Nature Communications (Apr 2019)

Measured Canadian oil sands CO2 emissions are higher than estimates made using internationally recommended methods

  • John Liggio,
  • Shao-Meng Li,
  • Ralf M. Staebler,
  • Katherine Hayden,
  • Andrea Darlington,
  • Richard L. Mittermeier,
  • Jason O’Brien,
  • Robert McLaren,
  • Mengistu Wolde,
  • Doug Worthy,
  • Felix Vogel

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-09714-9
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 10, no. 1
pp. 1 – 9

Abstract

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Evaluating GHG emissions reported to inventories for the oil and gas (O&G) sector is important for countries with resource-based economies. Here the authors provide a top-down assessment of GHG emissions from the Canadian oil sands and find previous inventory reports underestimate emissions, by as much as 64% for surface mining facilities and 30% for the entire oil sands compared with their assessment.