https://apnews.com/article/venezuela-oil-pollution-0485a3d37f474bacb478e1d5160736fd
Excerpt:
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Environmental experts are warning that the U.S. push to revamp and boost Venezuela’s vast oil reserves could worsen decades of ecological damage and increase planet-warming pollution in a country already struggling with the legacy of a long-declining petroleum industry.
The warnings come as Washington has intensified pressure on Venezuela following the capture of former President Nicolás Maduro last weekend. Since then, the United States has moved to assert control over Venezuelan oil exports, the country’s main source of revenue, seizing tankers it says were transporting crude in violation of U.S. sanctions and signaling plans to redirect Venezuelan oil to global markets under U.S. oversight.
The Trump administration has said it plans to sell between 30 million and 50 million barrels of Venezuelan crude worldwide, though it has not specified a time frame. Proceeds would be held in U.S.-controlled accounts, which the administration says would benefit both Venezuelans and Americans.
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Even a modest increase in Venezuelan oil production could carry climate consequences on the scale of entire countries, said Mahdavi, of the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Mahdavi said raising output by about 1 million barrels a day — a level often cited as a near-term goal — would add roughly 360 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year from production. Pushing production further, to around 1.5 million barrels a day, could drive annual emissions to about 550 million tons, he said — comparable to the emissions from roughly half of all gasoline-powered vehicles in the United States.
“That’s just the production side,” Mahdavi told AP, noting that far larger emissions are generated when the oil is eventually burned by consumers.
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Kevin Book, director of research at ClearView Energy Partners, said there could be efforts to make Venezuelan oil production more efficient, both economically and environmentally, with a significant amount of investment.
“The new investment will bring the latest technologies in methane capture and emissions management to bear, not just because of environmental goals, but because there’s a valuable resource to be captured and sold,” Book said. “And so for that reason, there’s actually some potential relative environmental upside compared to status quo, if you take the assumption that oil demand was going to grow anyway.”
