IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/appene/v143y2015icp189-199.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in the recovery and extraction of crude bitumen from Canada’s oil sands

Author

Listed:
  • Nimana, Balwinder
  • Canter, Christina
  • Kumar, Amit

Abstract

A model – FUNNEL-GHG-OS (FUNdamental ENgineering PrinciplEs-based ModeL for Estimation of GreenHouse Gases in the Oil Sands) was developed to estimate project-specific energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) in major recovery and extraction processes in the oil sands, namely surface mining and in␣situ production. This model estimates consumption of diesel (4.4–7.1MJ/GJ of bitumen), natural gas (52.7–86.4MJ/GJ of bitumen) and electricity (1.8–2.1kWh/GJ of bitumen) as fuels in surface mining. The model also estimates the consumption of natural gas (123–462.7MJ/GJ of bitumen) and electricity (1.2–3.5kWh/GJ of bitumen) in steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD), based on fundamental engineering principles. Cogeneration in the oil sands, with excess electricity exported to Alberta’s grid, was also explored. Natural gas consumption forms a major portion of the total energy consumption in surface mining and SAGD and thus is a main contributor to GHG emissions. Emissions in surface mining and SAGD range from 4.4 to 7.4gCO2eq/MJ of bitumen and 8.0 to 34.0gCO2eq/MJ of bitumen, respectively, representing a wide range of variability in oil sands projects. Depending upon the cogeneration technology and the efficiency of the process, emissions in oil sands recovery and extraction can be reduced by 16–25% in surface mining and 33–48% in SAGD. Further, a sensitivity analysis was performed to determine the effects of key parameters on the GHG emissions in surface mining and SAGD. Temperature and the consumption of warm water in surface mining and the steam-to-oil ratio (SOR) in SAGD are major parameters affecting GHG emissions. The developed model can predict the energy consumption and emissions for surface mining and SAGD for oil sands.

Suggested Citation

  • Nimana, Balwinder & Canter, Christina & Kumar, Amit, 2015. "Energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in the recovery and extraction of crude bitumen from Canada’s oil sands," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 189-199.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:143:y:2015:i:c:p:189-199
    DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2015.01.024
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261915000306
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.apenergy.2015.01.024?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rudyk, Svetlana & Spirov, Pavel, 2014. "Upgrading and extraction of bitumen from Nigerian tar sand by supercritical carbon dioxide," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 1397-1404.
    2. Olateju, Babatunde & Kumar, Amit, 2013. "Techno-economic assessment of hydrogen production from underground coal gasification (UCG) in Western Canada with carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) for upgrading bitumen from oil sands," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 428-440.
    3. Kraemer, Daniel & Bajpayee, Anurag & Muto, Andy & Berube, Vincent & Chiesa, Matteo, 2009. "Solar assisted method for recovery of bitumen from oil sand," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 86(9), pages 1437-1441, September.
    4. Kapadia, Punitkumar R. & Wang, Jingyi (Jacky) & Kallos, Michael S. & Gates, Ian D., 2013. "Practical process design for in situ gasification of bitumen," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 281-296.
    5. Hofmann, Hannes & Babadagli, Tayfun & Zimmermann, Günter, 2014. "Hot water generation for oil sands processing from enhanced geothermal systems: Process simulation for different hydraulic fracturing scenarios," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 524-547.
    6. Doluweera, G.H. & Jordaan, S.M. & Moore, M.C. & Keith, D.W. & Bergerson, J.A., 2011. "Evaluating the role of cogeneration for carbon management in Alberta," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(12), pages 7963-7974.
    7. Brandt, Adam R. & Englander, Jacob & Bharadwaj, Sharad, 2013. "The energy efficiency of oil sands extraction: Energy return ratios from 1970 to 2010," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 693-702.
    8. Betancourt-Torcat, Alberto & Elkamel, Ali & Ricardez-Sandoval, Luis, 2012. "A modeling study of the effect of carbon dioxide mitigation strategies, natural gas prices and steam consumption on the Canadian Oil Sands operations," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 1018-1033.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Parra, Rony & Di Felice, Louisa Jane & Giampietro, Mario & Ramos-Martin, Jesus, 2018. "The metabolism of oil extraction: A bottom-up approach applied to the case of Ecuador," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 63-74.
    2. Sapkota, Krishna & Gemechu, Eskinder & Oni, Abayomi Olufemi & Ma, Linwei & Kumar, Amit, 2022. "Greenhouse gas emissions from Canadian oil sands supply chains to China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 251(C).
    3. Baidya, Durjoy & de Brito, Marco Antonio Rodrigues & Ghoreishi-Madiseh, Seyed Ali, 2020. "Techno-economic feasibility investigation of incorporating an energy storage with an exhaust heat recovery system for underground mines in cold climatic regions," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 273(C).
    4. Rui Xing & Diego V. Chiappori & Evan J. Arbuckle & Matthew T. Binsted & Evan G. R. Davies, 2021. "Canadian Oil Sands Extraction and Upgrading: A Synthesis of the Data on Energy Consumption, CO 2 Emissions, and Supply Costs," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-14, October.
    5. Di Lullo, Giovanni & Zhang, Hao & Kumar, Amit, 2017. "Uncertainty in well-to-tank with combustion greenhouse gas emissions of transportation fuels derived from North American crudes," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 475-486.
    6. You, Junyu & Ampomah, William & Sun, Qian, 2020. "Co-optimizing water-alternating-carbon dioxide injection projects using a machine learning assisted computational framework," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 279(C).
    7. Guo, John & Orellana, Andrea & Sleep, Sylvia & Laurenzi, Ian J. & MacLean, Heather L. & Bergerson, Joule A., 2020. "Statistically enhanced model of oil sands operations: Well-to-wheel comparison of in situ oil sands pathways," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    8. Soiket, Md.I.H. & Oni, A.O. & Kumar, A., 2019. "The development of a process simulation model for energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions of a vapor solvent-based oil sands extraction and recovery process," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 799-808.
    9. Rahman, Md. Mustafizur & Canter, Christina & Kumar, Amit, 2015. "Well-to-wheel life cycle assessment of transportation fuels derived from different North American conventional crudes," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 159-173.
    10. Daria Surovtseva & Enda Crossin & Robert Pell & Laurence Stamford, 2022. "Toward a life cycle inventory for graphite production," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 26(3), pages 964-979, June.
    11. Babkir Ali, 2020. "Integration of Impacts on Water, Air, Land, and Cost towards Sustainable Petroleum Oil Production in Alberta, Canada," Resources, MDPI, vol. 9(6), pages 1-17, May.
    12. Xia, Wenjie & Shen, Weijun & Yu, Li & Zheng, Chenggang & Yu, Weichu & Tang, Yongchun, 2016. "Conversion of petroleum to methane by the indigenous methanogenic consortia for oil recovery in heavy oil reservoir," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 646-655.
    13. Hannouf, Marwa & Assefa, Getachew & Gates, Ian, 2021. "Carbon intensity threshold for Canadian oil sands industry using planetary boundaries: Is a sustainable carbon-negative industry possible?," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    14. Lazzaroni, Edoardo Filippo & Elsholkami, Mohamed & Arbiv, Itai & Martelli, Emanuele & Elkamel, Ali & Fowler, Michael, 2016. "Energy infrastructure modeling for the oil sands industry: Current situation," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 181(C), pages 435-445.
    15. Liu, Hao & Cheng, Linsong & Wu, Keliu & Huang, Shijun & Maini, Brij B., 2018. "Assessment of energy efficiency and solvent retention inside steam chamber of steam- and solvent-assisted gravity drainage process," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 226(C), pages 287-299.
    16. Si, Minxing & Bai, Ling & Du, Ke, 2021. "Fuel consumption analysis and cap and trade system evaluation for Canadian in situ oil sands extraction," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    17. Nimana, Balwinder & Canter, Christina & Kumar, Amit, 2015. "Energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in upgrading and refining of Canada's oil sands products," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 65-79.
    18. Dai, Zhenxue & Zhang, Ye & Bielicki, Jeffrey & Amooie, Mohammad Amin & Zhang, Mingkan & Yang, Changbing & Zou, Youqin & Ampomah, William & Xiao, Ting & Jia, Wei & Middleton, Richard & Zhang, Wen & Sun, 2018. "Heterogeneity-assisted carbon dioxide storage in marine sediments," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 225(C), pages 876-883.
    19. Di Lullo, Giovanni & Zhang, Hao & Kumar, Amit, 2016. "Evaluation of uncertainty in the well-to-tank and combustion greenhouse gas emissions of various transportation fuels," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 184(C), pages 413-426.
    20. Ampomah, W. & Balch, R.S. & Cather, M. & Will, R. & Gunda, D. & Dai, Z. & Soltanian, M.R., 2017. "Optimum design of CO2 storage and oil recovery under geological uncertainty," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 195(C), pages 80-92.
    21. Nimana, Balwinder & Canter, Christina & Kumar, Amit, 2015. "Life cycle assessment of greenhouse gas emissions from Canada's oil sands-derived transportation fuels," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 544-554.
    22. Sapkota, Krishna & Oni, Abayomi Olufemi & Kumar, Amit & Linwei, Ma, 2018. "The development of a techno-economic model for the extraction, transportation, upgrading, and shipping of Canadian oil sands products to the Asia-Pacific region," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 223(C), pages 273-292.
    23. Radpour, Saeidreza & Gemechu, Eskinder & Ahiduzzaman, Md & Kumar, Amit, 2021. "Development of a framework for the assessment of the market penetration of novel in situ bitumen extraction technologies," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 220(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lazzaroni, Edoardo Filippo & Elsholkami, Mohamed & Arbiv, Itai & Martelli, Emanuele & Elkamel, Ali & Fowler, Michael, 2016. "Energy infrastructure modeling for the oil sands industry: Current situation," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 181(C), pages 435-445.
    2. Sapkota, Krishna & Oni, Abayomi Olufemi & Kumar, Amit & Linwei, Ma, 2018. "The development of a techno-economic model for the extraction, transportation, upgrading, and shipping of Canadian oil sands products to the Asia-Pacific region," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 223(C), pages 273-292.
    3. Akbilgic, Oguz & Zhu, Da & Gates, Ian D. & Bergerson, Joule A., 2015. "Prediction of steam-assisted gravity drainage steam to oil ratio from reservoir characteristics," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 93(P2), pages 1663-1670.
    4. Rui, Zhenhua & Wang, Xiaoqing & Zhang, Zhien & Lu, Jun & Chen, Gang & Zhou, Xiyu & Patil, Shirish, 2018. "A realistic and integrated model for evaluating oil sands development with Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage technology in Canada," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 213(C), pages 76-91.
    5. Hongtao Liu & Feng Chen & Yuanyuan Wang & Gang Liu & Hong Yao & Shuqin Liu, 2018. "Experimental Study of Reverse Underground Coal Gasification," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-13, October.
    6. Rui Xing & Diego V. Chiappori & Evan J. Arbuckle & Matthew T. Binsted & Evan G. R. Davies, 2021. "Canadian Oil Sands Extraction and Upgrading: A Synthesis of the Data on Energy Consumption, CO 2 Emissions, and Supply Costs," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-14, October.
    7. Liu, Hao & Cheng, Linsong & Wu, Keliu & Huang, Shijun & Maini, Brij B., 2018. "Assessment of energy efficiency and solvent retention inside steam chamber of steam- and solvent-assisted gravity drainage process," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 226(C), pages 287-299.
    8. Cheng, Linsong & Liu, Hao & Huang, Shijun & Wu, Keliu & Chen, Xiao & Wang, Daigang & Xiong, Hao, 2018. "Environmental and economic benefits of Solvent-Assisted Steam-Gravity Drainage for bitumen through horizontal well: A comprehensive modeling analysis," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 418-431.
    9. Giacchetta, Giancarlo & Leporini, Mariella & Marchetti, Barbara, 2015. "Economic and environmental analysis of a Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) facility for oil recovery from Canadian oil sands," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 1-9.
    10. Alade, Olalekan S. & Mahmoud, Mohamed & Al Shehri, Dhafer & Mokheimer, Esmail M.A. & Sasaki, Kyuro & Ohashi, Ryo & Kamal, Muhammad Shahzad & Muhammad, Isah & Al-Nakhli, Ayman, 2022. "Experimental and numerical studies on production scheme to improve energy efficiency of bitumen production through insitu oil-in-water (O/W) emulsion," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 244(PA).
    11. Rahman, Md. Mustafizur & Canter, Christina & Kumar, Amit, 2015. "Well-to-wheel life cycle assessment of transportation fuels derived from different North American conventional crudes," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 159-173.
    12. Verma, Aman & Kumar, Amit, 2015. "Life cycle assessment of hydrogen production from underground coal gasification," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 556-568.
    13. Zhang, Liang & Ezekiel, Justin & Li, Dexiang & Pei, Jingjing & Ren, Shaoran, 2014. "Potential assessment of CO2 injection for heat mining and geological storage in geothermal reservoirs of China," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 237-246.
    14. Zhaoyang Kong & Xiucheng Dong & Bo Xu & Rui Li & Qiang Yin & Cuifang Song, 2015. "EROI Analysis for Direct Coal Liquefaction without and with CCS: The Case of the Shenhua DCL Project in China," Energies, MDPI, vol. 8(2), pages 1-22, January.
    15. Campbell, Elliott T., 2015. "Emergy analysis of emerging methods of fossil fuel production," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 315(C), pages 57-68.
    16. Juan D. Antolinez & Rahman Miri & Alireza Nouri, 2023. "In Situ Combustion: A Comprehensive Review of the Current State of Knowledge," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(17), pages 1-27, August.
    17. Lina I. Brand-Correa & Paul E. Brockway & Claire L. Copeland & Timothy J. Foxon & Anne Owen & Peter G. Taylor, 2017. "Developing an Input-Output Based Method to Estimate a National-Level Energy Return on Investment (EROI)," Energies, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-21, April.
    18. Szoplik, Jolanta, 2015. "Forecasting of natural gas consumption with artificial neural networks," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 208-220.
    19. Gavenas, Ekaterina & Rosendahl, Knut Einar & Skjerpen, Terje, 2015. "CO2-emissions from Norwegian oil and gas extraction," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 90(P2), pages 1956-1966.
    20. Soria, Rafael & Portugal-Pereira, Joana & Szklo, Alexandre & Milani, Rodrigo & Schaeffer, Roberto, 2015. "Hybrid concentrated solar power (CSP)–biomass plants in a semiarid region: A strategy for CSP deployment in Brazil," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 57-72.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:143:y:2015:i:c:p:189-199. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.