Carbon capture technology will not solve the climate change threat posed by the expansion of tar sands developments, a damning new report warns today.
The study entitled ‘CCS in the Alberta oil sands – a dangerous myth' is published as part of The Co-operative Financial Services (CFS) and WWF-UK Toxic Fuels campaign, which is seeking an end to the emerging global trend of exploiting climate hostile fuels such as Canada's tar sands.
The production of tar sands oil -also know as oil sands- is a highly energy intensive process and emits on average three times more CO2 than conventional oil production. Canada's proven tar sands reserves are 173 billion barrels of oil, second only to Saudi Arabia.
The report examines the potential for carbon capture and storage (CCS) to prevent CO2 from entering the atmosphere as a result of tar sands production and concludes that the process could not possibly achieve what has been claimed.
The study finds that while the amount of CO2 emitted during production needs to be reduced by around 85 per cent to make tar sands oil comparable with conventional oil, even the most optimistic forecasts for CCS see production emissions reduced by 10 to 30 at selected locations by 2020 and 30 to 50 per cent across the industry by 2050.
Additionally even under the most optimistic scenarios for the application of CCS, the projected production emissions from tar sands developments would be greater than the whole of Canada's 2050 carbon budget were it to reduce emissions by 80 per cent compared with 1990 levels, as the climate science requires.
Paul Monaghan, Head of Social Goals at the Co-operative Financial Services said: "Last year we published a report which found that Canada's tar sands could increase atmospheric CO2 by more than 10 parts per million, which would take us right to the edge of runaway climate change. The industry's response was that CCS would address this threat. Today's report shows that even the most wildly optimistic scenarios for the development of CCS fail to bring emissions down to those of today's conventional fossil fuels."
David Norman, director of campaigns at WWF-UK added: "The application of CCS technology to oil sands is simply too little, too late, and too expensive to qualify as a climate solution. Investing billions in unproven CCS technology for tar sands is diverting money away from projects that will help meet the global energy demand without damaging the climate. Canada should invest in other low-carbon technology and stop the expansion of tar sands."
Tar sands have been promoted as an alternative source of fuel to replace conventional oil. The refined product can be used as a fuel for cars, but has been heavily criticised as environmentally damaging fuel.
Carbon capture and storage is still an unproven science, trials are in place but it is yet unknown how effective it could be at reducing carbon emissions. Oil companies have been promoting tar sands as a viable source of fuel with the assistance of this unproven science of catching the additional CO2 caused by its carbon intensive production.
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