title: Life Cycle Analysis of Bitumen Transportation to Refineries by Rail and Pipeline.
abstract: Crude oil is currently transported primarily by pipelines and rail from extraction sites to refineries around the world. This research evaluates energy use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for three scenarios (synthetic crude oil and dilbit with and without diluent return) in which 750 000 bpd of Alberta's bitumen is transported 3000 km to determine which method has a lower environmental impact. Each scenario has a pipeline and rail pathway, and the dilbit without diluent return scenario has an additional heated bitumen pathway, which does not require diluent. An Excel based bottom-up model is developed using engineering first-principles to calculate mass and energy balances for each process. Results show that pipeline transportation produced between 61% and 77% fewer GHG emissions than by rail. The GHG emissions decreased by 15% and 73% for rail and pipelines as the capacity increased from 100 000 to 800 000 bpd. A Monte Carlo simulation was performed to determine the uncertainty in the emissions and found that the uncertainty was larger for pipelines (up to ±73%) and smaller for rail (up to ±28%). The uncertainty ranges do not overlap, thus confirming that pipelines have lower GHG emissions, which is important information for policy makers conducting pipeline reviews.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, 10-263 Donadeo Innovation Centre for Engineering, University of Alberta , Edmonton, Alberta T6G 1H9, Canada.
authors.forename: Balwinder
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Nimana
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, 10-263 Donadeo Innovation Centre for Engineering, University of Alberta , Edmonton, Alberta T6G 1H9, Canada.
authors.forename: Aman
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Verma
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, 10-263 Donadeo Innovation Centre for Engineering, University of Alberta , Edmonton, Alberta T6G 1H9, Canada.
authors.forename: Giovanni
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Di Lullo
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, 10-263 Donadeo Innovation Centre for Engineering, University of Alberta , Edmonton, Alberta T6G 1H9, Canada.
authors.forename: Md Mustafizur
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Rahman
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, 10-263 Donadeo Innovation Centre for Engineering, University of Alberta , Edmonton, Alberta T6G 1H9, Canada.
authors.forename: Christina E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Canter
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, 10-263 Donadeo Innovation Centre for Engineering, University of Alberta , Edmonton, Alberta T6G 1H9, Canada.
authors.forename: Babatunde
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Olateju
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, 10-263 Donadeo Innovation Centre for Engineering, University of Alberta , Edmonton, Alberta T6G 1H9, Canada.
authors.forename: Hao
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, 10-263 Donadeo Innovation Centre for Engineering, University of Alberta , Edmonton, Alberta T6G 1H9, Canada.
authors.forename: Amit
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-1746-7139
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kumar
mesh_terms: D017752:Greenhouse Effect; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D010578:Petroleum; D014186:Transportation; D035501:Uncertainty
chemical_list: D010578:Petroleum