Fuel oil
Small molecules, such as those in propane, naphtha, gasoline, and kerosene, have relatively low boiling points, and are removed at the start of the fractional distillation process.
A small amount of electricity is produced by diesel, but it is more polluting and more expensive than natural gas.
Heating the oil is also a delicate procedure, which is impractical on small, fast moving vehicles.
Locomotives, however, have become powered by diesel or electric power; steamships are not as common as they were previously due to their higher operating costs (most LNG carriers use steam plants, as "boil-off" gas emitted from the cargo can be used as a fuel source); and most boilers now use heating oil or natural gas.
[citation needed] The decline is the result of price competition with natural gas and environmental restrictions on emissions.
[3] Heavy fuel oils continue to be used in the boiler "lighting up" facility in many coal-fired power plants.
The chief drawback to residual fuel oil is its high initial viscosity, particularly in the case of No.
6 oil must, in fact, be stored at around 38 °C (100 °F) heated to 65–120 °C (149–248 °F) before it can be easily pumped, and in cooler temperatures it can congeal into a tarry semisolid.
For comparison, BS 2869 Class G heavy fuel oil behaves in similar fashion, requiring storage at 40 °C (104 °F), pumping at around 50 °C (122 °F) and finalizing for burning at around 90–120 °C (194–248 °F).
Most of these facilities have subsequently been closed and demolished, or have replaced their fuel supplies with a simpler one such as gas or No.
This was particularly the case in furnaces that were regularly shut down and allowed to go cold, because the internal condensation produced sulfuric acid.
Environmental cleanups at such facilities are frequently complicated by the use of asbestos insulation on the fuel feed lines.
Its viscosity and stickiness also make remediation of underground contamination very difficult, since these properties reduce the effectiveness of methods such as air stripping.
An average of about 5-10% of the material will evaporate within hours of the release, primarily the lighter hydrocarbon fractions.
Because of the low quality of bunker fuel, when burnt it is especially harmful to the health of humans, causing serious illnesses and deaths.
Prior to the IMO's 2020 sulfur cap, shipping industry air pollution was estimated to cause around 400,000 premature deaths each year, from lung cancer and cardiovascular disease, as well as 14 million childhood asthma cases each year.
The hardest hit countries by air pollution from ships are China, Japan, the UK, Indonesia, and Germany.
In Taiwan, shipping accounts for 70% of all transport-attributable air pollution deaths in 2015, followed by Morocco at 51%, Malaysia and Japan both at 41%, Vietnam at 39%, and the UK at 38%.
Up to 2019, it was reported that the ships of the single largest cruise company, Carnival Corporation & plc, emitted ten times more sulfur dioxide than all of Europe's cars combined.
Residual means the material remaining after the more valuable cuts of crude oil have boiled off.
The BS 2869 standard permits Class A2 and Class D fuel to contain up to 7% (V/V) biodiesel (fatty acid methyl ester, FAME), provided the FAME content meets the requirements of the BS EN 14214 standard.
[9] The unit of viscosity used is the centistoke (cSt) and the fuels most frequently quoted are listed below in order of cost, the least expensive first.
Governing bodies around the world, e.g., California, European Union, have established Emission Control Areas (ECA) that limit the maximum sulfur of fuels burned in their ports to limit pollution, reducing the percentage of sulfur and other particulates from 4.5% m/m to as little as 0.10% as of 2015 inside an ECA.
[16] Greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the use of international bunker fuels are currently included in national inventories.
In stark contrast, the exhaust gas emissions - due to HFO's high sulfur content - result in an eco balance significantly worse than that for individual mobility.
The term "bunkering" broadly relates to storage of petroleum products in tanks (among other, disparate meanings).
[23] Finally, in the context of the oil industry in Nigeria, bunkering[24] has come to refer to the illegal diversion of crude oil (often subsequently refined in makeshift facilities into lighter transportation fuels) by the unauthorized cutting of holes into transport pipelines, often by very crude and hazardous means and causing spills.
[25] Further removal of sulfur translates to additional energy and capital costs[26] and can impact fuel price and availability.
If priced correctly the excess cheap yet dirty fuel would find its way into other markets, including displacing some onshore energy production in nations with low environmental protection .
[27] Fuel oil is transported worldwide by fleets of oil tankers making deliveries to suitably sized strategic ports such as Houston, US; Singapore; Fujairah, United Arab Emirates; Balboa, Panama, Cristobal, Panama; Sakha, Egypt; Algeciras, Spain and Rotterdam, Netherlands.
