The zero-emission movement in the wealthy countries are experiencing a “dangerous delusion” of a global transition to “just electricity” that eliminates the use of the three fossil fuels of crude oil, natural gas, and coal, that made society achieve so much in a few centuries. As old refineries accelerate their closure rates in the coming years, new Asia refineries are coming to the rescue! Does Asia’s rescue represent the good news or the bad news?
The future does not bode well as 20 percent of the 700 worldwide aging refineries are projected to close in the next 5 years that will result in less manufacturing with the loss of 140 sites to meet the ever growing demands of ships, jets, and the derivatives needed for all the products demanded by society. With less manufacturing in wealthy countries in the days ahead, further shortages and inflation of both fuels and products in perpetuity are guaranteed.
As old refinery closures accelerate, it’s becoming obvious that wind turbines, solar panels, and EV’s may face challenging growth as they are 100 percent made with those limited light end hydrocarbons that will diminish with refinery closures. But wait, Asia is coming to the rescue!
Asia is the region with the greatest number of future petroleum refineries. As of 2021, there were 88 new facilities in planning or under construction in Asia. The amount of oil fed through refineries in Asia has significantly increased in the past three decades as demand for petroleum products surged in developing countries such as China and India, both with significant less stringent environmental regulations than those in America. China is on track to succeed the United States as the country with the greatest oil refinery throughput.
These new Asian refineries, just like the mining in China, Africa, and Brazil for the exotic minerals and metals required for wealthy countries to achieve their net-zero emission goals, will be constructed and maintained on some of the LEAST environmentally controlled landscapes on this planet.
A subject for another time: Is the rescue by Asia’s new refining manufacturing capabilities exposing national security issues for America?
Today, oil refineries around the world are designed for specific crude oil feed-stocks available to those sites, and then manufacture a 42-gallon barrel of oil into light and heavy hydrocarbon products available from that feed-stock to support the world’s 8 billion on this planet are dependent on the 50,000 jets moving people and products, and more than 50,000 merchant ships for global trade flows, and the military’s of each country, and space programs that are based on the heavy hydrocarbons for the various fuels manufactured from crude oil. In addition, those light hydrocarbons are primarily used for making the more than 6,000 products now in society.
With enough money and technology, new refinery facilities could be designed to extract light hydrocarbons like ethylene from natural gas, and transportation fuels can be manufactured from coal, but both processes come with new equipment and produce excessive emissions.
No new refinery has been built in America since 1977, 46 years ago, so the need for new American refinery facilities to treat natural gas and/or coal may be a pipe dream to obtain environmental and construction permits for a new fossil fuel manufacturing site, when America is motivated to rid itself of both natural gas and coal, along with crude oil.
Today, about 90 percent of that 42-gallon barrel of crude oil is manufactured into the heavy hydrocarbon products like automotive gasoline’s, jet fuels, distillate fuel oils, diesel fuels, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), and those “other products” which comprise the other 10 percent of a barrel of crude oil that contains light hydrocarbons, usually referred to as “oil derivatives” that are manufactured from crude oil.
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