Planck Foundation




GLOBAL FUTURE ANALYSIS


ENERGY | REFINERIES


As the light and sweet oil is used, we face an era with heavy, sour, polluted oil. We face a high speed writedown on all existing refineries. They're most designed to handle light and sweet and not to process the leftovers of the declining side of PeakOil. Furthermore will all production countries no longer just export crude, but have the refinery capacity income (the crack fee called) themselves and they see this also as a symbol of nation pride and technological process. The new refineries will be in the oil resources owning countries. This make also asphalt much more expensive in the Western Nations of the world, but due to PeakOil, roads will need less repair, so that's not a huge problem. Refineries of the future are flexible, have no only a few reactors based design, but will have a more multiple flow/tube based design, making the refinery more flexible and more redundant. One of the lines can be put down for maintenance, but al other lines will still operate, making the refinery both more stable and more flexible in production.


Author: Gijs Graafland


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