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Within your industrial sector the need to create a symbiotic relationship with your surrounding industries can help make everything easier for the environment. If we can maintain industrial symbiosis, both the environment and the economy will prosper. That should be the main goal of every industry sector in our area. In order to create this relationship, we must ask the industries to work together, share their ideas and be apart of innovation that can create long-term success. This idea doesn’t just apply to the industry in your local proximity but can be shared throughout your region.

System for Oil and Gas based on LCA

The focus of this Life Cycle Analyses are the viable routes to reducing environmental damage in the refining process as well as reusing and recycling oil and gas that has already been classified as a variable affecting many natural habitats. The scope of this subject and system are a complex level so using a cradle to grave approach that encompasses a macro view of environmental challenges and affects is appropriate. The analyses done is focused directly on the environmental impact of used gas and oil leaking into a natural system through improper disposal or accidents as well as the energy used to refine and produce usable gas and oil products from raw materials extracted. The dangers to the environment are increasing with developing countries relying on gas and oil and the characterization of the lethality and destructive capacity of the variables are understood. Setting system boundaries to limit the scope to what can be changed to reduce the impact to the environment through viable recycling and reuse procedures combined with mid-point treatments will be used. Refining technology has been steadily improved and alternative energy systems are better solutions so decreasing the detrimental environmental effects from refined oil and gas narrows the scope and sets the system boundaries to achievable levels. This complex system has significant time lags and spatial discontinuation between the industrial processes of extraction, refining, production and use and the detrimental environmental effects caused by carbon build up in the atmosphere and toxic chemicals leaking into the ground and water.

While the life cycle assessment can help show the impact that gas and oil have on environment and its ecosystems there are boundaries to this assessment. From the time gas and oil are brought up from the earth in raw material to it being released back into our environment in the form of harmful chemicals to our environment the life cycle assessment misses’ things about these two materials. The LCA is supposed to tell us the environmental impact but can only tell us the burden they place on the environment as it goes through its life cycle from start to finish. It tells us what should happen with data collected that could be out dated or biased at times. With rigid system boundaries any changes in the gas and oil production or use would be difficult to see. The LCA does not consider social implications of oil and gas trends as well. With the green energy movement getting pushed more gas and oil will have different results as the process it is being used for changes or decreases because of the increase of other energy sources becoming available. The LCA also does not take into account how much gas and oil are being used in each area. It can tell us about a large area that has high gas and oil usage but it’s harder to figure out smaller areas with this system of assessment.

Basic, typical design and development of the symbiotic industrial systems in oil and gas

Industrial symbiosis is a form of mutual inter-dependency among industries to bring out innovative collaborations utilizing the waste from one company as input materials for another

(Li, 2017). This relationship enables energy companies to exchange materials which would otherwise be treated as waste in a beneficial manner. Symbiotic co-operations can help reduce the material gap for industries.

The basic design of symbiotic industrial system in oil and gas sector can be thought in the manner of by-product reuse or exchange of enterprise specific materials and even surplus energy use. The exchanges can be energy (oil and gas), water which is very basic in cooling systems and exchange of input materials in closed loops (Li, 2017). The raw materials can be in any form provided the next company can handle it.

In the typical design of oil-gas symbiotic systems, the industrial recycling network in this sector should constitute a good local or regional partnership to deliver, share and reuse resources to bring about a shared value. The symbiotic relationship must focus on creating loops of both biological and technical materials minimizing leakages and waste in the created loops which then will be able to demonstrate key components of a circular economy. For instance, oil and gas companies co-working with fossil fuel companies giving products such as tar products can create a sustainable loop (Oil and Natural Gas Reserves, 2018). On the developmental part of oil-gas symbiotic industrialization, there are several ways to impact this development in which chiefly main entail; attraction of other businesses to interlink with oil and gas and also adopting multiple by-products during oil-gas bio refinery (Li, 2017).In general, oil and gas industrial symbiosis can be designed both locally and regionally for the party companies. The basic design involves mutual agreement for the companies with related input-output byproducts.

The importance of a fully realized life cycle assessment within the oil and gas industries is critical to ensuring the best possible environmental outcomes when supplying our world with oil and gas from cradle to grave. It’s important to constantly monitor this process, study the results and make changes as needed if we are determined to ensure the length of this resource.

References

Li, X. (2017). Applications of Industrial Symbiosis. Industrial Ecology and Industry Symbiosis for Environmental Sustainability, 61-89. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-67501-5_4

Oil and Natural Gas Reserves and Their Limits. (2018). Beyond Oil and Gas, 63-72. doi:10.1002/9783527805662.ch5