Climate

Climate Change and Greenhouse Gases

As the world’s leading scientists debate the nature of climate change, a lot of attention has been focused on the potential role of carbon dioxide (CO2), a naturally occurring compound that is considered to be a “greenhouse gas” because it helps trap heat from the sun. Human activity—including all combustion of oil and gas for transportation, building heat, power generation, industrial manufacturing, etc.—generates less than five percent of total atmospheric CO2. Nevertheless, the oil and natural gas industry is exploring ways to reduce CO2 emissions, and to capture and store CO2, as part of its overall drive to ensure that its operations and products are increasingly energy efficient and environmentally benign.

New approaches to cutting CO2 emissions

The API Climate Action Challenge focuses on voluntary greenhouse gas emissions reductions. A centerpiece of this effort is a commitment by API member refiners to improve their energy efficiency by 10 percent between 2002 and 2012. The improvements for the first two years show that companies are on track to meeting their goal, saving energy equal to that used by over 475,000 cars a day.

A process called gasification may prove to be an effective way of using fossil fuels as a source of hydrogen for energy. Because the resulting CO2 occurs in a controlled environment, it can be captured and stored rather than released into the air.

Cogeneration facilities – power plants that use combustion to generate to both steam heat and marketable electricity – produce fewer CO2 emissions than a traditional combustion facility.

The natural gas sometimes found in oil deposits traditionally has been vented or flared (burned off) because it wasn’t economically viable to deliver it to a natural gas pipeline. Many energy companies are now looking for alternatives to venting or flaring, such as Liquefied Natural Gas or electricity generation, as a means of both cutting CO2 emissions and maximizing the efficient use of energy resources.

For more information on climate change ...