From TheTyee.ca - Jan 14, 2011

Findings counter studies that put bitumen's carbon footprint slightly higher than regular crude.

A report by a major global research group representing the world's 10 largest car buying markets has concluded that Canada's bitumen is one of the world's dirtiest oils due to its poor quality, low gravity and the vast amount of natural gas needed to enrich it.

The study for the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), which looked at the carbon intensity of oil from 3,000 fields now supplying European gasoline markets, also concluded that increasing reliance on dirty fuels will raise greenhouse gas emissions by 45 per cent above that of conventional oils.

The findings of the ICCT, a group that does technical research on the environmental performance of automobiles, contradicts modeling studies funded by the Alberta government and the oil sands industry which claim that bitumen has only a five to 15 per cent higher carbon footprint than conventional crude.

The study calculated the amount of green house gas emissions created by extracting, moving and refining different types of crude oil based on specific characteristics including weight, viscosity, purity, age of the field, leaks and the flaring of waste gases. (About 20 per cent of oil's carbon footprint comes from the production and refining process: the rest comes from cars burning gasoline.)

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