Refinery Emissions ignored by CARB, nightly air pollution
According to their own "study", where ARB inventories the pollution they failed to stop,
http://www.arb.ca.gov/app/emsinv/emseic1_query.php?F_DIV=-4&F_YR=2006&F_SEASON=A&SP=2007&F_AREA=CA
The "Total Organic Gases", mostly HxCx, released statewide are 5,690.77 tons per DAY (TPD), with Reactive Organic Gases (the really bad stuff) at 2,321.39 TPD.
More importantly, SOx (future Sulfuric Acid) and NOx (future Nitric acid) emissions (SOx and NOx) total 304.26 TPD and 3,557.70 TPD, respectively.
That's pretty bad, and much of it is due to on-road pollution from Internal Combustion ("IC") cars.
What's even worse is the concentration around refineries:
Reactive organic gases of 134.5 TPD, with 13.71 TPD of Carbon Monoxide, 9.31 TPD of potential Nitric Acid ("NOx") and 42.5 TPD of potential Sulfuric Acid ("SOx").
From the AQMD presentation in Wilmington, their hope is that "meteorological conditions" will carry away the pollution, moving it to poison more people over a wider area.
To put things in perspective, each molecule of Carbon Monoxide (CO) complexes with a Hemoglobin molecule (red blood cell) just as Oxygen (O2) does; but CO, unlike O2, won't let go.
http://www.edinformatics.com/interactive_molecules/carbon_monoxide.htm
http://www.epa.gov/iaq/pubs/coftsht.html
So essentially, each molecule of CO destroys one red blood cell, lowering the effective Oxygen content of the blood, decreasing the respiratory ability, and increasing the danger of asphixiation to those suffering from pernicious anemia, asthma, or low red-blood-cell count. Essentially, CO operates exactly the same as Hydrogen Cyanide (HCN), each CN radical destroys one red blood cell.
Now how many molecules of CO are there in 13 tons of CO? Quite a lot. In each gram-mole of CO, there are 600,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules of CO, that's 28 grams.
Yes, in each OUNCE (about 27 grams) of CO there are that many CO molecules, 6 times ten to the 23rd power, each one hungry to take out a red blood cell in kids lungs, lowering their respiratory ability and helping kill the elderly.
Now what about friendly-sounding NOx? Well, NOx stands for OXIDES OF NITROGEN, which include NO and NO2, which form eventually anhydrous NITRIC ACID, and there's quite a lot of it in 9.31 tons of NOx. In the presence of Ozone, sunlight and HxCx, very bad acids are formed, which are "bad for those with respiratory problems". And if you don't have any, you soon will have some.
http://www.raypak.com/lownoxtech.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_oxide
The same devils' brew occurs with SOx, which are Sulfurous and Sulfuric radicals, which form in the presence of water both Sulfurous and Sulfuric acid. The lower oxidation state can be converted, in the presence of Ozone and sunlight, into the sulfuric radical, which forms plain old Sulfuric Acid when it hits water, such as is found in lung tissue. These are not good for lungs, we might suspect. In the presence of Ozone and HxCx, SOx again forms some very bad things.
http://scifun.chem.wisc.edu/CHEMWEEK/Ozone/ozone.html (Oxidizing Nitrous to Nitric is given as an example, but the same holds for Sulfurous to Sulfuric)
http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/waac/wn/wn07/wn07-3/wn07-302.html
Now the problem is the concentration. Around refineries, the prevailing wind blows toward nearby residents, who bear an inordinate share of the burden for petroleum refining. But even for those farther away, the refineries are a big part of the problem, and have no place in the air basin.
But ARB and AQMD just ignore these problems, dismissing them as "NOx" and "SOx".
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