Study finds elevated greenhouse gases from Canadian oil sands’ crude – Mining.com
A new peer-reviewed study funded by the U.S. Department of Energy says oil extracted from Canada’s oil sands produces greenhouse-gas emissions that are an average 20% higher than for conventional U.S. crude.
The findings provide ammunition to foes of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline and other critics of surging Canadian oil output.
The study was conducted jointly by the DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory, researchers at Stanford University and the Institute of Transport Studies at the University of California, Davis. It calculated greenhouse gas-emissions from oil- field extraction to tail pipe, a so-called well-to-wheel analysis.
Noting oil-sands output is projected to more than double in the next 15 years, and that much of that crude could wind up in the U.S., the study said “higher [well-to-wheel] emissions for gasoline and diesel production in the U.S. are expected when oil-sands products become a larger fraction of the U.S. fuel mix.”
