The flare system in a refinery

The processes of a refinery produce surplus gas and the goal is to use this gas sensibly. This is why the gas is fed into the plant's furnaces and into power plants to produce power or steam.

However, technical problems can mean that there is so much gas that it must be disposed of in a different way.

This is when one of multiple ground-level flares is activated. They are massive steel cylinders, the height of a ten-storey building. Inside, the gases are combusted in a way that is invisible, silent and environmentally sound, thereby producing steam and carbon dioxide.

But there are rare cases when the ground-level flares cannot handle the input.This is when the vertical flare stacks are activated automatically. As these flare stacks burn off the gas at high temperatures and heights exceeding 60 meters, in essence, the gas disappears without a trace.

But actually the gas from the production process is far too valuable to be disposed of through flaring. This is why a refinery’s flaring system is a rarely used but important safety feature.

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[Gonzoeth]

"Rarely Used" lol the refineries near me have flares going literally 24/7

[busyonthefarm]

Rarely used... Ha! The sky in Baytown is almost always alight with these flares

[SevenDeMagnus]

Cool, it's like Blade Runner's intro.

God bless fire.

[digitalday]

Rarely used, eh? Tell that to BP in Indiana

[blackbeardadventures]

What is the density of the flared gas?

[charlesjefferson]

You said they rarely use it while I guess you haven't been to Texas City where they use them everyday, and yesterday whatever they were burning had the smoke turning purple. And I know that's not right because I used to work there