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UK Bank & WWF Report: CCS can’t significantly reduce tar sands emissions
By Lisa McCrummen
Monday, October 26, 2009
Today a damning new report from the Co-operative Financial Services and WWF-UK debunks the idea that carbon capture and storage (CCS) will significantly counter the high levels of greenhouse gases emitted in the production of oil from tar sands deposits in Alberta, Canada.
Carbon Capture and Storage in the Alberta Oil Sands – A Dangerous Myth warns that carbon capture can not significantly reduce tar sands emissions. Using the oil industry’s own best-case estimate – that 30 per cent of carbon emissions could be captured by 2030 and 50 per cent by 2050 – the analysts note that this falls far short of the reduction needed to make tar sands oil compare favorably with conventional crude.
The conclusion: CCS for dirty oil sands is simply too little, too late, and too expensive to qualify as a climate solution.
Even top oil industry leaders like the CEO of BP publicly suggest CCS won’t work when it comes to oil sands.
We’re left with a whole lot of questions: Will this report raise the ire of Canadians, coming on the heels of Canada/Alberta’s controversial $865 million significant public subsidy to pilot the first dirty oil sands CCS project? Will it put additional pressure on U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu who has said that technology can solve dirty oil sands environmental problems? Or will Canada continue to ignore the facts with more special treatment for the Tar Sands?
Read the press release for Carbon Capture and Storage in the Alberta Oil Sands – A Dangerous Myth
Tagged with: greenhouse gases, wwf-uk, carbon capture and storage
