Bitumen beyond combustion: how to triple oil sands value, reduce emissions, and create an advanced material industry for 2% of a battery plant’s subsidies

Combining the knowledge of bitumen itself with a view to other uses shows that there is staggering potential in the use of bitumen beyond combustion.

Bitumen can generate a number of high value products including asphalt binder, carbon fibre, and numerous others.

The BBC document shows a chart of value added to bitumen; as a combustible fuel the product is worth about $0.30-0.50/kilogram.

For every million barrels of bitumen used for BBC, 480,000 barrels would be diverted to non-combustion BBC products.

A study cited in the white paper estimates that carbon fibre derived from BBC would have a 52 percent lower life cycle GHG emissions intensity than conventionally produced carbon fibre.

The Alberta Innovates white paper outlines that it will take $300 million in total government investment over the next 10 years to recognize the full potential of BBC. Recall the prize: global-scale reductions in GHG emissions from utilizing bitumen rather than combustion, potential for $100 billion/year BBC revenues, backed by a 165-billion-barrel bitumen resource.

Politicians, energy transitionists, Alberta business leaders: I suggest it is imperative you put your shoulder behind BBC, and you should all be kicking in a lot more than $300 million over ten years. 

https://boereport.com/2023/12/13/bitumen-beyond-combustion-how-to-triple-oil-sands-value-reduce-emissions-and-create-an-advanced-material-industry-for-2-of-a-battery-plants-subsidies/