SOS California will host a public forum titled “Greenhouse gas emissions: What is the oil industry doing to reduce them?” from 9:15 to 10:30 a.m. this Thursday, May 22, at the Cabrillo Pavilion Arts Center, 1118 E. Cabrillo Blvd. in Santa Barbara.

The featured speaker will be J. Scott Hornafius, B.A., Ph.D., executive director of Canning Petroleum Pty. Ltd.

The discussion is part of a series being held throughout Santa Barbara and will include the impacts of oil production and fracking in shale gas reservoirs and capturing CO2 emissions, as required by the California Low Carbon Fuel Standard legislation.

The event is free with complimentary coffee and pastries.

Topics to be covered:

» Oil production reduces natural hydrocarbon seepage, which cleaned the tar off the beaches in Santa Barbara over the past 40 years and reduced Santa Barbara’s air pollution due to oil production from Platform Holly, but also caused a worldwide reduction in the methane concentration in the atmosphere due to oil production around the world.

» Fracking in shale gas reservoirs lowered the price of natural gas, which caused power plants in the US to switch from coal to natural gas over the past five years, resulting in a 30% decrease in the CO2 emissions from electricity generation in the US. The same CO2 emission reductions could occur worldwide if fracking were to spread outside of North America.

» Capturing CO2 fermentation emissions from corn ethanol and other biofuel plants and using the CO2 for enhanced oil recovery to make carbon negative oil will remove CO2 from the atmosphere, and provides a way for California to economically reach the goal of reducing the carbon intensity of its transporation fuels by 10% by 2020, as required by the California Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) legislation.