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The Big West debate: Who's right?
| Saturday, May 17 2008 12:00 PM
Last Updated: Monday, May 19 2008 9:12 AM
In a television ad promoting the Big West of California refinery expansion, the company's fire chief says modified hydrofluoric acid, a chemical the company would use, is as safe as sulfuric acid.
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• HF, when modified, was significantly less likely to vaporize.
• In the refining process, sulfuric acid can form a similar cloud capable of travelling downwind.
• Both acids form clouds that are far smaller than a cloud formed by pure HF.
• Both modified HF and sulfuric acid clouds would “rain out” — meaning form heavier droplets that would fall to the ground — before it could impact refinery employees or travel off-site.
Refiners use hydrofluoric and sulfuric acids as a catalyst to make alkylate, a key component in producing clean-burning fuels.
Alkylate has increased in demand due to state and federal laws requiring cleaner gasoline and diesel.
HF is less expensive to use than sulfuric acid. Some industry experts say it produces better quality alkylate.
But after several deadly refinery accidents in the 1980s, HF gained a bad name and many in the industry came to believe sulfuric acid was a safer way to produce alkylate.
Around the same time, the refining industry launched numerous projects to make HF safe. The result was modified HF, which contains an additive that nearly eliminates the acid’s ability to vaporize when spilled.
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Yet state Sen. Dean Florez and a citizens group backed by firefighters, nurses and police officers have launched a public campaign in recent weeks claiming just the opposite — that sulfuric acid is safer.
The war of words over the two chemicals has become the most polarizing issue in the refinery's effort to get approved a $700 million expansion to boost gas and diesel output — something Big West says is essential to keep the facility operating long-term.
So who's right?
The risks are equal, with modified HF acid perhaps a bit safer, according to one of the few studies ever done comparing the risks of both substances. The comparison was done by an independent, court-appointed safety adviser more than a decade ago after the south coast city of Torrance sued a Mobil refinery in order to make it operate more safely.
“There are more similarities than differences,” said Steven Maher, a risk and safety expert the court appointed to conduct the study.
Big West recently hired Maher’s firm, Risk Management Professionals, to conduct a similar study on both acids for the Bakersfield refinery. Maher said this week that a separate evaluation is a good idea since risk can vary based on numerous conditions, including the refinery’s design plans, the type of modified HF to be used, and wind and weather conditions in Bakersfield.
The Torrance safety study is one of the few documents available directly comparing the risks of modified HF versus sulfuric acid. But other experts familiar with the chemicals have agreed the risk of the two acids are more similar than many think.
LESSER OF TWO EVILS
Controversy over Big West’s plans to introduce a new chemical first began early last year when an environmental report showed the proposed expansion would involve the use of pure hydrofluoric acid, or HF. The plans immediately drew attention from national chemical and safety experts because of the notoriety the chemical had gained in recent years.
Soon after the uproar, Big West decided to instead use modified HF, which is widely seen as a safer form of the chemical.
Like ammonia, HF has a low boiling point and can instantly vaporize if spilled, forming a toxic cloud that can travel downwind and injure or even kill people exposed to it.
Around the same time, the refining industry began researching ways to make HF safer. The result was modified HF, which contains an additive that nearly eliminates the acid’s ability to vaporize when spilled.
But many were still leery of the reformulated chemical.
“The public wanted to know if this was safe enough and there wasn’t a lot of information out there about modified HF,” said R. Scott Adams, retired Torrance fire chief.
Following a series of accidents, the city of Torrance sued the Mobil refinery in 1987, seeking to compel the facility to operate more safely. The refinery was already using pure HF and the public pushed for the refinery to switch to sulfuric acid. Mobil had proposed a switch to modified HF.
A court settlement eventually was reached that allowed the refinery to use modified HF if the independent safety advisor found that it was as safe as sulfuric acid.
Adams was charged with peer-reviewing the court-ordered report on behalf of the city council. To do so, he hired a Ph. D chemist and several other scientists to assist him. In the end, the department concurred with the report and endorsed the refinery’s use of modified HF.
A surprising finding was that sulfuric acid could also form a mist of toxic gases that can travel downwind if spilled, according to Adams.
“That gets ignored sometimes in the counter arguments and that needs to be compared,” he said.
Sulfuric acid is relatively stable on its own but can become more volatile when mixed with petroleum compounds, studies have shown.
OTHERS PROMOTE HF
The South Coast Air Quality Management District also endorsed the use of modified HF in place of pure HF at another refinery in Wilmington.
Again, environmental groups advocated for a switch to sulfuric acid, according to Sam Atwood, a spokesman for the air district. But after assessing the risks involved with the transport of sulfuric acid, the district decided modified HF was as safe, if not safer, Atwood said.
About 100 times more sulfuric acid than HF is needed in the alkylation process. In addition, spent sulfuric acid must be trucked away to a regeneration facility. Modified HF doesn’t require regeneration.
“You have to then be concerned about trucking in large quantities (of sulfuric acid) and the potential for a truck spill or rail car spill,” Atwood said.
The risks of transporting sulfuric acid were not assessed in Torrance’s study.
Big West has said that modified hydrofluoric acid would require just 35 truck trips a year, versus 14,600 for sulfuric acid.
In a 2005 report about the public danger and potential terrorist target that pure HF at refineries posed, the non-profit U.S. Public Interest Research Group recommended modified HF along with sulfuric acid as safer alternatives.
The study noted that both acids are concerning but did not endorse one over the other, or compare risk factors. For sulfuric acid, the risk factors were related to transporting high quantities by truck or rail. The downside of HF, modified or not, the report said, is that it’s a chemical identified by the Department of Homeland Security as a potential terrorist target.
Big West officials recently stated that HF, when modified, is not on the list but Homeland Security spokeswoman Amy Kudwa confirmed Friday that it is.
ALTERNATIVES AND THE POLITICS
Opponents of the use of modified HF at the Bakersfield refinery say the transportation risks of sulfuric acid could be mitigated. Don Hall, who managed the refinery when it was owned by Texaco in the early 1990s, said other refineries have built a regeneration plant on-site to get around this hazard.
Fred Millar, a Washington D.C.-based chemical consultant who’s been assisting locals opposed to modified HF, warned that decisions can also be influenced by politics. He pointed to the South Coast Air Quality Management District’s decision to endorse modified HF as an example. Millar said the air district’s board at the time had become more business-friendly.
“Basically, what the (district) was doing was balancing risk and looking at various economic factors,” Millar said. “I heard from people in L.A. who preferred sulfuric acid that they only accepted modified HF because it's the best they could get.”
When it comes to the costs of either acid, HF is known to be less expensive for refiners.
The risks posed by the two chemicals is now being studied by the Kern County Planning Department, which is working with its own consultant to determine worst-case scenarios in the event of a release of modified HF and sulfuric acid.
The analysis is not complete yet, but results will become part of the revised environmental impact report on the refinery expansion due out in early June.
Lorelei Oviatt, a county planner overseeing development of the report, said last week that the analysis wasn’t yet complete but “we're finding that every chemical has it hazards."
ABOUT THE PROJECT
Big West's "Clean Fuels Project" would allow the facility to nearly double gasoline production and increase diesel output by 60 percent without increasing crude oil coming into the facility.
The refinery would add equipment to convert an intermediary petroleum stream, called gas oil, into transportation fuel. Currently the refinery can't convert all its gas oil to fuel so it sells the product to other refineries in the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas.
Big West's parent company, Flying J, said when it bought the refinery from Shell Oil in 2005 that an expansion would be needed to ensure the facility's long-term viability.
The project is expected to cost the company about $700 million.
The project requires the Kern County Planning Commission to approve a conditional use permit for additional storage tanks and a zone variance for equipment that will exceed height requirements.
It requires an air permit from the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District and a separate environmental permit from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The expansion would create about 100 new jobs at the refinery paying an average of about $70,000 a year, double the facility's property taxes from about $1.5 million to $3 million annually, and create 1,200 construction jobs, refinery officials say.
Opponents have raised concerns about the use of a controversial chemical called modified hydrofluoric acid, as well as increased air pollution and truck traffic on Rosedale Highway.