Specialty Chemicals From Pyrolysis Of Waste Tire Rubber

The oil production in Canada has several significant issues that depict the destruction nature of the industry. These issues can be categorized as environmental, political, economic, and social. The environmental issues lead the pack; in that the environmental destruction associated with the industry is extensive. The environmental problems are climatic, land, water and air related (Best & Hoberg, 2015). Under climatic effect, studies indicate that the development of the tar sides has resulted to three times more greenhouse gases (GHGs) than in production of conventional oil. These environmental issues are caused by the composition of the tar sands. Unlike the convention oil, tar sands are a mixture of bitumen and sand. The process of separating the two results triples GHGs emissions when compared to conventional oil production (Koring, 2013).

Also depicted in this paper is the type of cancers caused by each chemical and other related health problems associated with each chemical. Finally, the role of government agencies such as FDA, EPA and OSHA in preventing excessive amount or zero amounts of toxic chemicals from entering the environment will be discussed. The last paragraphs will enumerate the inferred conclusion from my research on Agent Orange, DDT and Benzene.

“During the early 1900’s the discovery of oil and natural gas in areas around Baton Rouge attracted chemical companies to the city” (Reilly). Since the beginning of the 1900’s Louisiana has been a large refining state, one may say one of the best, but also one of the most damaging. It can be safely said that since the start of refining in Louisiana well over a billion pounds of pollution has been released. In 2011 alone over a million pounds of chemicals were released into the air and a separate 1.3 million had been released into the water. All of Louisiana’s 17 refineries reported accidents contributing to these chemical spills (Sturgis). The numbers that have been presented so far may not seem out of the ordinary

Bitumen is much different than regular crude oil and there are fewer studies on Bitumen and the toxic impacts it can have on human health and the natural environment. Bitumen is nearly impossible to clean up because unlike regular crude oil, it sinks

The process of making synthetic crude oil requires an enormous amount of water, especially in the separation process. Each barrel of oil requires two tons of oil sands and up to five barrels of hot water. Water is also needed along with electricity to convert it steam. The steam is pushed by steam injections making bitumen less viscous. It is quite evident that oil sands are not practical in terms of its process. Also three-quarters of the bitumen can be recovered from the sands, leaving behind 25% as waste. With the technology in our present society, oil sands are not entirely practical in terms of efficiency; however, in the future, this may change. To reflect, there are many disadvantages associated with oil sands, especially in the way it is processed.

The earth contains many natural resources that humans consume daily in order to satisfy our needs. Each natural resource, once gone, will require us to find an alternative. One of the most used and consumed natural resource on Earth is oil. Oil is needed for heating homes, the generation of electricity, the creation of asphalt on roads, and the production of many chemicals, plastics and synthetics. Additionally, oil is used for transportation purposes. Once oil runs out, how will humans travel across oceans, drive to work, or trade goods from country to country? With the end of conventional oil approaching, humans needs to locate alternative ways to replace oil within transportation of cars and planes in order to satisfy the needs of humans in the future.

Americans have been drilling for oil for more than half of their existence. Before the 1850’s oil was of little use and had no market for commerce as there was not one overwhelming use for it. Until around the 1850’s, when technology advanced, with it sparking search for one of the most sought after natural resources that countries would later go to war over, petroleum oil. Early inventions like the kerosene lamp provided a new stable home necessity to live by, increasing the demand for crude oil. This would be met in part by Colonel Edwin Drake, who drilled the first successful oil well in 1858. While Drake’s invention for extracting crude oil from the ground would bring about a new era for industrialization, his “black gold” would bring about an even larger effect, the environmental disasters caused by man. For over one hundred and fifty years of drilling for oil, both on shore and offshore, has led to some of the worst catastrophes to both nature and mankind. While many of these catastrophes have led to the deaths of hundreds of crew members, they have also led to long lasting effects on the environment, local and national economies, legislation, regulations, and human morale. These following effects can be seen in the most recent and most contaminated marine oil spill in history. To the media and public it’s known as the British Petroleum offshore drilling oil spill in 2010.

Canada’s oil sands are among the largest oil reserves in the word. This is evident from the fact that Canada is ranked third for the largest oil reserve in the world, after Venezuela and Saudi Arabia (“Oil Sands,” n.d.). “Oil sand”, is a naturally occurring mixture of sand, clay, water and bitumen (Gosselin et al., 2010). It is a very dense and extremely viscous oil that must be treated before it can be used to produce usable fuels such as gasoline and diesel (Gosselin et al., 2010). In North America, high oil prices, growing demand, and diminishing oil reserves results in greater interest to mine local oil reserves. Increased production of oil generates significant economic benefits but, at the same time, the development of the oil sands

Global diminishing energy resources and climate change are a growing issue. Every year there are more than 250 pipeline spills which contain hazardous liquid including tar sands. Tar sands are the leading cause of Canada’s global greenhouse emissions. TransCanada corp. is planning to repurpose a 40 year old pipeline, called Energy East, that runs from Saskatchewan to Ontario and attach a new pipeline that runs through Quebec to Saint John, New Brunswick. The problem with this idea is that the original pipeline they plan to repurpose is made in a way that would not be used today as the material that the pipe is made of is too thin which could result in spill. Oil spills are incredibly difficult to clean up because a diluted bitumen known as

PESTLE Analysis (“Top 20 Risk Factors Facing the Oil & Gas Industry - Energy Digital,” n.d.)

The issue of whether offshore oil drilling is a safe operation or not has been arguing for a long time in the United States. ( SPE International, N.D.) Drilling on water started in early 1930s in Louisiana by shallow-draft barges. Nevertheless, the first oil well on water was drilled in 9th of September, 1947 by Kerr-McGee’s unit Tender Assist Drilling (TAD) in the Gulf of Mexico (SPE International, N.D.). A year after year, oil companies used more and more sophisticated equipment to drill on water, but the number of spilled accidents has been rising since 1964 (Ivanovich, and Hays, 2008). After all, while

The condensate vaporizes from liquid to gas.” (cleanhouston.org) We know the risks involved in pumping crude oil and the potential damage it may cause if mishandled, but by comparison, the mixture of tar sands seems to be much more difficult to manage if the pipeline does experience spillage - it will be a lot more difficult to deal with the carcinogenic gas released into the atmosphere. As it stands, the potential for accidents to occur is greater with tar sands than with crude oil.

BP (British Petroleum) is one of the leading companies that are delivering energy products and services to the people around the world. In this report, we studied BP’s risk management plan for preventing oil spill. The main reason for choosing BP and its oil spill preparedness plan is that the oil companies have become increasingly vulnerable to unwillingly cause disasters and BP is one of them. An event that highlighted this vulnerability and subsequently drew attention to the need to investigate, is the BP oil spill in 2010 was one of the worst oil disasters that affected environment adversely. Issues such as these have been a serious concern for the oil companies around the world.

There is almost nothing in this world where there is no risk involved. Risk involved is a major topic of concern in everyday life more than ever before. This report gives an overview about the risks involved in everyday life and especially in the oil and gas industry.

Currently, the conventional approach is to aggressively explore and develop new fields. This has led to a growth in drilling deeper wells and looking to ‘off-shore’ sites for new production of ‘light’ crude. However, as recent events in the Gulf of Mexico demonstrate with the British Petroleum incident and the resulting clean-up costs and loss of credibility, this approach has risks. It