(498a) Climate Change, Extreme Events, and Their Effects on Aboveground Storage Tanks

Environmental managers, modelers, and decision makers need to understand the systems under their control, concern, and authority. Aboveground storage tanks (ASTs) are often overlooked in evaluations of environmental systems, but their emissions can be substantial and the vulnerabilities associated with them significant [1]. In particular, climate change and extreme events can have highly non-linear effects on ASTs, for instance, when an increase in extreme event intensity leads to qualitatively different behavior. This presentation will describe vulnerabilities and how models show emissions increasing for higher ambient temperatures and wind speeds. One result is that emissions of aromatics increase even more than VOCs. The results also describe how lack of maintenance leads to dramatically increased emissions. Among the applications for this information are risk assessments, life cycle assessments, and environmental product declarations. With improved estimates of emissions from the storage of materials such as fuels, one can more accurately compare the effects of systems that include these stored materials.

[1] Raymond L. Smith, Joe Terriquez, Eben Thoma, Michael A. Gonzalez, Derek Johnson, Hans Buenning, Fran Kremer, Jacob D. Carpenter, and Nigel N. Clark, “Climate Change, Extreme Events, and Their Potential Effects on Aboveground Storage Tanks,” EM Magazine, 24−29, September (2023).

The views expressed in this presentation are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views or policies of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.