Comparison of Non-EOR and EOR Life Cycle Assessments
The Energy & Environmental Research Center is working with The CETER Group, Inc., through the PCOR Partnership to evaluate whether life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with incremental oil produced by enhanced oil recovery (EOR) using anthropogenic CO2 are less than GHG emissions associated with conventional oil production because of the significant amount of CO2 that is permanently stored in the oil reservoir during CO2 EOR. This report assesses a cradle-to-grave system boundary to quantify the full life cycle GHG emissions associated with the extraction of crude oil, pipeline transport of crude oil to a refinery, refining of crude oil into fuels, transportation of fuels to the point of sale, and finally combustion of the fuels. Two different tools were used to conduct the life cycle analysis: 1) customized programming of the Argonne National Laboratory Greenhouse Gases, Regulated Emissions, and Energy Use in Transportation model, known as the GREET model, and 2) Microsoft Excel® spreadsheet models using emission factors from the peer-reviewed literature and U.S. Department of Energy National Energy Technology Laboratory publications.;;;View/Download Document