Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Current Oil Sands Technologies: GHOST Model Development and Illustrative Application

详细信息    查看全文

• 作者：Alex D. Charpentier ; Oyeshola Kofoworola ; Joule A. Bergerson ; Heather L. MacLean
• 刊名：Environmental Science & Technology
• 出版年：2011
• 出版时间：November 1, 2011
• 年：2011
• 卷：45
• 期：21
• 页码：9393-9404
• 全文大小：880K
• 年卷期：v.45,no.21(November 1, 2011)
• ISSN：1520-5851

文摘

A life cycle-based model, GHOST (GreenHouse gas emissions of current Oil Sands Technologies), which quantifies emissions associated with production of diluted bitumen and synthetic crude oil (SCO) is developed. GHOST has the potential to analyze a large set of process configurations, is based on confidential oil sands project operating data, and reports ranges of resulting emissions, improvements over prior studies, which primarily included a limited set of indirect activities, utilized theoretical design data, and reported point estimates. GHOST is demonstrated through application to a major oil sands process, steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD). The variability in potential performance of SAGD technologies results in wide ranges of 鈥渨ell-to-refinery entrance gate鈥?emissions (comprising direct and indirect emissions): 18鈥?1 g CO₂eq/MJ SCO, 9鈥?8 g CO₂eq/MJ dilbit, and 13鈥?4 g CO₂eq/MJ synbit. The primary contributor to SAGD鈥檚 emissions is the combustion of natural gas to produce process steam, making a project鈥檚 steam-to-oil ratio the most critical parameter in determining GHG performance. The demonstration (a) illustrates that a broad range of technology options, operating conditions, and resulting emissions exist among current oil sands operations, even when considering a single extraction technology, and (b) provides guidance about the feasibility of lowering SAGD project emissions.