[Vision2020] Kill Keystone XL Pipeline

[Ted Moffett]

Thanks for posting this...

I sent a response from the website you gave, and included a URL to the
following superb climate science analysis regarding the Canadian tar sands
oil project, from climate scientist Raymond T. Pierrehumbert, whose bio and
academic work can be investigated here:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/raymond-t-pierrehumbert/

Pierrehumbert's analysis contradicts the often heard claim that climate
science cannot predict with any reliability what magnitude of changes human
CO2 emissions will bring to the Earth over a centuries long time scale:
the changes are likely to be over centuries and more, and are dramatic.

Of course, the odds of the US Senate mostly basing their decisions on
Keystone XL on a well researched scientific analysis of the risks to
Earth's climate system, from continued massive human CO2 emissions, is very
low.  In part the reason for this is simply that, as for most politicians,
they are often not motivated to risk their political life on challenging
powerful short term economic interests, to prevent harm that is 50 and more
years away, given they will not then be answering to voters, when
anthropogenic climate change will more and more begin to wreck havoc upon
most of us, most everywhere on Earth.  They will, many of them, if still
alive, be retired and living in luxury partly based on the economic
opportunities most every US Senator enjoys:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/11/keystone-xl-game-over/
 Keystone XL: Game over?
Filed under:

   - Carbon cycle<http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/category/climate-science/carbon-cycle/>
   - Climate Science<http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/category/climate-science/>

— raypierre @ 2 November 2011

 The impending Obama administration decision on the Keystone XL Pipeline,
which would tap into the Athabasca Oil Sands production of Canada, has
given rise to a vigorous grassroots opposition
movement<http://www.thenation.com/blog/164082/stop-pipeline-rise-against-keystone-xl>,
leading to the arrests so far of over a thousand activists. At the very
least, the protests have increased awareness of the implications of
developing the oil sands deposits. Statements about the pipeline abound.

Jim Hansen has said that if the Athabasca Oil Sands are tapped, it’s
“essentially
game over”<http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/27/idUS323166223820110627>for
any hope of achieving a stable climate. The same news article quotes
Bill McKibben as saying that the pipeline represents “the fuse to biggest
carbon bomb on the planet.” Others say the pipeline is no big deal, and
that the brouhaha is sidetracking us from thinking about bigger climate
issues. David Keith, energy and climate pundit at Calgary University,
expresses that sentiment here<http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/38870/>,
and Andy Revkin
says<http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/05/can-obama-escape-the-alberta-tar-pit/>“it’s
a distraction from core issues and opportunities on energy and
largely insignificant if your concern is averting a disruptive buildup of
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere”. There’s something to be said in favor of
each point of view, but on the whole, I think Bill McKibben has the better
of the argument, with some important qualifications. Let’s do the
arithmetic.

There is no shortage of environmental threats associated with the Keystone
XL pipeline. Notably, the route goes through the environmentally sensitive
Sandhills region of Nebraska, a decision opposed even by some supporters of
the pipeline<http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-26/transcanada-s-keystone-pipeline-threatened-by-proposed-nebraska-re-routing.html>.
One could also keep in mind the vast areas of Alberta that are churned up
by the oil sands mining process
itself<http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/oct/30/energy.oilandpetrol>.
But here I will take up only the climate impact of the pipeline and
associated oil sands exploitation. For that, it is important to first get a
feel for what constitutes an “important” amount of carbon.

That part is relatively easy. The kind of climate we wind up with is
largely determined by the total amount of carbon we emit into the
atmosphere as CO2 in the time before we finally kick the fossil fuel habit
(by choice or by virtue of simply running out). The link between cumulative
carbon and climate was discussed at RealClimate
here<http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/04/hit-the-brakes-hard/>when
the papers on the subject first came out in Nature. A good
introduction to the work can be found in this National Research Council
report <http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12877> on Climate
Stabilization targets, of which I was a co-author. Here’s all you ever
really need to know about CO2 emissions and climate:

   - The peak warming is linearly proportional to the cumulative carbon
   emitted
   - It doesn’t matter much how rapidly the carbon is emitted
   - The warming you get when you stop emitting carbon is what you are
   stuck with for the next thousand years
   - The climate recovers only slightly over the next ten thousand years
   - At the mid-range of IPCC climate sensitivity, a trillion tonnes
   cumulative carbon gives you about 2C global mean warming above the
   pre-industrial temperature.

This graph gives you an idea of what the Anthropocene climate looks like as
a function of how much carbon we emit before giving up the fossil fuel
habit, without even taking into account the possibility of carbon cycle
feedbacks leading to a release of stored terrestrial carbon The graph is
from the NRC report, and is based on simulations with the U. of Victoria
climate/carbon model tuned to yield the mid-range IPCC climate sensitivity.
Assuming a 50-50 chance that climate sensitivity is at or below this value,
we thus have a 50-50 chance of holding warming below 2C if cumulative
emissions are held to a trillion tonnes. Including deforestation, we have
already emitted about half that, so our whole future allowance is another
500 gigatonnes.

Proved reserves of conventional oil add up to 139 gigatonnes C (based on
data here <http://www.eia.gov/emeu/international/reserves.html> and the
conversion factor in Table 6 here <http://cdiac.ornl.gov/pns/convert.html>,
assuming an average crude oil density of 850 kg per cubic meter). To be
specific, that’s 1200 billion barrels times .16 cubic meters per barrel
times .85 metric tonnes per cubic meter crude times .85 tonnes carbon per
tonne crude. (Some other estimates, e.g. Nehring
(2009)<http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/364/1532/3067.abstract>,
put the amount of ultimately recoverable oil in known reserves about 50%
higher). To the carbon in conventional petroleum reserves you can add about
100 gigatonnes C from proved natural gas reserves, based on the same
sources as I used for oil. If one assumes that these two reserves are so
valuable and easily accessible that it’s inevitable they will get burned,
that leaves only 261 gigatonnes from all other fossil fuel sources. How
does that limit stack up against what’s in the Athabasca oil sands deposit?

The geological literature generally puts the amount of bitumen in-place at
1.7 trillion barrels (e.g. see the numbers and references quoted
here<http://aapgbull.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/93/2/203>).
That oil in-place is heavy oil, with a density close to a metric tonne per
cubic meter, so the associated carbon adds up to about 230 gigatonnes —
essentially enough to close the “game over” gap. But oil-in-place is not
the same as economically recoverable oil. That’s a moving target, as oil
prices, production prices and technology evolve. At present, it is
generally figured that only 10% of the oil-in-place is economically
recoverable. However, continued development of in-situ production methods
could bump up economically recoverable reserves considerably. For example this
working paper<http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/11/keystone-xl-game-over/www.npc.org/Study_Topic_Papers/22-TTG-Heavy-Oil.pdf>(pdf)
from the National Petroleum Council estimates that Steam Assisted
Gravity Drainage could recover up to 70% of oil-in-place at a cost of below
$20 per barrel *.

Aside from the carbon from oil in-place, one needs to figure in the
additional carbon emissions from the energy used to extract the oil. For
in-situ extraction this increases the carbon footprint by 23% to 41% (as
reviewed here <http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/4/1/014005>) .
Currently, most of the energy used in production comes from natural gas
(hence the push for a pipeline to pump Alaskan gas to Canada). So, we need
to watch out for double-counting here, because our “game-over” estimate
already assumed that the natural gas would be used for one thing or
another. A knock-on effect of oil sands development is that it drives up
demand for natural gas, displacing its use in electricity generation and
making it more likely coal will be burned for such purposes. And if high
natural gas prices cause oil sands producers to turn from natural gas to
coal for energy, things get even worse, because coal releases more carbon
per unit of energy produced — carbon that we have *not* already counted in
our “game-over” estimate.

Are the oil sands really the “biggest carbon bomb on the planet”? As a
point of reference, let’s compare its net carbon content with the Gillette
Coalfield in the Powder river basin, one of the largest coal deposits in
the world. There are 150 billion metric tons left in this deposit,
according to the USGS <http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2008/1202/>. How much of
that is economically recoverable depends on price and technology. The USGS
estimates that about half can be economically mined if coal fetches $60 per
ton on the market, but let’s assume that all of the Gillette coal can be
eventually recovered. Powder River coal is sub-bituminous, and contains
only 45% carbon by weight. (Don’t take that as good news, because it has
correspondingly lower energy content so you burn more of it as compared to
higher carbon coal like Anthracite; Powder River coal is mined largely
because of its low sulfur content). Thus, the carbon in the Powder River
coal amounts to 67.5 gigatonnes, far below the carbon content of the
Athabasca Oil Sands. So yes, the Keystone XL pipeline does tap into a very
big carbon bomb indeed.

But comparison of the Athabaska Oil Sands to an individual coal deposit
isn’t really fair, since there are only two major oil sands deposits (the
other being in Venezuela) while coal deposits are widespread. Nehring
(2009)<http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/364/1532/3067.abstract>estimates
that world economically recoverable coal amounts to 846
gigatonnes, based on 2005 prices and technology. Using a mean carbon ratio
of .75 (again from Table 6 here <http://cdiac.ornl.gov/pns/convert.html>),
that’s 634 gigatonnes of carbon, which all by itself is more than enough to
bring us well past “game-over.” The accessible carbon pool in coal is sure
to rise as prices increase and extraction technology advances, but the real
imponderable is how much coal remains to be discovered. But any way you
slice it, coal is still the 800-gigatonne gorilla at the carbon party.

Commentators who argue that the Keystone XL pipeline is no big deal tend to
focus on the rate at which the pipeline delivers oil to users (and thence
as CO2 to the atmosphere). To an extent, they have a point. The pipeline
would carry 500,000 barrels per day, and assuming that we’re talking about
lighter crude by the time it gets in the pipeline that adds up to a
piddling 2 gigatonnes carbon in a hundred years (exercise: Work this out
for yourself given the numbers I stated earlier in this post). However,
building Keystone XL lets the camel’s nose in the tent. It is more than a
little disingenuous to say the carbon in the Athabasca Oil Sands mostly has
to be left in the ground, but before we’ll do this, we’ll just use a bit of
it. It’s like an alcoholic who says he’ll leave the vodka in the kitchen
cupboard, but first just take “one little sip.”

So the pipeline itself is really just a skirmish in the battle to protect
climate, and if the pipeline gets built despite Bill McKibben’s dedicated
army of protesters, that does not mean in and of itself that it’s “game
over” for holding warming to 2C. Further, if we do hit a trillion tonnes,
it may be “game-over” for holding warming to 2C (apart from praying for low
climate sensitivity), but it’s not “game-over” for avoiding the second
trillion tonnes, which would bring the likely warming up to 4C. The fight
over Keystone XL may be only a skirmish, but for those (like the fellow in this
arresting photo
<http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/nasa-scientist-hansen-arrested-at-tar-sands-protest-a-grim-sign-of-the-times-20110831>)
who seek to limit global warming, it is an important one. It may be too
late to halt existing oil sands projects, but the exploitation of this
carbon pool has just barely begun. If the Keystone XL pipeline is built, it
surely smooths the way for further expansions of the market for oil sands
crude. Turning down XL, in contrast, draws a line in the oil sands, and
affirms the principle that this carbon shall not
pass<http://www.realclimate.org/images//balrog.jpg>into the
atmosphere.

* *Note added 4/11/2011*: Prompted by Andrew Leach’s comment (#50 below), I
should clarify that the working paper cited refers to recovery of
bitumen-in-place on a per-project basis, and should not be taken as an
estimate of the total amount that could be recovered from oil sands as a
whole. I cite this only as an example of where the technology is headed.
------------------------------------------
Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 6:21 PM, Ellen Roskovich <gussie443 at hotmail.com>wrote:

>  Friends-
> Right now, the Senate is considering legislation that would resurrect the
> Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. President Obama rejected this toxic
> disaster-in-the-making last month, and now Big Oil's representatives in
> Congress are trying to force its approval.
> It looks like a deal might be coming together in the next 24 hours. I've
> just joined a huge effort to blitz the Senate with messages opposing
> Keystone XL - the entire environmental movement is coming together to send
> over 500,000 messages to Congress in under 24 hours. Can you join me?
> The place to go to send a message is here: act.350.org/sign/kxl/
> If you haven't heard of Keystone XL or don't know about the tar sands,
> here's the short summary: Keystone XL is a proposed 1700 mile pipeline
> connecting the Alberta tar sands with refineries on the Gulf Coast. The tar
> sands are North America's largest pool of carbon, and NASA's top scientist
> James Hansen says that exploiting them means 'essentially game over' for
> the climate. Keystone will ship tar sands oil across critical water
> supplies and sensitive ecosystems just so it can be exported to foreign
> markets from refineries in Texas. The job benefits are way overstated, and
> overall it is just a scam designed to line Big Oil's pockets at our own
> expense.
> Thanks a bunch.
>
> Ellen A. Roskovich
>
>
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