Hidden Risk for Canadian Oil Sands: Environmentalism 11 comments
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I'm just a little concerned that the Canadians will be pressured into joining the Cap and Trade fiasco. If their politicians bow to the pressure, it will cause another energy crisis, since their oil sands are expected to practically replace the lost output coming from the depleting fields of Mexico and elsewhere.
From Climate Ark:
...barrel produces at least 1.3 barrels of fine-tailings toxic waste and an ounce of acid-rain-producing sulphur dioxide. Then it uses up 1,400 cubic feet of natural gas in the upgrading, or a third of the amount of energy the barrel will eventually produce. By the time the sludge is a barrel of processed synthetic crude, it has produced 187 pounds of carbon dioxide, three times as much greenhouse gas as a traditional barrel of oil. And that's before it's burned.
From Oil Shale and Tar Sands Programmatic EIS Information Center:
Currently, tar sands represent about 40% of Canada's oil production, and output is expanding rapidly. Approximately 20% of U.S. crude oil and products come from Canada, and a substantial portion of this amount comes from tar sands.
From SolveClimate.com:
Environmentalists fear at least half of the relatively clean-burning Alaskan North Slope gas will end up fueling tar sands operations in Alberta, where the pipeline will end, instead of coming to the lower 48 states to replace carbon-intensive coal in power plants.
The growth in the tar sands project has been extraordinary. Entire towns have been created because of this relatively new industry. It has to have captured the attention of environmentalists, at least those that aren't comatose. I suspect that the tar sands will be a necessary environmental sacrifice as the world makes the transition to cleaner energy alternatives.
The real question is, will the Canadians see what we're doing with Cap and Trade and then follow suit? That could catastrophically sever the US energy supply in the years to come. The Canadians think about the environment a bit more than Americans, so don't be completely shocked if this were to happen.
The oil resources that remain on the planet are getting harder to access. I expect this to be a positive source of pressure for people around the world to switch to alternative energy sources sooner.
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> jack
> Jack; I'd say your definition of 'display' is a bit out to lunch.
> With the exception of the area between the Suncor and Syncrude sites,
> as you are driving north fromFort McMurray, it is hard to see any
> of the 'environmental devastation' that you so eloquently describe.
> Grant it, from the air, the view is not quite so pretty.... Perhaps
> you can tell me about ANY 'happy' North American Native Indians who
> don't have full time employment and a decent life style? Know of
> any? The Native personnel in the Fort McMurray area are looked after
> VERY well by each and every plant site in the area.
It appears that the Canadian tar sands are a high cost high reward area for world crude supplies. It will probably be a prime area for the battle between powerful forces on each side of the debate over the true costs and the true rewards.
But, there are Native American's who aren't thrilled about it all, despite the obvious benefits for them as well. Here's a National Geographic article online that details some of Jim Boucher's concerns:
ngm.nationalgeographic...
...In Boucher's memory, though, the change begins that day in 1963, on the long trail his grandfather used to set his traps, near a place called Mildred Lake. Generations of his ancestors had worked that trapline. "These trails had been here thousands of years," Boucher said one day last summer, sitting in his spacious and tasteful corner office in Fort McKay. His golf putter stood in one corner; Mozart played softly on the stereo. "And that day, all of a sudden, we came upon this clearing. A huge clearing. There had been no notice. In the 1970s they went in and tore down my grandfather's cabin—with no notice or discussion." That was Boucher's first encounter with the oil sands industry. It's an industry that has utterly transformed this part of northeastern Alberta in just the past few years, with astonishing speed. Boucher is surrounded by it now and immersed in it himself.
Where the trapline and the cabin once were, and the forest, there is now a large open-pit mine. ...
But the question is whether the area in Alberta where mining takes place is the only sacrifice. It seems that the stakes are much higher. The increased CO2 issues are huge, dangerous, and impossible to ignore.
But there are the water issues too. Besides the new towns created, tar sands mining operations have created more than 50 square miles of "tailings ponds," giant toxic lakes that are leaching into area ground water. As infrastructure expands to deliver bitumen (its not oil---its a different low-grade petroleum) to the upper Midwest, it is essential that we examine the impacts on the Great Lakes. A full 1/5 of the planet's fresh water and a resource that is arguably the most valuable in North America. The University of Toronto's Munk Center called the expanding web of pipelines and refineries expanding to deal with the increase in production a "direct pollution channel" into the Great Lakes. As the blowup over water pollution permits awarded to BP's Whiting, IN refinery show, the American public will do a cost-benefit analysis of their own. The concern over impacts is not just Canadian.
None of the major 'environmental' organizations - with the exception of The Nature Conservancy - are interested at all in the environment anyway; all they want is the destruction of capitalist economies.
I strongly suggest you look at the photos of the operations in Alberta. This is the largest industrial project on Earth---and so far, the companies have pillaged and gone on. New extraction techniques will limit the strip mining, but not the incredible impacts on the landscape and water resources.
Check out Canada's Pembina Institute for images and info:
www.oilsandswatch.org/...
Some of the posters above equate environmentalism with anti-capitalism. No doubt the there are some environmentalists who are socialists. But environmentalists care about the environment, they are not usually arguing against the economy per se. They argue that just because something hasn't been monetized that it means that it is free. If the environmental costs of the oil from tar sands operations were fully internalized it is very doubtful that the operation would exist at all. No capitalist can argue that costs shouldn't be internalized; and the costs can be determined reasonably accurately using techniques such as contingent valuation. They just aren't being counted right now.
> Perhaps
> you can tell me about ANY 'happy' North American Native Indians who
> don't have full time employment and a decent life style? Know of
> any? The Native personnel in the Fort McMurray area are looked after
> VERY well by each and every plant site in the area.
Hey Rico,
Here's some First Nations people who aren't so happy about the Tar Sands:
www2.canada.com/edmont...
Here's some more:
www.ienearth.org/cits
And here's some more:
indigenousissuestoday....
And I can't tell you how patronizing it must sound to First Nations readers when you tell them that "Native personnel in the Fort McMurray area are looked after VERY well".
maps.google.com