Petroleum Consumption Research Articles

Incorporation of Natural Renewable Components and Waste Byproducts to Benzoxazine Based High Performance Materials

This review highlights very recent attempts to incorporate natural renewable resources in benzoxazine resin synthesis and the properties of polybenzoxazines derived from them. Strong environmental incentives to reduce consumption of petroleum and its derivatives have also influenced the choice of raw materials for benzoxazine synthesis among many other synthetic polymer precursors. It will be seen that properties of naturally derived polybenzoxazines offer comparable physical and mechanical properties, or unique properties derived from multifunctionality of natural raw materials, often derived from multi-functionality of the natural raw materials. Benzoxazine chemistry’s versatile molecular design flexibility allows incorporation of naturally occurring phenolics, primary amines and hydroxyl compounds, such as cashew nut shell oil, urushiol, terepene, levulinic acid, and cellulose. Use of glycerol as biodiesel production waste from primary waste, such as used cooking oil and fat, as well as naturally occurring amine compound in a biomimetic manner are also discussed.

Investigation of biochemical biorefinery sizing and environmental sustainability impacts for conventional bale system and advanced uniform biomass logistics designs

AbstractThe 2011 US Billion‐Ton Update1 estimates that there are enough agricultural and forest resources to sustainably provide enough biomass to displace approximately 30% of the country's current petroleum consumption. A portion of these resources are inaccessible at current cost targets with conventional feedstock supply systems because of their remoteness or low yields. Reliable analyses and projections of US biofuels production depend on assumptions about the supply system and biorefinery capacity, which, in turn, depend on economics, feedstock logistics, and sustainability. A cross‐functional team has examined optimal combinations of advances in feedstock supply systems and biorefinery capacities with rigorous design information, improved crop yield and agronomic practices, and improved estimates of sustainable biomass availability. Biochemical‐conversion‐to‐ethanol is analyzed for conventional bale‐based system and advanced uniform‐format feedstock supply system designs. The latter involves ‘pre‐processing’ biomass into a higher‐density, aerobically stable, easily transportable format that can supply large‐scale biorefineries. Feedstock supply costs, logistics and processing costs are analyzed and compared, taking into account environmental sustainability metrics. © 2013 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

A network equilibrium analysis on destination, route and parking choices with mixed gasoline and electric vehicular flows

In many countries across the world, fossil fuels, especially petroleum, are the largest energy source for powering the socio-economic system, and the transportation sector dominates the consumption of petroleum in these societies. As the petroleum price continuously climbs and the threat of global climate changes becomes more evident, the world is now facing critical challenges in reducing petroleum consumption and exploiting alternative energy sources. A massive adoption of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs), especially battery electric vehicles (BEVs), offers a very promising approach to changing the current energy consumption structure and diminishing greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants. Understanding how individual electric vehicle drivers behave subject to the technological restrictions and infrastructure availability and estimating the resulting aggregate supply–demand effects on urban transportation systems is not only critical to transportation infrastructure development, but also has determinant implications in environmental and energy policy enactment. This paper presents an equilibrium-based analytical tool for quantifying travel choice patterns in urban transportation networks with both gasoline and electric vehicular flows. Specifically, a network equilibrium problem with combined destination, route and parking choices subject to the driving range limit and alternative travel cost composition associated with BEVs are formulated, solved, and numerically analyzed under different network settings and scenarios. The defined problem introduces a new dimension of modeling network equilibrium problems with side constraints. The practical significance of the developed tool lies in its solution tractability and extension capability and its ease of being embedded into the existing urban travel demand forecasting framework.

High energy content liquid hydrocarbon fuel from mixture of polypropylene and polystyrene waste plastics using thermal cracking and activated carbon

In this current society, petroleum is a big factor to meet the world’s energy demand. According to statistics, the consumption of petroleum is much higher than its production rate. Furthermore, countries around the world spend large amounts of money each year to import fossil fuel, which can cause major deflation in a countries economy. Many alternative proposals have been made to overcome the petroleum issue. Alternate energy sources have been developed based on reliable sources to reduce the demand of petroleum, but these sources require vast amount of land and financial complication. Research based on conversion of waste plastic into high energy content liquid fuel has the potential to overcome the world’s energy demand. Unlike fossil fuel, the source of waste plastic is virtually unlimited. Nearly 48 million tons of waste plastic is generated in the US alone. From this amount 65% is landfill, 25% is incineration and 10% is for recycling purpose. Waste plastic is not biodegradable it can remain for a long period in land fill. Incineration and recycle process crating toxic gas and affecting greenhouse gas. The presence of these waste plastic on landfill causes variety of environmental and health problems. Natural State Research Inc has developed unique technology that will remove these waste plastics from landfill and convert them into high energy content liquid hydrocarbon fuel. Preliminary test have shown that waste plastic converted into fuel burns cleaner than the current commercial fuels and it can be produced a lower cost due to its primary source being waste plastic. The present technology has already shown the capability to produce this fuel from waste plastics in a laboratory scale and plans to move on into pilot and commercialization plant.

Algae Fuels as an Alternative to Petroleum

Here we examine the scale of petroleum consumption and the current lack of scalable petroleum alternatives. We highlight the contribution that macroalgae and microalgae can collectively make as feedstocks in the future energy mix, discuss recent advancements and current development pathways, and consider the potential and the limitations of these production systems for economic and environmental sustainability moving towards a scale of 10-20% of global petroleum consumption.

Analysis for Size of Ultra-Capacitor Bank to be Installed on 1.5kV System for Energy Storage during Regenerative Braking DC Drives

Economic indicators of electro-dynamic braking have not been properly estimated. Vehicles with alternative power trains are in transitional stage between developments of pollution - free vehicles. According to these aspects the investigation on conventional hybrids drives and their control system is carried out in the paper. The equations that allow evaluating effectiveness of regenerative braking for different variants of hybrid drive are given. Suitable size of ultra-capacitor for efficient energy storage medium in all hybrid electric vehicles has been evaluated. This paper also discuss the advances in double layer electrolytic capacitor technology have opened new areas to complement batteries as a storage medium. Equations for both constant current as well as constant power discharges are discussed. An iterative method for determining the minimum number of ultra-capacitor cells is introduced. The effects of ultra-capacitor sizing on the rating of interface power electronics are examined. Keywords - Ultra-capacitors, hybrid electric vehicles, energy storage, diesel locomotives, braking. I. Introduction Evaluation on diesel loco Vehicle's, indicates 20-40 % of mechanical tractive power is lost during braking. Estimation of recovered energy is very important (5). When a vehicle brakes, energy is released to grate, most of this energy is lost in the system. The challenging alternative is to store the braking energy and to use it during acceleration operation of the vehicle. Conventional diesel locomotives powered electrical vehicles cannot use regenerative brake energy. High interest and the onrush of hybrid vehicle are conditioned by a number of hybrid drive advantages:  Decreasing of fuel consumption and of exhaust emissions. (In India per day petroleum consumption in year 2010 was 3,116.22 barrels /day).  Possibility of breaking energy regeneration.  Possibility of using in hybrid vehicles with decreased volume preserving dynamic characteristics.  Increase of efficiency coefficient due to serial and multiple energy conversion.  High percentage of recovered energy. Estimation of recovered energy is very important. It is needed to reduce electric demands.  It can be a new energy savings opportunities and power will help in supply optimization, in case of hybrid traction vehicles systems, which are using regenerative braking energy. Ultra-capacitor technology has been commercially available for over the past decade. They can store much more energy than conventional capacitors and are available in sizes up to 4000F with voltage ratings of up to 3V per cell. They can be discharged or charged faster than batteries and can deliver 10-20 times more power e.g. ultra- capacitors typically have 10 times the specific power (W/kg) as well as a much lower charge time when compared to lead acid batteries. They also offer 10 to 100 times the energy density (Wh/Kg) of conventional capacitors. In terms of energy and power density, ultra capacitors can therefore be placed between batteries and conventional capacitors.

Investigating the Neighborhood Effect on Hybrid Vehicle Adoption

Transportation accounts for about 33% of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. To reduce petroleum consumption, vehicle air pollution, and noise emissions, the hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) was introduced to the U.S. market in 1999 and offered new efficiency-improving technologies. However, the current market share and adoption rate of HEVs are still low. HEV sales are not spatially and temporally uniform. The HEV spatial diffusion process is investigated, and the influence of the neighborhood effect (NE) on HEV adoption is analyzed. A cluster analysis is conducted with Florida add-on data from the 2009 National Household Travel Survey to display the spatial clusters of the households that purchased HEVs from 2005 to 2008. More HEV clusters emerge over time. Geographic patterns demonstrate increasing numbers of clusters featuring households with hybrid vehicles and surrounding HEV adopters. Furthermore, the relationships between hybrid vehicle adoption, NEs, and sociodemographic factors are analyzed with weighted and unweighted binary logit models. NEs are confirmed to be significant in both urban and rural models, especially the factors of 1- and 5-mi neighborhood coverage. This finding indicates that potential buyers are more likely to purchase HEVs when HEV exposure is high in the surrounding areas, and this measurement of exposure is proved reasonable for NEs. Of the sociodemographic attributes, household income is the most significant variable and plays a dominant role in affecting the propensity to buy hybrid vehicles. Factors such as vehicle ownership, household structure, and education attainment level also significantly affect a household's choice to buy a hybrid car.

Effect of Driving patterns on Components sizing of a Series PHEV

In the past decade, it has been demonstrated that Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs) can significantly reduce petroleum consumptions. However, the extend to which these vehicles can reduce the petroleum consumption highly depends on components size and driving patterns. In other words, PHEVs show the best benefits if the components are dimensioned to match the driver's driving behavior. In this paper, the effect of different driving patterns on the optimal sizing of three major components of series PHEVs, i.e., battery, electric motor, and engine generator unit is studied. Different driving cycles are generated stochastically from real driving data using Markov chains, to represent life-time driving patterns of different drivers.To find the optimal size of the components, the problem is formulated as a convex optimization problem. The optimization variables (the variables of component size and energy management) are obtained by minimizing a cost function which is the sum of the operational and component costs.

Comparison of the technical potential for hydrogen, battery electric, and conventional light-duty vehicles to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and petroleum consumption in the United States

Light-duty vehicles (LDV) are responsible for a large fraction of petroleum use and are a significant source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the United States. Improving conventional gasoline-powered vehicle efficiency can reduce petroleum demand, however efficiency alone cannot reach deep GHG reduction targets, such as 80% below the 1990 LDV GHG emissions level. Because the cost and availability of low-GHG fuels will impose limits on their use, significant reductions in GHG emissions will require combinations of fuel and vehicle technologies that both increase efficiency and reduce the emissions from fuel production and use. This paper examines bounding cases for the adoption of individual technologies and then explores combinations of advanced vehicle and fuel technologies. Limits on domestic biofuel production—even combined with significant conventional combustion engine vehicle improvements—mean that hydrogen fuel cell electric or battery electric vehicles fueled by low-GHG sources will be necessary. Complete electrification of the LDV fleet is not required to achieve significant GHG reduction, as replacing 40% of the LDV fleet with zero-emission hydrogen vehicles while achieving optimistic biofuel production and conventional vehicle improvements can allow attainment of a low GHG emission target. Our results show that the long time scale for vehicle turnover will ensure significant emissions from the LDV sector, even when lower emission vehicles and fuels are widely available within 15 years. Reducing petroleum consumption is comparatively less difficult, and significant savings can be achieved using efficient conventional gasoline-powered vehicles.

Second generation bioethanol potential of Turkey

Energy security and energy independency are vital components of economic stability and national security. The largest portion of the energy currently used in Turkey is derived from petroleum, 92% of which is imported. Besides depending on other countries’ non-renewable energy resources, petroleum consumption brings environmental problems as well. One fuel that has the potential to match the convenient features of petroleum is ethanol, produced from lignocellulosic biomass. In this study, the annual bioethanol potential of Turkey from major crop residues (wheat, barley, and rice straw; maize, cotton, and sunflower stalks) was estimated. Approximately, 21 × 106 tons of dry lignocellulosic biomass residue (excluding the amount to prevent soil erosion and animal feed) from these crops was available for conversion to bioethanol in 2011. Wheat and barley straw account for 54% and 22% of the total crop residue, respectively. The total lignocellulosic biomass could produce up to 6.10 Gl of bioethanol per year. The potential bioethanol production could replace 4.39 Gl of gasoline per year when bioethanol is used in E85 fuel for a midsize passenger vehicle. The estimations suggest that bioethanol production from only wheat and barley straw would be more than sufficient to replace total annual gasoline consumption in Turkey. Furthermore, Turkey can export approximately 1.8 Gl gasoline equivalent of bioethanol per year. These findings indicate that Turkey has a massive potential to be a zero-petroleum import country.

The Macroecology of Sustainability

The discipline of sustainability science has emerged in response to concerns of natural and social scientists, policymakers, and lay people about whether the Earth can continue to support human population growth and economic prosperity. Yet, sustainability science has developed largely independently from and with little reference to key ecological principles that govern life on Earth. A macroecological perspective highlights three principles that should be integral to sustainability science: 1) physical conservation laws govern the flows of energy and materials between human systems and the environment, 2) smaller systems are connected by these flows to larger systems in which they are embedded, and 3) global constraints ultimately limit flows at smaller scales. Over the past few decades, decreasing per capita rates of consumption of petroleum, phosphate, agricultural land, fresh water, fish, and wood indicate that the growing human population has surpassed the capacity of the Earth to supply enough of these essential resources to sustain even the current population and level of socioeconomic development.

Petroleum consumption—oil price uncertainty nexus in OECD countries: application of EGARCH models and panel cointegration

AbstractThis paper investigates the effects of oil price uncertainty on petroleum consumption in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. We apply panel unit roots and panel cointegration methods to detect long‐run relationships. Moreover, exponential generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity models are used to capture the stochastic variation and asymmetries in oil prices by using monthly oil prices data from 1980 to 2008. The result indicates that the coefficients of real oil price and income variables are significant and of expected sign. Furthermore, our empirical results indicate that the effect of oil price uncertainty on petroleum consumption of OECD countries is negative and significant. That is, oil price uncertainty reduces petroleum consumption in OECD countries. Following these results, this paper offers some important and common ways to cope with costs of oil price volatility such as reducing oil price volatility itself, take advantage of hedging, price smoothing, broaden the diversity of energy sources and diminishing the importance of oil consumption.

Oil for Living: Petroleum and American Conspicuous Consumption

Americans proudly streamed to the 1939 World’s Fair in New York City as World War II flared on the other side of the Atlantic. Not yet part of the conflict, Americans used the opportunity to escape the present and wax utopian. Although the dreams on display took many forms, they were woven together by an invisible hand—more specifically, by a basic assumption—concealed within each of the fair’s scenes: bountiful supplies of cheap energy. The novelist E. L. Doctorow provides one of the most revealing descriptions of one of the fair’s best-known attractions:

Parametric analysis of technology and policy tradeoffs for conventional and electric light-duty vehicles

A parametric analysis is used to examine the supply demand interactions between the US light-duty vehicle (LDV) fleet, its fuels, and the corresponding primary energy sources through 2050. The analysis emphasizes competition between conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, including hybrids, and electric vehicles (EVs), represented by both plug-in hybrid and battery electric vehicles. We find that EV market penetration could double relative to our baseline case with policies to extend consumers' effective payback period to 7 years. EVs can also reduce per vehicle petroleum consumption by up to 5% with opportunities to increase that fraction at higher adoption rates. However, EVs have limited ability to reduce LDV greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions with the current energy source mix. Alone, EVs cannot drive compliance with the most aggressive GHG emission reduction targets, even if the electricity grid shifts towards natural gas powered sources. Since ICEs will dominate the LDV fleet for up to 40 years, conventional vehicle efficiency improvements have the greatest potential for reductions in LDV GHG emissions and petroleum consumption over this time. Specifically, achieving fleet average efficiencies of 72mpg or greater can reduce average GHG emissions by 70% and average petroleum consumption by 81%.

NMOG Emissions Characterizations and Estimation for Vehicles Using Ethanol-Blended Fuels

Ethanol is a biofuel commonly used in gasoline blends to displace petroleum consumption; its utilization is on the rise in the United States, spurred by the biofuel utilization mandates put in place by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA). The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has the statutory responsibility to implement the EISA mandates through the promulgation of the Renewable Fuel Standard. EPA has historically mandated an emissions certification fuel specification that calls for ethanol-free fuel, except for the certification of flex-fuel vehicles. However, since the U.S. gasoline marketplace is now virtually saturated with E10, some organizations have suggested that inclusion of ethanol in emissions certification fuels would be appropriate. The test methodologies and calculations contained in the Code of Federal Regulations for gasoline-fueled vehicles have been developed with the presumption that the certification fuel does not contain ethanol; thus, a number of technical issues would require resolution before such a change could be accomplished. This report makes use of the considerable data gathered during the mid-level blends testing program to investigate one such issue: estimation of non-methane organic gas (NMOG) emissions. The data reported in this paper were gathered from over 600 cold-start Federal Testmore » Procedure (FTP) tests conducted on 68 vehicles representing 21 models from model year 2000 to 2009. Most of the vehicles were certified to the Tier-2 emissions standard, but several older Tier-1 and national low emissions vehicle program (NLEV) vehicles were also included in the study. Exhaust speciation shows that ethanol, acetaldehyde, and formaldehyde dominate the oxygenated species emissions when ethanol is blended into the test fuel. A set of correlations were developed that are derived from the measured non-methane hydrocarbon (NMHC) emissions and the ethanol blend level in the fuel. These correlations were applied to the measured NMHC emissions from the mid-level ethanol blends testing program and the results compared against the measured NMOG emissions. The results show that the composite FTP NMOG emissions estimate has an error of 0.0015 g/mile {+-}0.0074 for 95% of the test results. Estimates for the individual phases of the FTP are also presented with similar error levels. A limited number of tests conducted using the LA92, US06, and highway fuel economy test cycles show that the FTP correlation also holds reasonably well for these cycles, though the error level relative to the measured NMOG value increases for NMOG emissions less than 0.010 g/mile.« less

Time-dependent plug-in hybrid electric vehicle charging based on national driving patterns and demographics

Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) are one promising technology for addressing concerns around petroleum consumption, energy security and greenhouse gas emissions. However, there is much uncertainty in the impact that PHEVs can have on energy consumption and related emissions, as they are dependent on vehicle technology, driving patterns, and charging behavior. A methodology is used to simulate PHEV charging and gasoline consumption based on driving pattern data in USDOT’s National Household Travel Survey. The method uses information from each trip taken by approximately 170,000 vehicles to track their battery state of charge throughout the day, and to determine the timing and quantity of electricity and gasoline consumption for a fleet of PHEVs. Scenarios were developed to examine the effects of charging location, charging rate, time of charging and battery size. Additionally, demographic information was examined to see how driver and household characteristics influence consumption patterns. Results showed that a compact vehicle with a 10.4kWh useable battery (approximately a 42mile [68km] all electric range) travels between 62.5% and 75.7% on battery electricity, depending on charging scenario. The percent of travel driven electrically (Utility Factor, UF) in a baseline charging scenario increased from 64.3% using 2001 NHTS data to 66.7% using 2009 data. The average UF was 63.5% for males and 72.9% for females and in both cases they are highly sensitive to age. Vehicle charging load profiles across charging scenarios and demographics show a varying effect on summertime peak load, which can be useful for PHEV market segmentation and electric utility planning.

Tropospheric ozone and aerosol long-term trends over the Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP), India

We investigate, for the first time, long-term trends in tropospheric ozone and its association with the industrial growth in large part of India. A multifunction regression model has been used to estimate the trends in tropospheric ozone between 1979 and 1992 over the Indian region. Increasing trends in tropospheric ozone are observed over most of the regions of India. Recent year's (2005–2010) data also shows the similar features. It is quite consistent with the observed trends in coal (9.2%/year) and petroleum (8.3%/year) consumption, and NOx and CO emissions in India during the study period. The regressed Tropospheric Ozone Residual (TOR) pattern during monsoon season shows large trend over the entire Indo-Gangetic region and is largest, 6–7.2% per decade, over the northeastern Gangetic plain of India. Annually, trend of about 0.4±0.25 (1σ) % per year has been seen over the northeastern Gangetic region. Similar positive trend in aerosol index (AI) (1.7±1.2 (1σ) % per year) is also detected over this region. The quality of correlation between TOR and AI suggested that tropospheric ozone appeared to be influenced by the increased anthropogenic activities in this region.

Methane and nitrous oxide emissions affect the life-cycle analysis of algal biofuels

Researchers around the world are developing sustainable plant-based liquid transportation fuels (biofuels) to reduce petroleum consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Algae are attractive because they promise large yields per acre compared to grasses, grains and trees, and because they produce oils that might be converted to diesel and gasoline equivalents. It takes considerable energy to produce algal biofuels with current technology; thus, the potential benefits of algal biofuels compared to petroleum fuels must be quantified. To this end, we identified key parameters for algal biofuel production using GREET, a tool for the life-cycle analysis of energy use and emissions in transportation systems. The baseline scenario produced 55 400 g CO2 equivalent per million BTU of biodiesel compared to 101 000 g for low-sulfur petroleum diesel. The analysis considered the potential for greenhouse gas emissions from anaerobic digestion processes commonly used in algal biofuel models. The work also studied alternative scenarios, e.g., catalytic hydrothermal gasification, that may reduce these emissions. The analysis of the nitrogen recovery step from lipid-extracted algae (residues) highlighted the importance of considering the fate of the unrecovered nitrogen fraction, especially that which produces N2O, a potent greenhouse gas with global warming potential 298 times that of CO2.

Area wide calculation of traffic induced CO2 emission in Seoul

To reduce emissions of Greenhouse Gas (GHGs) from automobiles, real on-road emission data should be required to help policy makers establish standards for reducing GHG emissions. Since general studies on calculating CO2 emissions from transportation sources have been based on petroleum consumption data, it has been difficult to analyze spatial activities and characteristics of transportation sources. In this study, we propose a method for calculating CO2 emissions from on-road transportation sources in Seoul. We focused on CO2 emission calculation by applying real traffic flow data and analyzed base emissions from the main roads and local streets. Because the emissions were calculated using a 1 km×1 km grid cell format, these data can be applied to other compatible transportation data sets for air pollution analysis, modal shift analysis, etc in the transportation sector.

Review of Renewable Energy in Iran

Increasing in consumption of petroleum, population, environmental problems, diminishingly fossil sources and world trend to energy technology respect to environmental safety and renewable energy are some reasons for most countries to use and investigate on renewable energy. In this regard this paper presents the state of geothermal, wind and biomass energy in Iran. Results indicate that Iran has substantial geothermal potential, specifically in the Sabalan (NW-Iran) and Damavand (N-Iran) regions that are considerate prospects for electric power generation and direct uses. Due to recent advancements in wind energy, many inventors in the country have become interested in investing in this type of energy. At the moment, projects assuming 130 MW of wind power plants are underway. Of which, 25 MW is operational. Results of this study shows that the major biomass resources in Iran are agricultural solid wastes (%59), animal wastes (%28), corrupting waste materials (%11), and industrial waste waters (%2). According to statistical data, the potential biomass energy in Iran is equal to 15 million ton of crude oil which will be estimated about %13 of annual Iranian crude oil sale.