The increasing “upstream” CO2 emissions of ICEVs examined

[edatoakrun]

The analysis below supports my contention that an ICEV probably causes more CO2 emissions per mile “upstream”, just to fill the gas tank, before you even start to burn the gas and pump CO2 out of the tailpipe, than does my BEV per mile in total, by charging at night on the California grid.

And, while every BEV gets “cleaner“ each year, as the grid becomes less carbon-intensive, a gasoline-fueled ICEV gets “dirtier” each year, as more and more heavy crude and tar is refined to feed the insatiable petroleum fuel market.

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2012/12/prelim-20121209.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

New petroleum refining lifecycle model finds the variability in GHG emissions from refining different crudes as significant as magnitude expected in upstream operations


...Using a scenario analysis to explore the implications of processing crudes of different qualities in different refinery configurations, and with a focus on oil sands products, they found differences of up to 14 g CO2eq/MJ of crude, or up to 11 g CO2eq/MJ of gasoline and 19 g CO2eq/MJ of diesel (the margin of deviation in the emissions estimates is roughly 10%). Put another way, “the variability in GHG emissions in the refining stage that results from processing crudes of different qualities is as significant as the magnitude expected in upstream operations”, they found....

the petroleum refining industry is the second-largest stationary emitter of GHG in the US, and the third-largest in the world. Annual GHG emissions from a large refinery are comparable to the emissions of a typical 500 MW coal-fired power plant. In the US, GHG emissions from refineries in 2010 represented nearly 12% of US industrial sector emissions or 3% of the total US GHG emissions..


in 1990, the fraction of imported crude into the US classified as heavy (at or below API gravity, a measure of density, of 20) was roughly 4%. By 2010 this fraction had increased to 15%. Between 2008 and 2015, it is estimated that more than $15 billion will be spent to add processing capacity specifically for heavy crude blends in US refineries. Each refinery must decide whether and how much they will process heavy crude while considering that processing such crudes requires more energy and results in higher refinery GHG emissions...

 

[ksnogas2112]

Good points. I forgot that tar sand crude is more energy intensive to process than sweet "peak" crude which changes the net energy of the final product in addition to the emissions cost to produce.