The home heating oil industry has a long and proud history, and Fuel Oil News has been there supporting it since 1935. It is an industry that has faced many challenges during that time. In its 77th year, Fuel Oil News is doing more than just holding
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www.fueloilnews.com | FUEL OIL NEWS | JANUARY 2017 13 house gas emissions beyond what is possible with any other heating fuel today, including utility gas, Santa added. Beyond ULS and Bioheat, Santa enumerated additional advan- tages of heating oil as a liquid fuel: it is high-density (high British thermal unit output for small volume), has diverse and resilient supply sources, is easy and flexible to transport (by truck, rail, barge, ship, and pipeline), is easily and safely stored, and has an efficient and robust delivery infrastructure in place. Lastly, Santa noted the low cost of heating oil. Using prices in Connecticut published by the state's Department of Energy and Environmental Protection on October 3, 2016, Santa showed heating oil selling at retail for $2.33 per gallon while the natural gas price, adjusted to be equivalent with a gallon of oil, was selling at $3.00, negating any advantage for conversion and making oilheat "the economic choice." Santa concluded, "Now the industry is poised to reinvigorate 15,968 1,509 127 80 2,930 2,652 2,465 650 11,763 0 2,000 4,000 6,000 8,000 10,000 12,000 14,000 16,000 18,000 Res Wood Heating Res Nat Gas Res Oil Heating Other Electric Generation Industrial Boilers Comm/ Inst Boilers Industrial Boilers ICE Mobile "Now the industry is poised to reinvigorate itself and the industry must convey this to its own company employees, customers, public policy makers and the general public." —Tom Santa, incoming chairman of the National Oilheat Research Alliance itself and the industry must convey this to its own company employ- ees, customers, public policy makers and the general public." Santa spoke at a Metropolitan Energy Conference luncheon on Nov. 1 in Connecticut, sponsored by the New York Oil Heating Association, the Oil Heat Institute of Long Island and the Connecticut Energy Marketers Association. For more information about NORA and its programs or ser- vices, call 703-340-1660 or visit the web site www.NORAweb.org. NORA, based in Alexandria, Va., was authorized by Congress. It is funded through a "check-off " program: $0.002 is collected at the wholesale level on every gallon of heating oil sold. NORA's mission includes consumer education, professional education, improving energy efficiency and safety, and research. l F O N IMPACT OF ULS • In boilers and furnaces, most of the sulfur gets emitted as sulfur dioxide, which contributes to "acid rain" over wide re- gions. However, some of the sulfur converts to sulfur trioxide and sulfuric acid directly within the boiler. This leads to heat exchanger corrosion and scale formation and the emission of fine acid droplets. • Boiler corrosion and scale leads to efficiency degradation over time (nominal 2%/year) and the requirement for boiler cleaning. • Because of the heat exchanger corrosion and scale situa- tion, boiler and furnace manufacturers have traditionally de- signed oil-fired equipment with thick walls (for long life) and large internal passages to allow for cleaning. Elimination of sulfur allows for more compact, lower cost boiler and furnace designs – following a trend in the gas industry. • Oil-fired equipment manufacturers have avoided high effi- ciency, condensing products largely because of the corrosion associated with sulfur. Elimination of sulfur leads to lower product cost to achieve the highest efficiency levels. • Most of the particulates 1 emitted by oil-fired heating sys- tems are sulfuric acid aerosols. Carbon and unburned fuel emissions with modern burners are negligible. Particulate emissions, then are directly proportional to fuel sulfur con- tent. Reducing sulfur then from 1500 ppm (historic typical levels) to 15 ppm translates to nominally a 99% reduction in particulate emissions. With ULS particulate emissions from oil-fired heating systems become trivially small relative to other sources. • The process of removing sulfur from heating oil also removes nitrogen compounds. The sulfur and nitrogen compounds in oil are more easily degraded by oxidation in storage, leading to the general situation where ULS fuels are more stable. • The sulfur removal process can also saturate some un- saturated linkages in oil, again leading to improved stability. 1. This refers to "PM2.5" – particulates smaller than 2.5 microns which are measured using dilution sampling ap- proaches. These fine particles present the most significant health impacts. Brookhaven Science Associates/Brookhaven National Laboratory TONS OF PM EMISSIONS BY SECTOR