Oilsands operations have very different GHG profiles. The over-simple analysis that Berkeley’s Energy Group has done, to date, does not tell the whole story.  The analysis suggests (more or less accurately) that if we use oilsands feedstocks to make gasoline, the full fuel cycle GHGs are high relative to conventional sweet crude. 

The problem is that oilsands output is usually used as a "diesel" feedstock.  If we substitute oilsands-based diesel for gasoline in the single passenger vehicle fleet, GHGs are lower than if we continue to burn gasoline that is made most efficiently from conventional sweet crude. There are numerous technical options to enable us to further cut GHGs in oilsands production, while GHG/unit of conventional sweet crude production are going up worldwide and we have hit an efficiency plateau in that production stream. 

According to their own Carbon Disclosure Report, BPs European GHGs increased over 23% from 2005 through 2008, while their crude oil and gas production and refinery output fell. This is happening everywhere companies are drilling deeper and deeper for more and more sulphur-contaminated oil.

The oilsands upgraders with the highest GHG profiles are typically (but not always) upgraders at which 100% of the sulphur is stripped from the crude. It is more efficient to strip sulphur in the upgrading stage than in the refinery, which is your only option for conventional crude. 

Refineries designed to max out the diesel—as opposed to gasoline–production from oilsands sulphur-free feedstock discharge about 15% less GHGs than refineries that are designed to max out gasoline production from low sulphur crude. The Berkeley analysis takes the upstream GHGs for the sulphur-removed synthetic or upgraded crude and then models that crude being fed into a refinery that is designed to convert at least 35% of the barrel of crude feedstock into gasoline—which rarely happens in real life (you can’t really convert more than 10% of a barrel of heavy crude into gasoline without a whole bunch of additional processing that is energy intensive). 

And the Berkeley analysis also assumes that all of the oilsands feedstock going into these gasoline refineries still contains sulphur, double charging the oilsands fuel cycle for sulphur removal.

Then, at the tailpipe, diesel cars discharge 15% to 25% less GHGs per litre or mile than gasoline. The Berkeley researchers actually explicitly acknowledge, in the Technical Report posted at the LCFS website, that the least cost way for US fuel distributors to comply with the California LCFS is to start a shift in the single passenger vehicle fleet from gasoline to diesel. 

The LCFS has two separate standards, one for gasoline and one for diesel, with the express purpose of blocking the single passenger fleet fuel switch from gasoline to diesel shift. The sole objective of this strategy is to protect California refineries whose plants are more gasoline-oriented than others and US ethanol producers. 

The decision to create two separate standards instead of one single transportation fuel GHG standard in the LCFS is a trade and commercial policy decision, not an environmental policy decision.

Note that 100% of the transport sector GHG reductions realized in Europe since 1990 derive directly from the passenger vehicle fleet switch from gasoline to diesel. 50% of EU passenger vehicles are diesel-powered and 60% of new car sales are diesel. The Opel Astra diesel-electric hybrid model is quite wonderful.  But I think (I might be wrong) one condition of GM’s sale of Opel to Stronach is that he had to agree not to develop the Opel Astra in North America.

Also, I have little faith in ethanol and a lot more interest in the potential for algae-based biodiesel as a biofuel.  I like cellulosic ethanol, but can’t figure out how to get the costs of trucking wood waste large distances to feed big plants under control.

Even traditional canola and soya-based diesel is much more clearly sustainable than US ethanol. Biodiesel is easier because biodiesel economies of scale kick in at a much smaller plant size than ethanol economies of scale, so the feedstock transport costs are easier to manage. 

Also, there is the basic question of oils versus alcohols…and as far as I can see oils win.  The key thing with oils is that they are almost totally recyclable, while alcohols cannot be blended with recyclable content.  We know how to grow beans sustainably (without mining the carbon from the topsoil), but we do not yet know how to grow starches (feedstock for alcohol fuels) sustainably.

If I blend biodiesel into the diesel fuel I get another big tailpipe GHG reduction hit, before even talking about hybrids. Also, biodiesel can be blended into diesel at any point in the fuel distribution chain. We need way less new distribution infrastructure at ports, terminals, etc., for biodiesel than ethanol.

I am also much more enthusiastic about the long-term efficiency improvement potential of plug-in diesel electric hybrids than gasoline electric hybrid vehicles or 100% electric vehicles when considering the global (as opposed to Canadian) electricity supply options.

So when I think about continuing to import sweet crude and gasoline from Nigeria and Europe (burning fuel to run the ships) to blend with ethanol trucked in from the US, it all looks crazy to me.  I tend to think we want to regulate the heck out of the oilsands and at least consider what Canada looks like as a "clean diesel-electric nation"—or at least "not a gasoline nation.”

Nuclear

I am not ready to go pro-nuclear, but my brain tells my heart I should be more open to nuclear than I am at the moment. Waste management is a huge issue. But Canada already has the 4th largest stockpile of nuclear waste in the world, so we have to come up with a solution for that problem anyway. 

But when I look at nuclear technology options, I just do not see CANDU technology competing—even with better management at AECL. And the big global trend in nuclear at this time is very large reactors. I actually imagine a future in which small reactors—land-based systems that are much improved versions of the reactors that have been used for decades to run nuclear submarines, or newer/different technologies altogether. 

I have been watching the Toshiba project for Galena, Alaska for many years, however, and its progress appears snail pace slow.  And I don’t know how real the Hyperion technology is.

…and then there is the question of what we could achieve if we could apply small nuclear (not large nukes) to eliminate natural gas consumption in oilsands upgrading…