gases
and volatile organic compounds and for monitoring emissions
from plants, such as from fired heaters, steam methane reformers
and steam boilers. When it comes to measuring stack emissions,
operators have a choice of techniques.
Extractive techniques. Commonly used for measuring
gases, extractive techniques consist of two primary methods.
Heated extraction involves extracting the sample gas from the
stack by using a sample probe, heated line, gas conditioning
equipment and a heated sample pump. Before analysis, condensate
is usually removed from the sample and the temperature
is reduced to protect the analyzers, commonly referred to as
" cold/dry " measurement. The author's company's continuous
gas analyzersa
work on this principle. As a modular gas analysis
solution, it can combine up to four analyzer modules handling a
total of six sample components. With ATEX 3G protection, the
complete system can be designed without a purge, thus cutting
maintenance time and costs, and increasing system availability
by allowing maintenance operations or repairs at any time.
The alternative is to keep the gas hot all the way through the
system, which is known as a " hot/wet " process. The sample
must arrive at the analyzer inlet in a representative state that
reflects conditions in the stack. The design of the sampling system
must also protect against any sample loss or degradation.
The author's company provides an alternative Fourier-transform
infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) solutionb
to simultaneously
measure multiple components. The system even allows the addition
of further new components in the future by modifying
the FTIR spectroscopy model.
In-situ measurement. In-situ " probe " analyzers are directly
connected to the probe installed at the measurement point.
Most in-situ systems use infrared measurement techniques.
Another popular technique is cross-duct analyzers. These
analyzers project infrared (IR) or ultraviolet (UV) energy across
the stack and detect the change in the energy state of the gas molecules
as they absorb this energy at characteristic wavelengths.
Hydrocarbon Processing | JANUARY 2022 31
Hydrocarbon Processing - January 2022

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