A new peer-reviewed study funded by the U.S. Department of Energy says Canada’s oil sands greenhouse gas emissions are an average of 20% higher than U.S. conventional crude, adding ammunition to opponents of the Keystone XL pipeline and other critics of surging Canadian crude production. The study, conducted by DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory in collaboration with researchers at Stanford University and the University of California-Berkeley’s Institute of Transport Studies, calculated greenhouse gas emissions from oil field extraction to the tail pipe in a so-called well-to-wheel analysis. Noting oil sands output is projected to more than double in the next 15 years and that much of that crude could wind up in the U.S., the study said “higher [well-to-wheel] emissions for gasoline and diesel production in the U.S. are expected when oil sands products become a larger fraction of the U.S. fuel mix.” “All crudes are not created equally,” Hao […]