Green Car Congress

MARCH 18, 2012

Bitumen production from the Canadian oil sands provides a point of reference that could be used to observe and better manage the land and water impacts of a rapid transition to unconventional fuels, suggests Dr. Sarah Jordaan of the Energy Technology Innovation Policy Research Group, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University.

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Oil-Sands Water Oil Fuel 231

Green Car Congress

JANUARY 16, 2012

A team of two researchers from Natural Resources Canada’s CanmetENERGY reports on a new process for solvent extraction of bitumen from mineable Athabasca oil sands (i.e., The Clark hot water extraction (CHWE) process has been applied in commercial bitumen extraction from the Athabasca oil sands for more than 40 years.

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Oil-Sands Water Oil Canada 231

Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 26, 2012

The Utah Water Quality Board, in a 9-2 vote this week, agreed with the August 2012 recommendations of an administrative law judge (ALJ) upholding a permit-by-rule issued by the Division of Water Quality (DWQ) for the proposed PR Spring an oil sands mine on state land in eastern Utah. Source: USOS, DWQ. Click to enlarge.

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Oil-Sands Utah Water Oil 210

Green Car Congress

DECEMBER 6, 2013

The Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute (ABMI) released the first comprehensive report on the status of Alberta’s species in the Athabasca Oil Sands Area (AOSA). It also contains the Athabasca oil sands deposit, which represents 77% of Canada’s proven oil reserves and supports a growing energy extraction sector. “

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Oil-Sands Oil 2010 Canada 236

Green Car Congress

APRIL 27, 2013

Alberta’s Innovative Energy Technologies Program (IETP) is supporting 5 new pilot projects to reduce energy use, water use and CO 2 emissions in oil sands processing as well as improving the recovery of crude oil and bitumen in reserves that were once unrecoverable. Imperial Oil Ltd., Imperial Oil Ltd.

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Oil-Sands Water Oil Polymer 218

Green Car Congress

JULY 7, 2012

Well-to-wheel (WTW) greenhouse gas emissions for in situ SAGD and surface mining pathways generated employing GHOST/TIAX/ GHGenius combination and comparison with SAGD, mining and conventional crude oil literature pathways (all results are on a HHV basis). 74% of WTW emissions in our oil sands pathways. Click to enlarge.

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Oil-Sands Oil Gas-Electric Emissions 287

Green Car Congress

JULY 10, 2015

A team at the University of Calgary (Canada) has compared the energy intensities and lifecycle GHG emissions of unconventional oils (oil sands and oil shale) alongside shale gas, coal, lignite, wood and conventional oil and gas. This is not the same as crude oil occurring naturally in shales, as in the Bakken.

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Oil-Sands Oil Energy Fuel 150

Green Car Congress

FEBRUARY 3, 2012

Proposed oil sands monitoring by 2015. The Government of Canada and Government of Alberta unveiled “The Joint Canada-Alberta Implementation Plan for Oil Sands Monitoring” in a partnership to improve environmental monitoring in the oil sands region with a program that will sample more sites for more substances more frequently.

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Oil-Sands Canada Oil Water 274

Green Car Congress

JULY 17, 2011

A study by a team from the State Key Laboratory of Heavy Oil Processing, China University of Petroleum found that fluid thermal processing of. il sands is a feasible process for the production of an upgraded bitumen-derived liquid from Inner Mongolian oil sand. Oil sands exploration in Xing’an region.

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Oil-Sands Oil Mongolia Conversion 218

Green Car Congress

FEBRUARY 4, 2014

Results from a new modeling assessment of contamination in the Athabasca Oil Sands Region (AOSR) suggest that officially reported emissions of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in that region have been greatly underestimated. Accounting for evaporative emissions (e.g., Average emissions densities from Shen et al.

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Oil-Sands Oil Emissions Pollution 220

Green Car Congress

MARCH 13, 2012

Researchers at the University of Alberta (Canada) have quantified the transformation of the boreal landscape by open-pit oil sands mining in Alberta, Canada to evaluate its effect on carbon storage and sequestration. Oil sands mining and reclamation cause massive loss of peatland and stored carbon. —Rooney et al.

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Oil-Sands Oil Carbon Conversion 270

Green Car Congress

MAY 12, 2017

Alberta Innovates has teamed up with Natural Resources (NRCan) and industry partners to take three clean oil sands technologies to commercial demonstration. This announcement is a result of NRCan’s Oil and Gas Clean Tech Program. Cenovus Energy will test an oil sands extraction technology using a solvent-driven process.

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Oil-Sands Oil Clean Cleaning 150

Green Car Congress

JULY 18, 2012

Canada’s Environment Minister Peter Kent, and Alberta’s Environment and Sustainable Resource Development Minister Diana McQueen toured several of the new oil sands monitoring stations now in place in the early stages of implementation of the Joint Canada-Alberta Implementation Plan for Oil Sands Monitoring.

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Oil-Sands Oil Canada Water 236

Green Car Congress

SEPTEMBER 20, 2011

Grizzly Oil Sands ULC has selected GE’s (NYSE: GE) produced water evaporation technology for its Algar Lake project near Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada. Until recently, SAGD produced water could not be recycled as boiler feedwater because conventional treatment technologies were unable to produce the necessary water quality.

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Oil-Sands Water Oil 2006 210

Green Car Congress

JULY 22, 2011

Summary of the current oil sands developments (mining and in-situ) and associated land use. Canada’s Environment Minister Peter Kent released an integrated monitoring plan for the oil sands region. fail in its goal of generating the data necessary to provide assurance that the oil sands are.

Oil-Sands 199

Oil-Sands Canada Oil Water 199

Green Car Congress

MARCH 17, 2011

A team from the University of Plymouth (UK) and Environment Canada has identified, for the first time, individual soluble naphthenic acids (NA) in the process water resulting from the oil sands industry in Canada. Frank (2011) Diamonds in the Rough: Identification of Individual Naphthenic Acids in Oil Sands Process Water.

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Oil-Sands Water Oil Canada 186

Green Car Congress

APRIL 27, 2012

The majority (62%) of the plantations were located on the island of Sumatra, and more than two-thirds (69%) of all industrial plantations were developed for oil palm cultivation, with the remainder mostly being Acacia plantations for paper pulp production. —Miettinen et al. Earlier post.).

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Oil-Sands Oil Emissions Climate 314

Green Car Congress

JUNE 12, 2012

A technology and energy production consortium has successfully completed initial proof-of-concept testing of a novel oil sands extraction method that has the potential to improve environmental performance and reduce development costs. The consortium of Laricina Energy, Nexen Inc., Approximately 1.6

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Oil-Sands Oil Water Climate Change 231

Green Car Congress

AUGUST 27, 2010

A team at Penn State University has demonstrated that a previously developed method employing ionic liquids (ILs) together with a nonpolar solvent such as toluene can effect a separation of bitumen from oil sands in the Western US at ambient temperatures (~25 °C), although with greater difficulty than Canadian oil sands.

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Oil-Sands Utah Water Oil 210

Green Car Congress

MARCH 17, 2011

Separation of bitumen from a Canadian oil sand sample using an ionic liquid. A team of researchers at Penn State has developed a new, more environmentally friendly method of separating bitumen from oil sands utilizing ionic liquids (IL). Oil sands represent approximately two-thirds of the world’s estimated oil reserves.

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Oil-Sands Oil Saudi Arabia Water 257

Green Car Congress

JANUARY 6, 2012

In a paper published in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology , Stanford University assistant professor Adam Brandt reviews a number of recent life cycle assessment (LCA) studies calculating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from oil sands extraction, upgrading, and refining pathways—the results of which vary considerably.

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Oil-Sands Oil Production Emissions 225

Green Car Congress

AUGUST 14, 2010

Canadian Natural Resources (CNRL), an independent crude oil and natural gas producer, is applying a technique at its Horizon oil sands plant that uses CO 2 to change the water chemistry of the tailings, resulting in accelerated settling and greatly reduced water use.

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Oil-Sands Water Oil CO2 210

Green Car Congress

NOVEMBER 2, 2011

Researchers from Tianjin University and the National Engineering Research Centre for Distillation Technology, Tianjin, China, report on the use of an ionic liquid (IL) with low viscosity to enhance bitumen recovery from oil sands by solvent extraction while reducing adverse impacts in the ACS journal Energy & Fuels.

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Oil-Sands Water Oil Sodium 170

Green Car Congress

MAY 19, 2013

The Government of Canada is supporting a three-year project that will result in the construction of a $19-million, demonstration-scale facility in Alberta that will use algae to recycle industrial carbon dioxide emissions from an oil sands facility into commercial products such as biofuels. Click to enlarge.

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Oil-Sands Canada Oil Conversion 199

Green Car Congress

AUGUST 13, 2013

A comprehensive environmental field study to gather information on air contaminants in the Wood Buffalo region in northeast Alberta, Canada (home to major oil sands projects) will occur from 12 August to mid-September 2013. Evaluate high-resolution air quality models for use in the oil sands region. Earlier post.).

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Oil-Sands Canada Oil Pollution 199

Green Car Congress

SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

SOLVE adds a solvent to the steam in SAGD (basic operation depicted above) to reduce energy input and water consumption. The production well extracts the bitumen to surface heavy oil production facilities. SAGD is the predominant in-situ recovery method currently used in Canada’s oil sands. Source: StatoilHydro.

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Oil-Sands Oil Water Canada 218

Green Car Congress

JUNE 17, 2015

Exxon Mobil has started production at its Kearl oil sands expansion project in Alberta, Canada ahead of schedule; the expansion is expected to double overall capacity to 220,000 barrels of bitumen a day, with the expansion itself ultimately expected to reach 110,000 barrels per day. billion barrels of resource for more than 40 years.

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Oil-Sands Oil Angola Nigeria 150

Green Car Congress

JUNE 28, 2011

GS Engineering & Construction (GS E&C) has selected GE to supply the produced water evaporation and zero liquid discharge (ZLD) system for the Blackgold Oil Sands project, located near Conklin, Alberta. Blackgold is owned and operated by a subsidiary of the Korean National Oil Corp.

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Oil-Sands Waste Oil Water 186

Green Car Congress

DECEMBER 5, 2011

US-based Devon Energy Corporation has received regulatory approval from the Alberta Energy Resources Conservation Board and Alberta Environment and Water to move forward with the company’s third oil sands project in Canada. Devon’s Jackfish projects are designed to utilize saline water rather than fresh water.

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Oil-Sands Oil Energy Water 170

Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 18, 2012

The new science-based agency will begin work in the oil sands region and will focus on what is monitored, how it’s monitored and where it’s monitored. This will include integrated and coordinated monitoring of land, air, water and biodiversity.

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Oil-Sands Oil Canada Water 218

Green Car Congress

NOVEMBER 1, 2013

and Teck Resources Limited, is proceeding with the Fort Hills oil sands mining project, located 90 kilometers (56 miles) north of Fort McMurray. The project is scheduled to produce first oil as early as the fourth quarter of 2017 and achieve 90% of its planned production capacity of 180,000 barrels per day within 12 months.

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Oil-Sands Oil Energy Canada 199

Green Car Congress

FEBRUARY 26, 2013

Transmitting oil sands production. Synthetic crude is produced by upgrading bitumen and is a blend of naphtha, distillate and gas oil range materials produced by hydrotreating the naphtha, distillate and gas oil generated in a delayed coking unit.).

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Oil-Sands Oil Water International 225

Green Car Congress

MAY 31, 2012

The Alberta Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB) has given approval to Cenovus Energy Inc. to proceed with its Narrows Lake oil sands project, with an ultimate gross production capacity of 130,000 barrels per day. SAP combines steam injection with solvents, such as butane, to help bring the oil to the surface.

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Oil-Sands Oil Production Conversion 210

Green Car Congress

DECEMBER 28, 2011

Athabasca Oil Sands Corp. AOSC) announced that the Alberta Energy Resources Conservation Board and Alberta Environment and Water has issued full regulatory approval for the MacKay River commercial oil sands project to MacKay Operating Corp. Earlier post.) ( Earlier post.)

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Oil-Sands Oil Commercial Companies 199

Green Car Congress

JANUARY 3, 2012

Athabasca Oil Sands Corp. has exercised its option to divest its 40% interest in the MacKay River oil sands project to Cretaceous Oilsands Holdings Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of PetroChina International Investment Limited, for C$680 million (US$672 million) in cash. Earlier post.) Earlier post.). Earlier post.).

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Oil-Sands Oil 2010 2012 170

Green Car Congress

JULY 21, 2011

(JAPEX) plans to invest ¥65-70 billion (US$830–893 million) in its Canadian oil sands projects, Chief Executive Osamu Watanabe told Dow Jones Newswires. China’s biggest offshore oil and gas producer, said it will buy Canadian oil-sands developer OPTI Canada Inc. Oil sands production using SAGD.

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Oil-Sands Canada Oil Water 186

Green Car Congress

JUNE 18, 2010

Suncor Energy has received conditional approval for its oil sands fluid tailings management plan from Alberta’s Energy Resources Conservation Board ( ERCB ). Tailings are a mixture of fine clay, sands, water and residual bitumen produced through the oil sands extraction process, and are held in massive “ponds”.

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Oil-Sands Oil Energy Canada 210