
GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS SET TO RISE AS NEW SOURCES FOR TRANSPORT FUEL ARE USED
Date: Thursday, December 07, 2006 @ 22:38:35 UTC Topic: General
The use of low-quality sources of petroleum, such as tar
sands, will dramatically raise global greenhouse gas emissions
according to a new study.
The work is reported in the paper Risks of the oil transition, published in the new Institute of Physics open-access electronic-only journal, Environmental Research Letters (ERL).
Lead author Professor Alex Farrell of the University
of California, Berkeley said: “Liquid fuels for transportation are
increasingly coming from a wide range of sources other than
conventional petroleum. We call this the oil transition and we conclude
that the environmental risks associated with this transition are much
bigger than the risk to a country’s economy or the security of their
fuel supply.”
Tar sands are currently one of the biggest unconventional sources
for petroleum. Bitumen, a very think mixture of organic liquids, is
mined from the tar sands. Natural gas is then bubbled through the
bitumen to separate the impurities, mostly sulphur. The use of natural
gas for removing impurities and then in refining tar sands into oil is
a highly energy intensive process itself, even before the resulting oil
is refined into gasoline and then burned in vehicles.
The sulphur separated in the production combines with Hydrogen to
form H2S, the characteristic 'rotten egg' compound. Solid sulphur is
then separated out, yielding vast pyramids of yellow sulphur blocks
which are stacked and stored on the site.
“We have calculated that production of fuels from
low-quality and synthetic petroleum, such as tar sands, could have
greenhouse gas emissions 30%-70% greater than the emissions from
conventional petrol. Tar sands are already being used as a source for
petrol, with over one million barrels refined each day in Alberta,
Canada. With oil selling for $60/barrel on the international market,
the $30/barrel production cost for tar sands is no longer an obstacle
to production as it used to be.”
Professor Farrell continued: “The enormous abundance of fossil fuel
reserves means that the real challenge for the future is not dealing
with scarcity of supply but managing the transition from traditional
sources such as oil fields to new unconventional sources whilst
protecting the environment and balancing the changes that the
transition will bring to the global economy and the security of supply
for individual countries.”
Source: Institute of Physics Story from: http://www.physorg.com/news84740183.html
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