Near my home are several oil refineries. Not close enough to be a nuisance, but close enough that we can see them while commuting to/from work.
Sometimes, while driving, I notice that the refineries are having some sort of controlled blaze. It’s always at the top of the “smokestacks”, and sometimes the fires are ridiculously strong – one evening had a refinery whose fires were bright enough to be seen from several miles off. This afternoon, another refinery was burning something bright and fast, producing thick black smoke that billowed into the skies.
Anyway, just what is it with the oil refinery process that requires these burns? Is it anything I have to worry about?
The refineries are burning off methane gas–a byproduct of the refinery process. Today, lots of the country uses methane gas, known as “natural gas,” for heating their homes, but refineries typically have so much of the stuff that some of it must be burned off as a waste product.
Flares are sometimes intentionally set at the top of the stack to burn off whatever comes out of the stack. One of the many safety features that were simultaneously “off line” during the catostrophe at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, was a flare.
