Energy and crude oil input requirements for the production of reformulated gasolines.

摘要

The energy and crude oil requirements for the production of reformulated gasolines (RFG) are estimated. Both the energy and crude oil embodied in the final product and the process energy required to manufacture the RFG and its components are included. The effects on energy and crude oil use of using various oxygenates to meet the minimum oxygen content level required by the Clean Air Act Amendments are evaluated. The analysis illustrates that production of RFG requires more total energy than that of conventional gasoline but uses less crude oil. The energy and crude oil use requirements of the different RFGs vary considerably. For the same emissions performance level, RFG with ethanol requires substantially more total energy and crude oil than RFG with MTBE or ETBE. A specific proposal by the EPA designed to allow the use of ethanol in RFG would increase the total energy required to produce RFG by 2% and the total crude oil required by 2.0 to 2.5% over that for the base RFG with MTBE.