‘
Anybody who cares about the
planet should worry about the
size of the producible resource.
Non-conventionals could more
fuels are 16.5% higher than the average barrel unlikely to be justified on all the tar sands’ far
consumed in the US. Second, it means rough- flung production sites. Second, CCS can never
’
than double the world’s usable oil
where it would capture most of the emissions.
But for the tar sands that wouldn’t work, so
ly 70% of the tar sands’ lifecycle emissions are capture the downstream emissions – the lion’s the only option is not to exploit them at all. By
emitted downstream. So by attacking the high- share. This is important in light of recent work this logic climate campaigners should be
er – inevitably upstream – tar sands emissions, from a number of climate scientists that arguing not to clean up the tar sands, but to
environmentalists ignore the main event, and projects sustainable levels of atmospheric CO
2
shut them down – a much bigger ask.
offer the industry a convenient get-out. not in terms of annual emissions, but in terms “Anybody who cares about the planet
The industry has reacted to the criticism by of the total that can be emitted over the next should worry less about production emissions
proposing carbon capture and storage (CCS). few centuries. and more about the size of the producible
Shell, for instance, plans to capture 1.2M Jim Hansen, director of the NASA resource”, says Dr Kharecha. “Non-conven-
tonnes of CO
2
a year at its bitumen upgrading Goddard Institute, and Pushker Kharecha of tionals could more than double the world’s
plant at Scotford from around 2015. And who Columbia University, have shown how avoid- usable oil, but we cannot let that happen.”
could complain about that? If burying the ing ‘dangerous’ climate change depends criti- Despite the fact that CCS can only capture
extra CO
2
produced upstream can bring the cally on the decisions we make about coal and a fraction of the tar sands’ upstream emissions,
lifecycle emissions down to conventional lev- non-conventional oil, as conventional oil the Alberta government is funding projects
els, everybody should be happy – including production approaches its peak. Their model- such as Shell’s at Scotford as part of a $2B CCS
climate campaigners. ling demonstrates that even if we burn all the support package. Professor David Keith, of
But there are two catches. First, CCS could world’s conventional oil and gas – which must the department of chemical and petroleum
never capture all the upstream emissions. be overwhelmingly likely – we could still hold engineering at the University of Calgary, who
Engineering limits mean the technology is atmospheric CO
2
to 450 parts per million and is scathing about the idea of CCS in the tar
only likely to ever reach 90% efficiency, temperature rise to 2
o
C, provided we progres- sands, suspects a political agenda at work:
meaning a tenth of the CO
2
would still escape. sively eliminate coal emissions by 2050 and “My guess is the Alberta government sees
Worse, CCS is only likely to be cost effective avoid emissions from non-conventional oil paying for CCS and other low emission tech-
at facilities like Scotford that produce a large altogether. For coal this could plausibly be nologies as crucial for the survival of the tar
and concentrated stream of CO
2
, and is achieved by installing CCS at power stations, sands, and even a license to expand”.
Sustainable Business ❘ F ebruary 2010 25
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