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Source: Getty
Other
The Oil-Climate Index: Assessing GHG Emission Impacts Across the Oil Value Chain
Oil is one of the world’s most durable global commodities. With few ready commercial substitutes, its extraordinary staying power is demonstrated by its enduring energy sector dominance, even as market prices fluctuate dramatically and geopolitical disruptions strike.
Published on Sep 1, 2017
Source: chapter in Encyclopedia of Sustainability Technologies
Chapter Summary
Oil is one of the world’s most durable global commodities. With few ready commercial substitutes, its extraordinary staying power is demonstrated by its enduring energy sector dominance, even as market prices fluctuate dramatically and geopolitical disruptions strike. In addition to ever present economic and security concerns, climate change is a third factor that must now be fully considered. This puts a premium on the ability to quantify greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through the oil value chain to see how they vary in upstream production and crude transport, midstream refining, and downstream product transport and end use. To address this knowledge gap, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in collaboration with researchers at Stanford University and the University of Calgary, developed a first-of-its-kind Oil Climate Index (OCI). This open source web tool conducts a “crude-centric” lifecycle assessment of oil from the barrel forward through consumption of all its end products. The OCI demonstrates that total GHG emissions can vary significantly—by as much as nearly a factor of two overall, depending on the oil itself and the operating techniques employed, and a factor of ten in upstream and midstream GHG emissions. Given available data, competing fossil fuel resources can be modeled using the OCI to identify emissions reduction opportunities to successfully manage their GHG emissions.
The variations in GHG emissions between oils are large enough to matter. These differences should prompt innovations in data collection, analysis, risk assessment, and policy design. The “crude-centric” approach can help producers, refiners, oil traders, policymakers, investors, academics, NGOs, and the public focus attention on successfully mitigating total GHG emissions from the oils sector. Accomplishing these goals will require widespread adoption of this new way of “crude-centric” thinking. Future phases of the OCI will continue to probe energy sustainability via innovation, including the forthcoming addition of the GHG assessment of global gas fields to the OCI.
This chapter was originally pulished in the Encyclopedia of Sustainable Technologies.
About the Authors
Deborah Gordon
Former Director and Senior Fellow, Energy and Climate Program
Gordon was director of Carnegie’s Energy and Climate Program, where her research focuses on oil and climate change issues in North America and globally.
Jeffrey Feldman
Former Junior Fellow, Energy and Climate Program
Joule Bergerson
Joule Bergerson is an assistant professor at the University of Calgary. Her primary research interests are systems-level analysis for policy and decision making of energy system investment and management.
Adam Brandt
Adam Brandt is an assistant professor at Stanford University. He is interested in reducing the environmental impacts of energy systems.
Jonathan Koomey
Jonathan Koomey is a researcher, author, lecturer, and entrepreneur whose work spans climate solutions, critical thinking skills, and the energy and environmental effects of information technology.
Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.
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