A Report from Energy Ant—My Trip to the Carson Refinery in Carson, California
Energy Ant out here in sunny California. This time I came out with a group of teachers to visit BP’s Carson Refinery.
Oil doesn’t just go straight from the ground to your car you know. The stuff that comes out of the ground has to be separated and cleaned before it gets to you. That’s just what they do here at the refinery. But gas for your car is just one of the many things they make here. From the oil that is pumped out of the ground, Carson also makes diesel fuel, jet fuel, coke, and a number of by products such as propane, propylene, and petrochemicals.
The Carson Refinery has a cogeneration plant on site too. This facility, Watson Cogeneration, takes fuel gas, a by product of refining, and burns it to create electricity. More about this later though.
The refinery was built in 1922 in Carson, California. While it used to be one of dozens of refineries in southern California, it is now one of only 13 refineries meeting the energy needs of the 5th largest economy in the world! This refinery is the largest in California. Here they process about 275 thousand barrels of oil each day! Most of the gasoline they produce (about 6 million gallons ) stays in California. That’s because California has a special kind of cleaner burning gasoline. Carson makes 20% of the gasoline that is used in California and makes 30% of the diesel fuel California uses.
How does Carson turn crude oil from Alaska, and other places in the world into the gas that we use to drive… you use to drive? (Ants don’t drive!) Learn more about how an oil refinery works.
After the oil here is refined, the products go out to consumers. Nothing is wasted here at the oil refinery. The gasoline that is made is sent out by pipeline to terminals, and then distributed to gas stations all over Los Angeles and Southern California. If you fill your gas tank at one of BP’s ARCO stations in southern California, you are probably filling up with gas from the Carson refinery. There is also a pipe straight to Los Angeles International Airport. This pipe brings jet fuel so that if you are flying out of L.A., there is a good chance your plane is filled with fuel made here at the Carson Refinery.
The cogeneration plant that is here also provides lots of useful resources for Southern California. With fuel gas that is produced in the refining process, electricity is made on site. This is done by burning the gas which heats water. The water turns into steam that speeds through pipes to turn turbines. The turbines turn a generator and the generator makes electricity. If you want a more detailed explanation of how electricity is made, check out some of my other field trips. Remember, in all power plants (except hydropower) all the steps of electricity generation are the same except the fuel that is used to heat the water.
Carson Refinery is able to contribute to the electric grid with the electricity that it makes. They can even make up to 385 megawatts of electricity each day. That’s enough electricity to power the entire refinery, and a city the size of Long Beach.
