Life Cycle Assessment of Oil Sands Technologies Kickoff Meeting

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Life Cycle Assessment of Oil Sands Technologies
Kickoff Meeting

• November 3rd, 2006

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Objectives of Workshop

• Advertise our project
• What has been done
• Models that we are planning
• Research questions we hope to address
• Feedback
• Applications are we asking the correct
  questions of interest to the industry and policy
  makers?
• Methods are we employing the appropriate tools
  to answer these questions?
• Data

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LCA Overview

• Joule Bergerson
• University of Calgary
• Energy and Environmental Systems Group

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What is LCA?

• Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a decision making
  tool to identify environmental burdens and
  evaluate the environmental consequences of a
  product, process or service over its life cycle
  from cradle to grave (i.e. from extraction of
  resources through to the disposal of unwanted
  residuals).

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Process LCA
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Structure of a Process-based LCA Model
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Economic Input-Output LCA
Example - 1 billion of transmission line
construction www.eiolca.net
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EIOLCA Output
Example - 1 billion of transmission line
construction
www.eiolca.net
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Hybrid LCA
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Previous LCA of Oil Sands

• McCann, 1999
• Comparison of other liquid fuels (Saudi and N.A.
  light, Ven. etc.)
• Furmisky, 2003 Suncor,2005 Syncrude, 2005
  Flint, 2005
• Do not include full indirect and upstream impacts
• Considers only GHG emissions
• Boundary and scope details are not clear
• LCA Models - GREET, GHGenius etc. more details
  shortly

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Results of Previous LCA Studies
Output is per m3 of transport fuel used in
central NA
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Need for Full Life Cycle Assessment

• A consistent, systematic process for evaluating
  the tradeoffs of the oil sands industry
• Need to understand the risks from suppliers
• e.g. economy-wide carbon tax increased material
  costs etc.
• In a position to encourage environmental
  improvements upstream
• Better understanding of upstream component could
  lead to savings

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Upstream/Indirect Impacts Calculation

• Survey of Oil Sands projects
• Production (10,000 300,000 bbl/day)
• Costs 13 - 36 / barrel - (Capital and OM)
• Allocation of costs to economic sectors
• 7 22 / barrel Construction
• 2 6 / barrel Heavy Duty Vehicles
• 1 3 / barrel Engineering Services
• 3 5 / barrel Natural Gas
• Input to eiolca.net ? Upstream Impacts

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Life Cycle CO2 Emissions for Oil Sands and
Conventional Oil Production
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Questions