Power failures & other SNAFUs

"We'd just as soon get our emissions reports the way we've been gittin' 'em all along, Mister Bonnen. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Yep. "
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We've read the newspaper stories and online explanations provided by the state government about what state Rep. Dennis Bonnen is trying to do to change the way emissions events are reported and recorded, but we're still at a loss to make sense of it.

The story in The Facts was particularly obfuscating. It was such a waste of precious newsprint, they might as well have published a wire story about the soybean crop in Nebraska.

One thing we did understand from the state government's online resources is that Bonnen's plan will cost the state enviro agency something on the order of $143,000 to do whatever the hell it is Bonnen wants to do. And so far as we can tell, we don't understand how Joe Citizen will benefit from it.

'Course, the chemical interests are in favor of whatever the hell it is Bonnen wants to do, so we're like, OK, we're against it.

With that out of the way, there were three emissions events the past couple days.

At the refinery in Sweeny (or Old Ocean if you prefer), there was a power failure on Monday at the Delayed Coker Unit.

This caused the shutdown of all electrically driven pumps and motors, including the Wet Gas Compressor. Suction to the Wet Gas Compressor was automatically diverted to the Coker Flare (EPN 29-61-1) through pressure control valve 292PC5602. The control valve was open to the flare system for a total of 180 minutes from 9:10 AM until 12:44 PM. The valve position ranged from 1% open to 100% open, with the average position of the valve being 30% during the flaring event.
The process unit was shutdown under emergency conditions as efforts were made to restore power to the equipment. At this time the unit is expected to be restarted in approximately 3 days.

Got all that?
Click on the report below for all the emissions.

The next day, Dow Chemical and BASF reported emissions events.
Dow said a process upset caused by an Acetylene Reactor trip resulted in the flaring of Ethylene -- 316 lbs worth.

At BASF, an instrument failure led to the release of 146 lbs of propylene and assorted smaller amounts of other ooglie-googlies.
[sweeny emissions report 57653]
[sweeny emissions report 57654]

[dow emissions report 57727]
[dow emissions report 57725]
[basf emissions report 57707]