Oil Refinery Explosion in Ghana

As per reports, an explosion in Ghana’s only oil refinery caused its emergency shutdown.  Explosion occurred in furnace of the Tema Oil refinery’s crude distillation unit at about 1000 hrs on 26^th January 2017. It forced the management to shut down the plant in emergency.

Tera Oil Refinery Ghana, credit: Tera

(Video) Learn Crude oil Refining processes & their types

  In our  modern society, Crude oil is one of the basic and most widely used source of energy. It is extracted from ground and then transported to refineries for processing to get daily life usable product like gasoline, diesel and kerosene oil. This processing of crude oil is refereed as  "Refining" and involves different chemical processes like Distillation, cracking and reforming.

As per US energy Information Administration, Global consumption of petroleum and other liquid fuels remained about 93.7 million barrels/day (average) during 2015.

To know how refining takes place in refineries and which useful products are obtained, watch this video. For your easy technical understanding, processes are explained with processing conditions.

Particulates pollution: Beware of the danger in your city

We all are aware of the air pollution and its impacts on human life but we may not know how big is the problem. As per a research, air pollution is the 4th biggest cause of the early deaths and it is above the alcohol and drug abuse in the top ten list. It killed 5.5 million people in year 2013. Air pollution is caused by harmful gases (like NOx, SOx, CO), volatile organic compounds, biological molecules and Particulates. Major sources of these pollutants are vehicles, chemical industries and coal & furnace oil based power plants. Many of us will be surprised to see particulates in the lists. These are less known but most dangerous part of air pollution. Years of data compilation and research has revealed the dangers of particulates. So what exactly are particulate matters? Why are they causing so much deaths and what is their concentration in my city? We are going to answer all these questions here

particulates size as comapre to human hair

Learning wastewater management during shale gas production

Our society runs on energy and coal, crude oil and natural gas are conventional and most widely used sources of energy. This energy is used in power generation, automotive and domestic purposes. With the growing demand of energy and depleting reserves of conventional sources now world is looking for non-conventional sources like wind, solar, nuclear and shale oil and gas. But these non-conventional sources have additional challenges like limited availability, radiation hazards, unavailability of technology to utilize them properly and solid & wastewater management. But some of these are really promising and scientists are working to cater such associated challenges.

What is shale gas?

Virginia People are opposing offshore drilling in Atlantic:

    In recent years, oil and gas exploration especially offshore is growing and industry giants like Exxon, chevron and shell are looking for new opportunities especially in the area where exploration was not carried out previously. Recently, they have eyes on a US government proposed five year leasing plan, which will allow drilling in Atlantic, Arctic and Gulf of Mexico. Some of these areas are considered risky for exploration and drilling due to extreme weather conditions and other hurdles. A wave of unrest has spread among more than 100 coastal communities against offshore exploration in their areas. Virginia people are especially very concerned about such drilling. Oil and gas giants are fully using their political and social powers to get access to US resources but voice of Virginians is very clear to protect their coastline and beaches.

photo credit: EPI2oh

What is safety? – Describing Safety in Easy Way

Daily we use and hear the term “safety”. This is a very common word which we use at homes, on roads on workplaces but whenever someone asks us “what is safety?” , most of us say “Man! Safety is being safe” or “safety is just what it is”. Few of us will go to internet and come with Wikipedia or Oxford definition of safety. But do you really understand safety and can explain it in your own words?  This understanding is very important even if you are a housewife, farmer, industrial worker, driver or a student.  Here we are going to describe safety and its importance in easy way.

Image courtesy: [Koko-Tewan] at FreeDigitalPhotos

Five amazing liquid CO2 uses in our lives which were unknown to us

Liquid CO2

    Anyone with basic science knowledge is well aware of Carbon dioxide (CO2). Animals and plants exhale CO2 in gaseous form during respiration process and plants uses CO2 from atmosphere to produce food during photosynthesis process. It is a greenhouse gas and due to its excessive production from industry and automobiles, it is always thought to be dangerous and harmful to humans. It can be easily liquefied by established industrial methods and there are some amazing daily uses of liquid CO2 while many of us are unaware of these. First of all I will briefly describe CO2 properties and production method.