Canadian oil sands

Congressional Research Service Canadian Oil Sands: Life-Cycle Assessments of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Scope and Purpose of This Report After discussing the basic methodology of life-cycle assessments and examining the choice of boundaries, design features, and input assumptions, this report compares several of the publicly available assessments of life-cycle emissions data for Canadian oil sands c [...] Congressional Research Service 1 Canadian Oil Sands: Life-Cycle Assessments of Greenhouse Gas Emissions the rate or magnitude of oil extraction activities in Canada or the overall volume of crude oil transported to and refined in the United States.6 This report presents a summary of life-cycle emissions assessments of Canadian oil sands crudes and provides an analysis of their respective findings. [...] The second section of the report, “Results of Selected Life-Cycle Emissions Assessments,” compares several of the publicly available assessments of life-cycle GHG emissions data for Canadian oil sands crudes against each other, against those of other global reference crudes, and against those of other fossil fuel resources. [...] LCAs can be used in this way to identify, quantify, and track emissions of carbon dioxide and other GHG emissions arising from the development of these hydrocarbon resources, and to express them in a single, universal metric of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) GHG emissions per unit of fuel or fuel use.7 This figure is commonly referred to as the “emissions intensity” of the fuel. [...] The results of an LCA can be used to evaluate the GHG emissions intensity of various stages of the fuel’s life cycle, as well as to compare the emissions intensity of one type of fuel or method of production to another.