Know Your Oil: Creating A Global Oil-Climate Index

Oil is changing. Conventional oil resources are dwindling as tight oil, oil sands, heavy oils, and others emerge. Technological advances mean that these unconventional hydrocarbon deposits in once-unreachable areas are now viable resources. Meanwhile, scientific evidence is mounting that climate change is occurring, but the climate impacts of these new oils are not well understood. The Carnegie Endowment's Energy and Climate Program, Stanford University, and the University of Calgary have developed a first-of-itskind Oil-Climate Index (OCI) to compare these resources.The Oil-Climate Index (OCI) is a metric that takes into account the total life-cycle Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions of individual oils -- from upstream extraction to midstream refining to downstream end use. It offers a powerful, yet user-friendly, tool that allows investors, policymakers, industry, the public, and other stakeholders to compare crudes and assess their climate consequences both before development decisions are made as well as once operations are in progress. The Oil-Climate Index will also inform oil and climate policy making

Life cycle assessment of emerging technologies: Evaluation techniques at different stages of market and technical maturity

Life cycle assessment (LCA) analysts are increasingly being asked to conduct life cycleâ based systems level analysis at the earliest stages of technology development. While early assessments provide the greatest opportunity to influence design and ultimately environmental performance, it is the stage with the least available data, greatest uncertainty, and a paucity of analytic tools for addressing these challenges. While the fundamental approach to conducting an LCA of emerging technologies is akin to that of LCA of existing technologies, emerging technologies pose additional challenges. In this paper, we present a broad set of market and technology characteristics that typically influence an LCA of emerging technologies and identify questions that researchers must address to account for the most important aspects of the systems they are studying. The paper presents: (a) guidance to identify the specific technology characteristics and dynamic market context that are most relevant and unique to a particular study, (b) an overview of the challenges faced by early stage assessments that are unique because of these conditions, (c) questions that researchers should ask themselves for such a study to be conducted, and (d) illustrative examples from the transportation sector to demonstrate the factors to consider when conducting LCAs of emerging technologies. The paper is intended to be used as an organizing platform to synthesize existing methods, procedures and insights and guide researchers, analysts and technology developer to better recognize key study design elements and to manage expectations of study outcomes.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154465/1/jiec12954-sup-0001-SuppMat.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154465/2/jiec12954.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154465/3/jiec12954_am.pd

On the climate impacts of blue hydrogen production

Natural gas based hydrogen production with carbon capture and storage is referred to as blue hydrogen. If substantial amounts of CO2 from natural gas reforming are captured and permanently stored, such hydrogen could be a low-carbon energy carrier. However, recent research raises questions about the effective climate impacts of blue hydrogen from a life cycle perspective. Our analysis sheds light on the relevant issues and provides a balanced perspective on the impacts on climate change associated with blue hydrogen. We show that such impacts may indeed vary over large ranges and depend on only a few key parameters: the methane emission rate of the natural gas supply chain, the CO2 removal rate at the hydrogen production plant, and the global warming metric applied. State-of-the-art reforming with high CO2 capture rates combined with natural gas supply featuring low methane emissions does indeed allow for substantial reduction of greenhouse gas emissions compared to both conventional natural gas reforming and direct combustion of natural gas. Under such conditions, blue hydrogen is compatible with low-carbon economies and exhibits climate change impacts at the upper end of the range of those caused by hydrogen production from renewable-based electricity. However, neither current blue nor green hydrogen production pathways render fully “net-zero” hydrogen without additional CO2 removal

Should We Transport Coal, Gas, or Electricity: Cost, Efficiency, and Environmental Implications

We examine the life cycle costs, environmental discharges, and deaths of moving coal via rail, coal gas via pipeline, and electricity via wire from the Powder River Basin (PRB) in Wyoming to Texas. Which method has least social cost depends on how much additional investment in rail line, transmission, or pipeline infrastructure is required, as well as how much and how far energy is transported. If the existing rail lines have unused capacity, coal by rail is the cheapest method (up to 200 miles of additional track could be added). If no infrastructure exists, greater distances and larger amounts of energy favor coal by rail and gasified coal by pipeline over electricity transmission. For 1,000 miles and 9 gigawatts of power, a gas pipeline is cheapest, has less environmental discharges, uses less land, and is least obtrusive.</p

The long-term life cycle private and external costs of high coal usage in the US

Using four times as much coal in 2050 for electricity production need not degrade air quality or increase greenhouse gas emissions. Current SOx and NOx emissions from the power sector could be reduced from 12 to less than 1 and from 5 to 2 million tons annually, respectively, using advanced technology. While direct CO2 emissions from new power plants could be reduced by over 87%, life cycle emissions could increase by over 25% due to the additional coal that is required to be mined and transported to compensate for the energy penalty of the carbon capture and storage technology. Strict environmental controls push capital costs of pulverized coal (PC) and integrated coal gasification combined cycle (IGCC) plants to $1500–1700/kW and$1600–2000/kW, respectively. Adding carbon capture and storage (CCS) increases costs to $2400–2700/kW and$2100–3000/kW (2005 dollars), respectively. Adding CCS reduces the 40–43% efficiency of the ultra-supercritical PC plant to 31–34%; adding CCS reduces the 32–38% efficiency of the GE IGCC plant to 27–33%. For IGCC, PC, and natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) plants, the carbon dioxide tax would have to be $53,$74, and $61, respectively, to make electricity from a plant with CCS cheaper. Capturing and storing 90% of the CO2 emissions increases life cycle costs from 5.4 to 11.6 cents/kWh. This analysis shows that 90% CCS removal efficiency, although being a large improvement over current electricity generation emissions, results in life cycle emissions that are large enough that additional effort is required to achieve significant economy-wide reductions in the US for this large increase in electricity generation using either coal or natural gas.</p

Baseload Coal Investment Decisions under Uncertain Carbon Legislation

More than 50% of electricity in the U.S. is generated by coal. The U.S. has large coal resources, the cheapest fuel in most areas. Coal fired power plants are likely to continue to provide much of U.S. electricity. However, the type of power plant that should be built is unclear. Technology can reduce pollutant discharges and capture and sequester the CO2 from coal-fired generation. The U.S. Energy Policy Act of 2005 provides incentives for large scale commercial deployment of Integrated Coal Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) systems (e.g., loan guarantees and project tax credits). This analysis examines whether a new coal plant should be Pulverized Coal (PC) or IGCC. Do stricter emissions standards (PM, SO2, NOx, Hg) justify the higher costs of IGCC over PC? How does potential future carbon legislation affect the decision to add carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology? Finally, can the impact of uncertain carbon legislation be minimized? We find that SO2, NOx, PM, and Hg emission standards would have to be far more stringent than twice current standards to justify the increased costs of the IGCC system. A CO2 tax less than $29/ton would lead companies to continuing to choose PC, paying the tax for emitted CO2. The earlier a decision-maker believes the carbon tax will be imposed and the higher the tax, the more likely companies will choose IGCC w/CCS. Having government announce the date and level of a carbon tax would promote more sensible decisions, but government would have to use a tax or subsidy to induce companies to choose the technology that is best for society.</p

Techno–Economic Evaluation of Technologies to Mitigate Greenhouse Gas Emissions at North American Refineries

A petroleum refinery model, Petroleum Refinery Life-cycle Inventory Model (PRELIM), that estimates energy use and CO₂ emissions was modified to evaluate the environmental and economic performance of a set of technologies to reduce CO₂ emissions at refineries. Cogeneration of heat and power (CHP), carbon capture at fluid catalytic cracker (FCC) and steam methane reformer (SMR) units, and alternative hydrogen production technologies were considered in the analysis. The results indicate that a 3–44% reduction in total annual refinery CO₂ emissions (2–24% reductions in the CO₂ emissions on a per barrel of crude oil processed) can be achieved in a medium conversion refinery that processes a typical U.S. crude slate obtained by using the technologies considered. A sensitivity analysis of the quality of input crude to a refinery, refinery configuration, and prices of natural gas and electricity revealed how the magnitude of possible CO₂ emissions reductions and the economic performance of the mitigation technologies can vary under different conditions. The analysis can help inform decision making related to investment decisions and CO₂ emissions policy in the refining sector