Reflections and Conclusions

Significant change in the hydrocarbon energy industry appears inevitable, and it can be simply summarised as a progressively worsening ratio of hydrogen to carbon molecules in the processes that provide liquid and gaseous fuels. The more complicated the fossil fuel resources brought to refinery and processing plant, the more “churn” is required to raise the hydrogen content and thus the energy value of the final products, which implies rejecting excess carbon, with inefficiency and therefore cost ramifications. In addition, without careful consideration of the path that the rejected carbon molecules take, this could have serious greenhouse gas emission implications. The current way to address the problem of the worsening hydrogen-to-carbon ratio is to contribute the hydrogen from thermochemically treated Natural Gas to the processes at oil refinery, although this also contributes a certain amount of fossil carbon to the system, which will be disposed of as increased carbon dioxide emissions. An improvement would be to introduce emissions-neutral carbon from biomass into the processes being used to form hydrogen. Although this does not correct the overall balance of hydrogen and carbon, it does mitigate against net greenhouse gas emissions. A further transitional step would be to introduce hydrogen from carbon-free sources, such as water.