A gas flare at an oil refinery.

A gas flare or flare stack is an elevated vertical stack or chimney found on oil wells or oil rigs, and in refineries, chemical plants and landfills used for burning off unusable waste gas or flammable gas and liquids released by pressure relief valves during unplanned over-pressuring of plant equipment.^[1][2][3] In landfills, the primary purpose of this device is to vent and/or burn waste gas which results from the decomposition of materials in the dump. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1092x356, 23 KB) File links The following pages link to this file: Oil refinery ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1092x356, 23 KB) File links The following pages link to this file: Oil refinery ... A chimney is a system for venting hot gases and smoke from a boiler, stove, furnace or fireplace to the outside atmosphere. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... An oil well is a term for any perforation through the Earths surface designed to find and release both petroleum oil and gas hydrocarbons. ... A drilling rig is a structure housing equipment used to drill into underground reservoirs for water, oil, or natural gas, or into sub-surface mineral deposits. ... View of Shell Oil Refinery in Martinez, California. ... A Chemical plant is an industrial process plant that manufactures chemicals, usually on a large scale. ... Albury landfill, Surrey, England A landfill, also known as a dump, is a site for the disposal of waste materials by burial and is the oldest form of waste treatment. ... Relief Valve A relief valve opens to release excess pressure when the pressure is too high to protect the vessel or other equipment from overpressurization. ... Landfill can also refer to Land reclamation. ... Natural gas is gaseous fossil fuel consisting primarily of methane but including significant quantities of ethane, butane, propane, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, helium and hydrogen sulfide. ...

On oil production rigs, in refineries and chemical plants, its primary purpose is to act as a safety device to protect vessels or pipes from over-pressuring due to unplanned upsets. This acts just like the spout on a tea kettle when it starts whistling as the water in it starts boiling. Whenever plant equipment items are over-pressured, the pressure relief valves on the equipment automatically releases gases (and sometimes liquids as well) which are routed through large piping runs called flare headers to the flare stacks. The released gases and/or liquids are burned as they exit the flare stacks. The size and brightness of the resulting flame depends upon how much flammable material was released. Steam can be injected into the flame to reduce the formation of black smoke. In order to keep the flare system functional, a small amount of gas is continuously burned, like a pilot light, so that the system is always ready for its primary purpose as an over-pressure safety system. A drilling rig is a structure housing equipment used to drill into underground reservoirs for water, oil, or natural gas, or into sub-surface mineral deposits. ... View of Shell Oil Refinery in Martinez, California. ... A Chemical plant is an industrial process plant that manufactures chemicals, usually on a large scale. ... Categories: Stub ... Piping is used to convey fluids (usually liquids and gases but sometimes loose solids) from one location to another. ... Combustion or burning is a complex sequence of chemical reactions between a fuel and an oxidant accompanied by the production of heat or both heat and light in the form of either a glow or flames. ... A pilot light is a small gas flame, usually natural gas or liquefied petroleum gas, which is kept alight in order to provide an ignition source for a more powerful gas burner. ...

While it may have been true that some flares have been used to burn flammable "waste" gases or by-products that are not economical to retain, the industry is moving to flare-gas recovery systems to decrease waste and reduce emissions.

Flaring and venting of natural gas in oil wells is a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions. Its contribution to greenhouse gases has declined by three-quarters in absolute terms since a peak in the 1970s of approximately 110 million metric tons/year and now accounts for about 1/2 of one percent of all anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions.^[4] The World Bank estimates that 100 billion cubic meters of natural gas are flared or vented annually, an amount equivalent to the combined annual gas consumption of Germany and France, twice the annual gas consumption of Africa, three quarters of Russian gas exports, or enough to supply the entire world with gas for 20 days. This flaring is highly concentrated: 10 countries account for 75% of emissions, and twenty for 90%.^[5] The largest flaring operations occur in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. The leading contributors to gas flaring are (in declining order): Nigeria, Russia, Iran, Algeria, Mexico, Venezuela, Indonesia, and the United States.^[6] Natural gas is gaseous fossil fuel consisting primarily of methane but including significant quantities of ethane, butane, propane, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, helium and hydrogen sulfide. ... Top: Increasing atmospheric CO2 levels as measured in the atmosphere and ice cores. ... Look up anthropogenic in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Carbon dioxide is a chemical compound composed of one carbon and two oxygen atoms. ... Logo of the World Bank The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD, in Romance languages: BIRD), better known as the World Bank, is an international organization whose original mission was to finance the reconstruction of nations devastated by WWII. Now, its mission has expanded to fight poverty by means... The Niger Delta, the delta of the Niger River in Nigeria, is a densely populated region sometimes called the Oil Rivers because it was once a major producer of palm oil. ...

• Relief valve

Relief Valve A relief valve opens to release excess pressure when the pressure is too high to protect the vessel or other equipment from overpressurization. ...

References

1. ^ John J McKetta, Editor (1985). Encyclopedia of Chemical Processing and Design. Marcel Dekker, 144. ISBN 0-8247-2491-7. 
2. ^ Milton R. Beychok (2005). Fundamentals of Stack Gas Dispersion, Fourth edition, self-published. ISBN 0-9644588-0-2.  www.air-dispersion.com See Chapter 11, Flare Stack Plume Rise.
3. ^ A Proposed Comprehensive Model for Elevated Flare Flames and Plumes, David Shore, Flaregas Corporation, AIChE 40th Loss Prevention Symposium, April 2006.
4. ^ Global, Regional, and National CO₂ Emissions. In Trends: A Compendium of Data on Global Change, Marland, G., T.A. Boden, and R. J. Andres, 2005, Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
5. ^ The World Bank, Global Gas Flaring Reduction"
6. ^ The Climate Law Organization, Friends of the Earth International.

Fundamentals Of Stack Gas Dispersion is a book devoted to the basic fundamentals of air pollution dispersion modeling of continuous, buoyant pollution plumes from stationary point sources. ... The American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) is a professional organization for chemical engineers. ...

External links

• The Invensys website has an interesting article at Flare Header Overpressure Protective System
• The "Fundamentals of Stack Gas Dispersion" website has 12 photographs of various gas flare types at Smoke Stacks and Flare Stacks