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TechnoratiLittle Gain From Oil Sands Carbon Capture: Report
CALGARY, Alberta - Canada's government saw only limited opportunities to cut greenhouse gas emissions from the oil sands using carbon capture and storage technology, according to briefing notes obtained by a Canadian media.
![[n This June 25, 2008 file photo, shows an aerial view just north of Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada, where the world's largest oil companies are building massive open pit mines to get at the oil sands. Canada's oil sands industry is delaying expansion plans as crude prices decline and financial uncertainty slows the once booming sector.
(AP Photo/Eamon MacMahon, File) ]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/oilsands1125.jpg "oilsands1125.jpg")
The notes, prepared by a carbon capture task force, were used by
Canadian federal and provincial politicians and were obtained by the
Canadian Broadcasting Corp, which said it requested them under freedom
of information legislation.
Carbon capture and storage would see carbon-dioxide removed from the emissions of oil sands upgraders that turn tar-like bitumen into refinery-ready synthetic crude. The captured CO2 would be put into underground reservoirs for permanent storage instead of being pumped into the atmosphere.
The government of Alberta and the federal government are touting carbon capture and storage (CCS) as a way clean up emissions from huge energy projects in the northern Alberta oil sands region, which contains some 173 billion barrels of tar-like bitumen.
Earlier this year Alberta set aside C$2 billion (to fund CCS projects from big emitters like oil sands upgraders and power plants
But the briefing notes say the technology offers only limited solutions to greenhouse gas emissions from oil sands projects.
"Only a small percentage of emitted CO2 is 'capturable' since most emissions aren't pure enough," said a copy of the note that was posted on the CBC website. "Only limited near-term opportunities exist in the oil sands and they largely relate to the upgrader facilities."
It also said that the projects will be expensive and government will have legal liability for stored carbon-dioxide.
Some critics say the briefing notes are only acknowledging what is already known: that the technology is expensive and may not mitigate carbon emissions for the oil sands.
"This is technology that will require massive subsidies," said Dave Martin, climate and energy co-ordinator for Greenpeace "This is a boondoggle of the first order."
Still, the Alberta government is backing the technology as a way to ensure that oil sands projects don't face sanctions from any climate change legislation introduced in the United States, which buys most of Canada's oil exports.
"It's well known that there are some challenges in capturing emissions at oil sands facilities," said Jason Chance, a spokesman for Alberta's energy department. "But what our own analysis tells us is still up to 75 percent of oil sands (emissions) are capturable."
($1=$1.23 Canadian)
Reporting by Scott Haggett; editing by Rob Wilson
16 Comments so far
Show AllInstead of desperately digging/fighting for oil for gas guzzlers or lithium for electric cars, how about getting rid of the ban on INDUSTRIAL HEMP and giving farmers the chance to grow loads of it and put some of that to fuel usage? The plant can be grown anywhere, be it in the deserts of AZ or the frigid cold weather in ND. We really need to stop raping Mother Earth !
spinwing
My name should tell you my perspective. Anyone who has flown over the area will tell you what an unmitigated disaster this is. The area is being turned into a toxic cesspool. Water, land, fish, wildlife, all befouled or dying. Not only that, it takes more energy - natural gas - to produce the same energy equivalent in oil from the tar sands.
One solution is to put a carbon tax on gas. Keep the price above at least $3.50, as we know that this is enough to get the idiots to change their driving patterns or at least get rid of their SUVs. I don't care about the price but I resent truck and SUV drivers with only one person on board; they are using MY gasoline.
I live in an area dominated by a domestic automobile maker. "Buy domestic" car license frames are all over the place. The chance of me buying domestic again are slim and nil.
Here’s why: Both Ford and GM have worldwide manufacturing operations and build smaller, fuel-efficient vehicles for other markets. Why are we giving them $25 billion to 'retool' to make fuel-efficient vehicles? They already make them. "Bailout"? More like rip-off. But I digress. We usually drive a Smart Car and have for two and a half years, nearly forty thousand miles. We also have a Dodge Caravan which we keep to haul loads and/or people. A great example of domestic marketing prowess.
Rented a Ford Focus wagon in Britain on recent visit. Enough room and reasonably fuel efficient. Thought about switching the Caravan for a Focus wagon. Guess what? Not available. The Ford brain trust only has the coupe and sedan available. The dealer could of course "put you into" a Taurus wagon - only about twice the vehicle and price that I want. So much for market response. No great loss for us; we can use the Caravan a while longer as it gets less than ten percent of our mileage. Don't need to borrow, have cash, one less domestic auto sale. Brilliant.
We have to be close to the crude oil price where it doesn't pay to mine this stuff. Its somewhere between $40 and $80/bbl, depending on the info source. Lets keep conserving. Swap the Explorer for a Focus, the Silverado for a Malibu, the Camry for a Prius. Carpool. Take the train.
Toyota reopened the Tundra plant. Make them pretty driveway decorations, and drive Corollas to work.
Insulate your house. Buy a higher efficiency furnace or switch to gas.
If oil goes up, we have tar sands, then oil shale, then coal to oil and gas proposals... and "Drill Baby, Drill!" Not good.
Low-tech solution. Stop the car.
http://freepublictransit.org
There will be long-term ecological impacts in addition to contributing to climate crisis.
4.5 barrels of water is used for every barrel of "oil" they produce. Current operations are permitted to withdraw more than 349 million cubic metres of water per year - a volume equivalent to the amount required by a city of 2 million people.
The Athabasca River is threatened - so is the fish population.
The operation leaves pools of gooey waste - more than 50 square kilometres - they can be seen from space.
Aboriginal communities near by are suffering health problems from toxins in the air and water.
Hundreds (maybe thousands) of birds have died after landing in the gooey mess.
The tar sands are a disgusting nightmare. Alberta should be ashamed.
I don't pretend to understand the engineering challenges involved, and I can't tell Canada how to spend it's money, but I am sure of some things. For the foreseeable future, even decades out, coal is common and many more coal plants will be built by many countries, with or without carbon capture getting figured out. Probably tar sands will be used too, regardless of whether the carbon capture works, so it makes sense to develop this technology if it's at all feasible. If the Canadians get it working, they'll be selling it for a nice profit to everyone else. If anyone gets it working, we won't have the political problem of stopping coal plants from being built, and that should put an end to the nonsense of building more nuclear plants.
Sorry, Charlie, it's "climate crisis"! "Global warming" was twentieth century.
To capture even a modest amount of the CO2 emmisions coming from the average industrial exhaust/smokestack, you would have to cool the emissions or run them past catlytic converters, causing them to condense, then collect and store them, before pumping them into a (hopefully) impermiable underground reservior.
How much power does the CCS system itself use? And doesn't that power have to generated *somewhere*? Does that powerplant need a CCS system itself? Wouldn't that be self defeating?
Here is an easier way to keep CO2 and other greenhouse gasses from the Tarsands from entering the environment:
Shut them down. Abandon them after remidial action to heal and detoxify the landscape and watertable. And at the same time BAN outright the production, sale and ownership of SUVs.
Then find former Premier of Alberta Ralph Klein and take him to the Haugue for his Crimes Agaist Humanity trial.
Walk in peace.
Ca plus change, ca plus la meme chose.
ezeflyer: You must be clueless. No president is going to do shit without the public demanding it!
I think its sarcasm.
... and the best bit of sarcasm I have read for some time ... I really did lol
Canadian Prime Minister Harper is from Alberta, so don't expect changes for the better anytime soon.
Why waste billions more creating destruction and put those billions to use on renewable energy sources that don't emit pollution and CO2 ? Denmark, Spain and Europe are already using clean energy sources. Why does America have to catch up with say India on building a car that runs on air ? Thanks to Presidebt Bush and THE COAL INDUSTRY, Appalachia is a toxic third world waste dump.
END MOUNTAIN TOP REMOVAL !
http://www.wisecountyissues.com
It's "TAR SANDS" not oil sands. Oil sands is what the industry wants you to call it because it makes it sound like runny oil mixed with some sand. This isn't some thick liquid you pump out of the ground and then squeeze the oil out of. It is dug out of the ground, MINED, as a thick, hard sticky crap that is dumped into large dump trucks for transport to be processed. It takes approximately 4000 pounds of tar sands to produce one barrel of oil. Do a Google image search for "Tar Sands" and you'll see ton's of pictures of open pit mining and all the processes involved.
We must not let the industry rephrase and rename things to their own liking to lessons the impact of whatever product they are marketing. It's "Global Warming" NOT "Climate Change" since the vast majority of the effects are warming trends. Did this start back in Reagan's day when we had the Neutrino Bomb with "enhanced radiation?"
Chill the fuck out. Obama's got this.