title: Using infrastructure optimization to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from oil sands extraction and processing.
abstract: The Alberta oil sands are a significant source of oil production and greenhouse gas emissions, and their importance will grow as the region is poised for decades of growth. We present an integrated framework that simultaneously considers economic and engineering decisions for the capture, transport, and storage of oil sands CO(2) emissions. The model optimizes CO(2) management infrastructure at a variety of carbon prices for the oil sands industry. Our study reveals several key findings. We find that the oil sands industry lends itself well to development of CO(2) trunk lines due to geographic coincidence of sources and sinks. This reduces the relative importance of transport costs compared to nonintegrated transport systems. Also, the amount of managed oil sands CO(2) emissions, and therefore the CCS infrastructure, is very sensitive to the carbon price; significant capture and storage occurs only above 110$/tonne CO(2) in our simulations. Deployment of infrastructure is also sensitive to CO(2) capture decisions and technology, particularly the fraction of capturable CO(2) from oil sands upgrading and steam generation facilities. The framework will help stakeholders and policy makers understand how CCS infrastructure, including an extensive pipeline system, can be safely and cost-effectively deployed.
authors.affiliation: Los Alamos National Laboratory, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, United States. rsm@lanl.gov
authors.forename: Richard S
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Middleton
authors.forename: Adam R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Brandt
mesh_terms: D000393:Air Pollutants / Q000032:analysis*; D000397:Air Pollution / Q000191:economics / Q000517:prevention & control*; D000416:Alberta; D002245:Carbon Dioxide / Q000032:analysis; D003365:Costs and Cost Analysis; D005740:Gases / Q000032:analysis*; D005843:Geography; D017752:Greenhouse Effect / Q000191:economics; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D009038:Motion; D009821:Oils / Q000191:economics / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D012822:Silicon Dioxide / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D000393:Air Pollutants; D005740:Gases; D009821:Oils; D002245:Carbon Dioxide; D012822:Silicon Dioxide