Global Warming

Will Canada’s oil boom be an environmental bust?

jessie — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 12:33:14 -0700

Will Canada’s oil boom be an environmental bust?

Rob Gillies, August 25, 2008, Tehran Times -- The largest dump truck in the world is parked under a massive mechanical shovel waiting to transport 400 tons of oily sand at an open pit mine in the northern reaches of Alberta.

Each Caterpillar 797B heavy hauler — three-stories high, with tires twice as tall as the average man — carries the equivalent of 200 barrels of heavy oil worth $23,000 per haul at today’s prices.

“It’s like sitting on your back porch and driving your house,” said Todd Dahlman, the manager of Shell Canada’s Muskeg River open pit oil sands mine in Alberta’s Athabasca region.

Shell, which has 35 of the massive loaders working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, has ordered 16 more — at $5 million each — as it expands its open pit mines. And it is not alone among major oil companies rushing to exploit Alberta’s oil sands, which make Canada one of the few countries that can significantly ramp up oil production amid the decline in conventional reserves.

Shell, Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, Canada’s Imperial and other companies plan to strip an area here the size of New York state that could yield as much as 175 billion barrels of oil. Daily production of 1.2 million barrels from the oil sands is expected to nearly triple to 3.5 million barrels in 2020. Overall, Alberta has more oil than Venezuela, Russia or Iran. Only Saudi Arabia has more.

High prices — a barrel reached almost $150 last month and is around $115 now — are fueling the province’s oil boom. Since it’s costly to extract oil from the sands, using the process on a widespread basis began to make sense only when crude prices started skyrocketing earlier this century.

But the enormous amount of energy and water needed in the extraction process has raised fears among scientists, environmentalists and officials in an aboriginal town 170 miles downstream from Fort McMurray. The critics say the growing operations by major oil companies will increase greenhouse gas emissions and threaten Alberta’s rivers and forests.

“Their projected rates of expansion are so fast that we don’t have a hope in hell of reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” said Dr. David Schindler, an environmental scientist at the University of Alberta.

Oil sands operations, including extraction and processing, are responsible for 4 percent of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions, and that’s expected to triple to 12 percent by 2020. Oil sand mining is Canada’s fastest growing source of greenhouse gases and is one reason it reneged on its Kyoto Protocol commitments. Experts say producing a barrel of oil from sands results in emissions three times greater than a conventional barrel of oil.

Worries about environmental damage have gotten enough attention that even the oil industry realizes it must tread softly on the issue. “Industry has to improve its environmental performance,” Brian Maynard, a vice president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, said recently.

Dave Collyer, Shell’s chairman in Canada, said world demand means oil companies must exploit unconventional sources of energy.

“You have to consider the environmental impact in a broader context,” Collyer said. “There is significant economic benefit from the development of oil sands. The oil sands represent a very secure, reliable, long-term source of supply to the United States. People in the U.S. will have to judge whether that supply stacks up to other alternatives.”

The oil industry’s Maynard also said companies would be able to develop techniques to protect the environment in the same way they made the process of oil sands extraction commercially viable over the past 20 years. “It will take time,” he added.

Premier Stelmach said Alberta’s oil sands caused less than 1/10th of 1 percent of world greenhouse gas emissions and that Canada caused just 2 percent of global emissions. He also said emissions from oil sands were overstated — compared to those from conventional crude — because the figures do not take into account the emissions it takes to ship overseas oil to North America.

But David Suzuki, Canada’s most prominent environmentalist, argued that introducing the shipping issue distorted the statistics. He also cautioned against accepting the argument that the oil industry would develop safer techniques such as carbon capture storage, noting that the time and money needed to determine such methods could not be predicted.

“They say, ‘No, no we’re going to do research and really clean up our act.’ Well, you can’t give these guys permission to go ahead on the promise that something is going to happen in the future,” Suzuki said.

He and other critics warn the environmental ramifications are too dire to ramp up oil sands production. They argue that Canada’s boreal forest, one of the largest intact ecosystems in the world, is being torn up to make way for the mines.

They also say that not enough was done to safeguard the environment while two smaller Canadian firms — Suncor Energy Inc. and Syncrude Canada Ltd. — extracted the oils sands for decades and that the situation is becoming alarming as major oil companies become more involved.

“For 40 years a couple of oil companies worked on the tar sands extraction process, not its environmental impacts. It was Alberta’s massive expansion of tar sands leasing over the last few years, ignoring serious unanswered environmental and public health concerns, that created this mushrooming crisis,” said Gary Stewart, a senior adviser to the International Boreal Conservation Campaign.

Refineries in the U.S. Midwest are retooling and expanding so they can process the thicker oil, raising concerns about more emissions.

Many also are worried about the amount of water taken from Alberta’s Athabasca river. The extraction process uses 2 to 4 1/2 barrels of water for each barrel of oil produced, according to the Pembina Institute, a nonprofit think tank.

There are concerns, too, about the tailing ponds that sit next to the river. The ponds contain waste made from the separation of oil from sand. The toxic ponds look more like lakes and take up 50 square miles of northern Alberta.

Jeff Short, a U.S. government scientist who studied the long-term effects of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, said if one of the ponds spilled into the river, the impact would be felt for decades — or centuries.

“It would be the equivalent of several hundred Exxon Valdez oil spills,” Short said.

A flock of 500 migratory ducks recently died after landing on one of Syncrude’s ponds, and an accidental discharge from a Suncor waste treatment plant in 1982 caused the closure of the commercial fishery downstream in Lake Athabasca for three years.

Group concerned about Sask. oilsands development

jessie — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 11:45:18 -0700

Group concerned about Sask. oilsands development

Angela Hall, August 11, 2008, Regina Leader-Post -- As companies bid Monday for the chance to explore Saskatchewan's oilsands, those opposed to such development made their voices heard at the Legislative Building.

About a dozen people with placards reading "Tar Sands = Climate Change" and "Get informed Saskatchewan" urged the provincial government to stop issuing exploratory permits for the oilsands until further study is done.

The event, organized by the local chapter of the Council of Canadians, coincided with the province's August sale of oil and natural gas rights, which offered oilsands rights for only the second time.

The August 2007 sale included six exploration licenses related to oilsands, covering 54,000 hectares. Monday's sale had four exploratory permits up for bid encompassing 328,000 hectares.

"We have a responsibility in Saskatchewan to stop this before we add more problems to the problem of climate change," Larissa Shasko, one of those participating in the rally, said of the oilsands exploration.

"This is a very sad day for me, especially as a youth, for this day really, for me, signifies the beginning of no return."

Shasko, who is prairie regional co-ordinator for the youth wing of the Green Party, said there should be more study of environmental impacts before a decision is made to pursue oilsands exploration in the province.

However, Energy and Resources Minister Bill Boyd said the government is committed to ensuring any oilsands development is as environmentally, economically and socially sustainable as possible.

He cited the development of a northwest Saskatchewan land use plan as one way activities in the area are being guided.

"This has the potential to be a very large type of development, but we are working to ensure it's being done in a responsible fashion," said Boyd.

Boyd said development in Saskatchewan also won't mirror that of Alberta, as oil reserves are much deeper here and won't be extracted through open pit mining.

"The environmental footprint will be very, very modest in comparison to what many people think of as traditional oilsands developments," Boyd said.

"If you went down to the Estevan-Weyburn area and looked at a conventional well, it would be very similar to what you would see in the northwest in a type of oilsands development there."

The groups gathered Monday said those assurances from the government aren't enough.

"Most tar sands will still need water, will still need energy," said Jim Elliot, chairman of the Regina chapter of the Council of Canadians.

"I don't how much different it will be. I think we need to have, again, a full assessment of that well before we actually go ahead and make a decision on going ahead with it."

Regina resident Sue Deranger, a member of Alberta's Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, said Saskatchewan needs to learn from problems caused by development in Alberta.

She said oilsands developments have taken a toll in Fort Chipewyan, where there have been claims of unusually high cancer rates.

"We need to be concerned," she said.

"We need to be proactive."

Oil sands: Canada's dirty secret

jessie — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 09:27:23 -0700

Oil sands: Canada's dirty secret

John Vidal, July 11, 2008 , guardian.co.uk -- As oil prices continue to reach record highs, the search for new sources of energy has led the world to Alberta, Canada, and its vast oil sands. Now, John Vidal finds, the country famed for its wilderness and clean living finds itself caught between fuelling the world's oil-hungry economy and the ecological devastation and soaring greenhouse gas emissions that exploiting the tar sands produces

The Caterpillar 797B heavy hauler is the world's biggest truck. It's taller than a four-storey house, as wide as a tennis court and it removes nearly 35,000 tonnes of oily sand a day from a deep open cast mine in northern Alberta in western Canada.

Truck number 108 is driven by Norman Johnson, 63, a long-time Shell man who is planning to spend his retirement fishing, camping and "hunting the critters" in the vast boreal forests and bogs that stretch across the region. "It's just like driving your car. Couldn't be easier - once you get used to its size," he says from his cab, 40ft off the ground. He won't let the Guardian start up either of its two great engines.

But the future of northern Alberta's aspen and pine woods, its rivers and animals are in doubt as the world's greatest modern oil rush accelerates. Shell, Chevron, Exxon, Total, Occidental, Imperial and most other oil majors have so far invested nearly $100bn Canadian dollars (£50bn) in the 1,160 square mile (3,000 square kilometre) "bitumen belt", which is being called the "new Kuwait".

A decade ago, the vast landscape of forests and lakes around Fort McMurray and the Athabasca river provided a fairly minor and barely profitable sand oil industry. But it is now pitted with hundreds of square kilometres of toxic waste ponds, mines that are 300ft deep, hundreds of miles of pipes and burgeoning petrochemical works. Every day brings a bumper to bumper stream of lorries carrying the world's largest plant, pipes and machinery to the area, as well as young men seeking fortunes, and, say critics, the devastation of a pristine land.

The companies are now mining 1.3m barrels a day of heavy crude oil from the sands, which are saturated with bitumen. But they expect to spend another £50bn to more than double production to 3.5m barrels by 2011. The surge is expected to attract 100,000 more workers to the northern wilderness where the wolf and bear are still common.

And that would just be the start. By 2030 they plan to produce at least 5m barrels a day, and export more than Nigeria, Venezuela or Norway, which would make Canada one of the world's largest oil producers.

If the oil price stays high and new technology permits, oil companies will move, with the Canadian government's blessing, to extract the estimated 180bn barrels of crude to be found far deeper under 140,000 sq km of Alberta in what are the world's largest proven oil deposits after Saudi Arabia.

By 2050 Canada could be the second largest oil producer in the world, shifting the global energy security equation but exacerbating global climate change in a way that has scarcely been considered.

The tar sands industry could pump vast amounts of money into the local and national economies. Alberta is the fastest growing Canadian province, and more than 40,000 people have moved to the oilfields in the last five years.

Only 20 years ago Fort McMurray was a homely, tumbleweed-blown place with a population of 25,000 people. It is now at the epicentre of the rush and its newfound wealth is visible everywhere with its casino, upmarket bars and new hotels. It is expected to grow to a city of 250,000 people within 20 years.

"There are four-hour traffic jams and companies can't give away jobs. Kids out of school can earn $100,000 a year; people pay $400 a week to share a room; companies pay people $4,000 a month to lodge and $80,000 to just come here," said one estate agent in Fort McMurray. "There's money galore but the town can't cope."

The average price of a three-bedroom house, she says, is nearly $650,000 [£320,000] and rising.

The downside is ecological devastation and soaring greenhouse gas emissions on a scale that is beginning to alarm Canadians and other western countries trying to reduce the intensity of their carbon economies to counter climate change. Canada, alone, of developed countries, is expecting to increase emissions for 30 years and ignore its commitments to Kyoto.

So far, nearly 180 sq miles (470 sq km) of forest have been felled by tar sands miners and giant lakes of toxic waste water cover a further 130 sq km. Environmental campaigners, first nation groups, and doctors accuse the companies of creating massive air pollution, threatening river ecologies and killing fish, and even causing human cancers.

"This is the dirtiest source of oil anywhere in the world and there are barely any regulations," says Simon Dyer, a researcher for the University of Alberta's Pembina Institute.

He says the greater energy needed to produce a barrel of oil from the sands means three times more greenhouse gas emissions than producing a barrel of conventional oil. The greater energy is needed because the oil has to be dug out and then separated from the sand, and because it is low grade it has to be heavily refined. Tars sands mining "is the fastest growing source of greenhouse emissions in Canada", Dyer adds.

Environmentalists from round the world last month called for a moratorium on all new oil sand mines to impose higher standards. In the next 30 years, says Dyer, the oil works in Alberta could extend to an area as large as England. He says "hundreds of millions of extra tonnes of greenhouse gases will be emitted" just from the extraction process.

This month the province of Alberta and the federal Canadian government came under pressure to clean up the environmental mess already made and to urgently lower the carbon intensity of exploiting the oil sands. US presidential contender Barack Obama and, separately, hundreds of US mayors, have questioned the wisdom of making oil from bitumen.

Jason Grumet, Senator Obama's senior energy adviser, said the presidential candidate, if elected, intended to break America's addiction to "dirty, dwindling, and dangerously expensive" oil.

"If it turns out that the only way to produce [resources] would be at a significant penalty to climate change, then we don't believe that those resources are going to be part of the long term, are going to play a growing role in the long-term future," he said.

His statement followed a direct attack on the oil sands by more than 1,000 mayors of large US cities who voted last month to boycott energy with a large carbon footprint.

In addition, California's governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, last month signed agreements which will cut the use of high carbon petroleum sources from Alberta and elsewhere. Ontario and British Columbia must now meet California's low-carbon fuel standard and other provinces and US states are expected to join the standard, shrinking the market for oil sands.

In late June, the Canadian federal and Alberta provincial governments joined the Canadian oil industry to play down the impact of the sands on the environment. "Canada only produces 2% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, and the oil sands are only 8% of these [2%]," says a spokesman for the Canadian association of petroleum producers.

"We are only 15% more intensive with greenhouse gas on a lifecycle basis than conventional oil. We have to reduce emissions by 15% to get to parity. We are doing this by tree planting, installing carbon capture programmes and through hydrogen [mixed into bitumen in processing]," said a spokeswoman for Albian Sands, a consortium of Shell, Chevron and Marathon, which is working the 8 sq mile (20 sq km) Muskeg river mine 50 miles north of Fort McMurray.

The company produces 155,000 barrels of crude a day from the estimated 5bn barrels of oil under the land the company has leased. In 2007 they extracted 250m barrels of oil.

A Shell Canada spokesman in Calgary said that the company was planning to reduce its emissions by 50% and was seeking to develop carbon capture technology. But he admitted this was at least five years away and possibly much longer.

"We recognise that mining, extracting and upgrading bitumen has a significant footprint. Large areas must be cleared and excavated, while large volumes of water and natural gas are used to mine, process and upgrade it," said a spokesman. "Each project undergoes stringent environmental assessments," he said.

But green groups responded that although the companies were voluntarily reducing the carbon emissions associated with their operations, all the improvements were being undermined by the daily increase in the scale of their operations. "Every environmental parameter is worsening," said Dyer.

"The companies are seeking to blame drivers for the oil they burn. The reality is that producing each barrel of oil from oil sands emits between three and five times as much carbon dioxide as a conventional barrel of oil. [Producing] a conventional barrel emits about 30kg of CO2, but the two biggest companies in the oil sands, Syncrude and Suncor, have said they emit 120kg a barrel," he said.

The companies last week also sought to minimise their impact on water. Oil sands need to be washed and more than 12,713m cubic feet (360 million cubic metres) are used a year - the equivalent used in a city of 2 million people.

"Our impact is near negligible," says an Albian spokesperson. "Yes, we use a lot of water but Canada has decided that 2.5% of the river is acceptable. We release no processed water into the environment." The water is held in settling pits for 20 years before being released.

But the companies' record on water is disputed strongly by environment organisations. "They may be taking only 2.5% of the water from the Athabasca river, but that's over the year. In late winter when the flows are the lowest, that can be 16% of the river. The river is already being affected, and this will be cumulative," says Dyer.

The speed and scale of the growth of oil sands mining have shocked Canadians who regard themselves as living in one of the most environmentally responsible countries in the world. But record oil prices are posing a serious dilemma between supporting today's oil dependent economy and moving to cleaner energy sources to avoid a future climate catastrophe.

"Sure, I am worried about the Alberta environment. We all are. Canada's image is all tied up with wilderness and clean living. Now we have to accept we depend on dirty industry. The oil sands are making us rethink who we are. But it's like no one can say no to oil," says John Davidson, a graduate mechanical engineer who moved to Fort McMurray to help build a new plant.

"But if you can pay your mortgage off in five years, then I have to say I can't resist either," he says.

U.S. Mayors Resolve to Avoid Burning Tar Sands Oil

jessie — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 08:44:09 -0700

U.S. Mayors Resolve to Avoid Burning Tar Sands Oil

Environmental News Service, June 28, 2008, Miami, Florida -- The U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting in Miami this week adopted a resolution aimed at avoiding the use of high carbon fuels such as tar sands, liquid coal, and oil shale. The resolution encourages fuel analyses that include emissions from production, not just from burning the fuel.

The resolution calls for the creation of guidelines and purchasing standards to help mayors understand the greenhouse gas emissions of the fuels they purchase through their entire lifecycle from production through consumption.

"We don't want to spend taxpayer dollars on fuels that make global warming worse," said Mayor Kitty Piercy, of Eugene, Oregon, who submitted the resolution.

"Tar sands oil emits up to three times the greenhouse gases in the production process per barrel as conventional oil production," Piercy said. "Our cities are asking for environmentally sustainable energy and not fuels from dirty sources such as tar sands."

Tar sands are deposits of natural bitumen, a viscous oil that must be treated to convert it into an upgraded crude oil so that it can be used in refineries to produce gasoline and other fuels. Extracting oil from these sands uses more water and requires larger amounts of energy than conventional oil extraction, even though many conventional oil fields also require large amounts of water and energy and emits large amounts of greenhouse gases.

Many countries have large deposits of tar sands, including the United States, Russia, and countries in the Middle East. The world's largest deposits are in Canada and Venezuela, both of which have tar sands reserves equal to the world's total reserves of conventional crude oil.

Currently, only Canada has a large-scale commercial tar sands industry, developing the Athabasca Tar Sands in Alberta.

The resolution approved by the mayors expresses concern for Canada's environment, stating, "... the production of tar sands oil from Canada emits approximately three times the carbon dioxide pollution per barrel as does conventional oil production and significantly damages Canada's Boreal forest ecosystem - the world's largest carbon storehouse ..."

"The mayors have once again confirmed that they're serious about combating climate change," said Mayor Marty Blum of Santa Barbara, California. "Not only will we give preference to clean, renewable energy sources, we are standing our ground when it comes to synthetic petroleum-based fuels that exacerbate global warming."

"Global warming is the one of the most critical issues facing our cities," said Mayor Frank Cownie of Des Moines, Iowa. "This resolution shows our willingness to take action to move forward - not backwards which is where fuels such as tar sands oil will take us."

Environmentalists praised the mayors' challenge to fuel derived from tar sands. "In the last few years, U.S. mayors have come out as leaders on environmental initiatives, specifically in the fight to stop global warming," said Susan Casey-Lefkowitz a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, NRDC. "This resolution will help implement their commitment to fight global warming by giving mayors the information they need about dirty fuels such as tar sands oil."

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama addressed the mayors, earning applause for his promise to create "a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank that will invest $60 billion over ten years, and create nearly two million new jobs."

The bank will be funded by the $10 billion a month saved by bringing the war in Iraq to "a responsible close," Obama said.

The bank would fund upgrades to levees across the Midwest that gave way under drenching rains earlier this month, flooding vast tracts of crop land, destroying roads and bridges and forcing evacuations from flooded communities.

"Let's invest that money in a world-class transit system," Obama told the mayors, promising them "a partner in the White House."

"Let's re-commit federal dollars to strengthen mass transit and reform our tax code to give folks a reason to take the bus instead of driving to work – because investing in mass transit helps make metro areas more livable and can help our regional economies grow."

"And while we're at it, we'll partner with our mayors to invest in green energy technology and ensure that your buses and buildings are energy efficient," said Obama. "And we'll also invest in our ports, roads, and high-speed rails – because I don't want to see the fastest train in the world built halfway around the world in Shanghai, I want to see it built right here in the United States of America."

The U.S. Conference of Mayors took care to make this year's session the "greenest" to date. The hotel, evening events and some of the mayors' transportation used energy efficient practices with the goal of reducing carbon emissions.

Mayors are already leading on the issue of climate protection with more than 850 mayors agreeing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in their respective cities and pushing funding for an energy block grant in Congress to further their efforts.

Mayors Jerry Abramson of Louisville, Kentucky, and Roy Buol of Dubuque, Iowa, were awarded first place in the 2008 City Livability Awards Program.

For the past 29 years, cities have competed for this award, which recognizes mayoral leadership for developing and implementing programs that improve the quality of life in America's cities. The winning cities were selected by former mayors from a pool of over 200 applicants.

Louisville won the Livability Award for a large city for the mayor's Healthy Hometown Program is a highly visible, a longterm program designed to create a community-wide effort which encourages and supports physical activity, healthy eating and lifestyles and hosts popular worksite wellness conferences.

Dubuque won the Livability Award for a small city for its America's River Project. This $188 million revitalization effort to will transform 90 acres at the Port of Dubuque from brownfields into a destination that showcases the historical, environmental, educational and recreational assets of the Mississippi River.

As the meeting closed on Tuesday, Miami Mayor Manny Diaz was elevated from his position as vice president to serve as president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the official bipartisan organization of the 1,139 U.S. cities with populations larger than 30,000.

Global carbon price needed, Shell says

jessie — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 08:33:09 -0700

Global carbon price needed, Shell says

Fred Pals & Eduard Gismatullin, July 1, 2008, Bloomberg News -- The capture and storage of carbon dioxide to reduce emissions can only work if the market for the greenhouse gas becomes global, the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell PLC said Monday.

"Without greenhouse gas prices," which should be set by carbon trading, there won't be any development of the technology for storage and capture of carbon dioxide, Jeroen van der Veer said in a presentation at the 19th World Petroleum Congress in Madrid.

"There is a close connection between carbon storage and carbon trade," said Van der Veer, head of Europe's largest oil company.

Tony Hayward, CEO of London-based BP PLC, said during his conference presentation that "a global price of carbon will soon emerge."

A global price for carbon emissions, the main greenhouse gas blamed for global warming, doesn't exist, so oil companies don't know what kind of revenues they could get from burying the gas underground. Companies make investments for the long-term and want to have some kind of guarantee they can recoup some of it, or have a "level playing field," Van der Veer said.

Carbon capture and storage projects announced so far in Europe will have a "small percentage" impact on the continent's efforts to reduce emissions by 2020, Paula Coussy, an analyst at Institut Francais du Petrole, said at the conference.

Some 30 carbon capture and storage projects have been announced to date, and if they all come to fruition it would mean that 20 million to 25 million tons a year of carbon dioxide can be "withdrawn" from the market, or about 1.5 percent of annual average allowances for Phase 3 of Europe's carbon trading program during 2013-2020, she said.

Oil majors are likely to face higher costs to develop new oil reserves, such as western Canada's tar sands — the biggest deposit outside Saudi Arabia — because of efforts to rein in climate change.

The European Union's push to curb emissions of carbon dioxide may force companies to invest more in so-called greener technologies. Lawmakers are setting rules for the bloc's carbon dioxide program, the world's biggest greenhouse- gas trading system, for the eight years starting 2013.

After 2012, the miners of oil-encrusted sand buried in swamps of northern Alberta will have to store carbon emissions rather than releasing them into the atmosphere.

"Capture and storage cannot succeed without the price on carbon dioxide that is delivered by cap and trade mechanisms," Van der Veer said. "Industry must work hard at maturing the technology and developing projects. Governments need to deliver effective emissions reduction mechanisms."

Governors' Conference Closes with Climate Change and Energy Discussion

jessie — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 08:31:37 -0700

Governors' Conference Closes with Climate Change and Energy Discussion

Jeff Robinson, Jul 1, 2008, Huntsman New Chairman of WGA (KCPW News) -- Climate change might be a hoax to many Republicans, but not to some conservative state leaders in the Western United States. Today, Utah Governor Jon Huntsman closed out the annual Western Governors' Association meeting with a discussion on energy and climate change, saying that the west should lead the way for the creation of a national cap-and-trade emissions program.

"We're getting out and getting things done, not because we're mad, but rather because, we have a can-do attitude that if somebody else is gonna do it, we're gonna step up and get it done," he said. "We have a large enough region that we cover with enough good ideas and enough people who care, where whatever we come up with, chances are it's gonna have national relevance."

Huntsman was elected chairman of the WGA over the weekend. The governor broke with much of the Utah Republican Party in joining the Western Climate Initiative last year.

One Democrat who's broken with some in his party is Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer, who today discussed the need to develop alternative oil sources like tar sands, which many Democrats oppose.

"Clearly there are challenges with the oil sands, as with coal there's carbon dioxide challenges. There's challenges with reliability when it comes to wind energy," said Schweitzer. "But this is an energy source that is here and now, and this oil replaces oil that we're buying from dictators around the world."

The governors were joined by Canadian officials at this weekend's conference. Wildlife protection and water management were also discussed. For more information on this weekend's meeting, visit www.westgov.org.

Climate Change - Inaction on climate change might mean a new flag for Alberta

jessie — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 11:08:48 -0700

Climate Change - Inaction on climate change might mean a new flag for Alberta

Murray, Sinclair, June 19, 2008, VueWeekly -- Alberta’s shield, centred on the blue provincial flag, is an environmentally scenic portrait of snow-capped mountains, forested foothills, open prairie and wheat fields.

It also represents critical economic sectors, with agriculture and forestry, Alberta’s second- and third-largest industries, respectively.

But the shield further depicts ecosystems that will be most affected if solutions to climate change are not implemented.

Premier Ed Stelmach has repeatedly warned the quicker and deeper greenhouse-gas cuts that environmentalists and opposition parties want would harm the province’s energy industry—its largest economic sector—and lead to a total shutdown of the tar sands, harming the economy nationwide. Stelmach recently announced a $25-million public relations campaign to help stave off environmental criticism of Alberta’s “dirty oil.”

When a late-2007 National Energy Board report warned of a more eco-sustainable world’s economic impact (see sidebar), the Edmonton Journal business section echoed these warnings with its headline “Green the colour of misery for Alberta.”

But 58 Alberta scientists who study climate change spoke out against these sorts of arguments as far back as 2002, when the province was campaigning against Canada signing the Kyoto Protocol, saying that not taking action on climate change would have a much more profound effect on our economy and ecosystems, including those portrayed so proudly on our provincial flag.

“There has been much publicity about the alleged economic losses that will be suffered by the oil and gas industries if Kyoto is ratified and implemented,” they wrote in an open letter to then-premier Ralph Klein.

“But losses that will be suffered by other resource sectors if the climate continues to warm must also be considered. Damage to our natural ecosystems and harm to future generations would add to these financial costs. Overall, the costs may be greater than those advertised by oil, gas and manufacturing officials.”

David Schindler, one of the letter’s University of Alberta signatories, specified to Vue that under climate warming, “Alberta stands out as most vulnerable among the provinces, due to its position in the rain shadow of the Rockies.”

Even the provincial government’s own fact book on the issue, “Facts About Climate Change,” warns, “Overall, we can expect warmer temperatures, decreased supply of water and net moisture, more frequent forest fires, an increased threat of insects and diseases and more extreme seasonal weather changes.” It goes on to warn that global warming “could pose serious problems for agriculture, forestry, municipalities and industry.”

Economist Nicolas Stern made the same argument in a 2006 study commissioned by the British government, which warned “the impacts of climate change on economies and societies worldwide could be large relative to the global economy.”

His “Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change” predicted worldwide gross domestic product might take a loss of up to 20 per cent if global warming isn’t curbed, while fixing the problem would only cost the world one per cent of GDP annually.

In higher-latitude regions like Canada, he predicted “climate change could bring net benefits up to 2 or 3 ºC through higher agricultural yields, lower winter mortality, lower heating requirements and a potential boost to tourism.

“But these regions will also experience the most rapid rates of warming with serious consequences for biodiversity and local livelihoods,” the economist wrote.

In northern areas, temperatures could at first raise production of some crops, but only up to a point: “yields of several cereals (wheat and rice in particular) will increase for 2 or 3 ºC of warming globally, according to some models, but then start to fall once temperatures reach 3 or 4 ºC ... as conditions begin to exceed the tolerance threshold for crops at higher temperatures.”

Stern also pointed out that “the costs of extreme weather events [like storms and droughts] will increase rapidly at higher temperatures, potentially counteracting some of the early benefits of climate change.”

Significantly, Alberta’s annual mean temperature is projected to grow between 3 and 5 ºC by 2050, according to another provincial government pamphlet, “Climate Change in Alberta.”

The province predicts that by that time, Calgary, Edmonton, Grande Prairie and Fort McMurray will have degree-day totals—a growing-season measurement—similar to Lethbridge and Medicine Hat’s current totals.

The how-to-prepare pamphlet also warns of more grass fires and “pest infestations due to milder winters and longer growing seasons (which may increase the need for pesticides).”

Robert Grant, a professor in the University of Alberta’s renewable resources department, told Vue that unfamiliar intense weather like tornadoes will move north under such conditions, as well.

In the mountains, global warming may throw off the yearly water cycle such that there will be more melting of the snow pack in the spring, making less water available in the summer, Grant said.

Work Schindler did last year noted the phenomenon of smaller snow packs and the receding of the glaciers which feed the rivers, which are being asked to quench a growing Alberta population as well as serving as a source for irrigation systems.

But once again, the province’s own “Facts About Climate Change” is most telling, warning that under climate change “perhaps the biggest impact will be on our supply of water,” which will be “felt in all parts of the province and on all sectors of our economy.”

The booklet goes on to predict that “There also will be direct effects on Alberta’s ecosystem and a wide range of plants, animals, fish and birds.”

Looking to the future, it notes how “current studies predict a reduction in the level of prairie lakes” and Alberta’s rivers, “where a combination of higher temperatures and no increase in precipitation is causing lower stream flows.”

Back on the farm, the scientists argued in their letter that as the water needed for crops and livestock dries up, “the water that remains will decline in quality.”

The Prairies, home to 60 per cent of Canada’s farmland, will continue experiencing periodic dry spells, but they noted how the 2002 drought marked “the first time that other factors will amplify the effects.

“Already, wetlands are dry and many lakes have lost most of their water. Summer river flows are already flowing at 20 to 60 per cent of historical values. Some communities have already lost their groundwater supplies. Recent analyses predict that by mid-century, the arid and semi-arid areas of Alberta and Saskatchewan will increase by 50 per cent.”

Andreas Hamann, an assistant professor in the U of A’s department of renewable resources, specified that grasslands would move up into the aspen parkland and boreal regions.

“Edmonton will get a climate similar to a few hundred kilometres south,” he said.

By 2050, southern Alberta’s grasslands will become a desert, and cattle land could be lost elsewhere, although the professor said precipitation predictions are hard to model.

Noting $22 billion in federal farm relief paid in the 1985-91 dry era, the scientists predicted “the effects of climate warming on agriculture in western Canada will certainly cost tens of billions of dollars.”

“Facts About Climate Change” also predicts a big climate-change-related bill for mountain and northern regions and the boreal forest.

These “will face increasing threats from wildfires, insect invasions, decreasing soil moisture and changes to the ecosystem—all of which could affect the forestry industry,” it warns.

The scientist’s five-year-old letter averages the costs of fighting forest fires in Canada at more than $500 million per year, “with little effect on the amount of forest burned.

“The costs of fire suppression, lost revenues to the forest industry, evacuation of towns, and health impacts of smoke are likely to be extremely high,” they wrote.

Grant pointed to forest floors drying out under global warming, which makes them more vulnerable to flame up after lightning strikes.
He noted that trees may grow faster under higher temperatures, making them a larger sink of an atmospheric carbon dioxide, but said accompanying increased fires would “blow away their carbon storage.”

The scientists wrote that fires doubled in the 1980s and ‘90s compared to the previous decade, and at their worst point turned the boreal forests from sink to a source that “almost equaled that from burning fossil fuels in Canada.”

Their 2002 letter’s mention of forest disease and insect infection foretold the mountain pine beetle invasion, which has fatally eaten though British Columbia’s trees and since moved into Alberta. The forestry industry-supported website yourforests.org reports that the bug has now infested up to 1.5 million pine trees in Alberta.

“The forest industry contributes $12 billion dollars a year to the Alberta economy, creates 48 000 jobs and plays a major role in the well-being of about 50 Alberta communities, all of which could be jeopardized by a mountain pine beetle outbreak,” the website warns. “While the forest industry will feel the major economic effects, other areas will feel spin-off effects such as declines in tourism and recreation.”

Hamann predicted a northern-BC fungus infection, which thrives under higher temperatures and summer rains, might come into Alberta.
“Climate change brings all sorts of change with it,” the professor told Vue. “It’s hard to make predictions. For the forest manager, there’s the fear of the unknown.”

He said ecosystem projections based on a business-as-usual approach, where the world would take no action to curb climate change, create some western Canadian models that “look really bad” by the end of the century.

“The boreal forests will not be supported anymore by our climate,” Hamann said, arguing that within 100 years, the woods will “certainly be in big trouble.”

Schindler added that it was “now clear that the forest industry in Alberta is not going to be an important part of the province's future,” noting eight recent mill closures, and high-paying tar-sands employment attracting workers away.

“Forest products have been awash in red ink, [and] we simply cannot compete with countries that pay ‘sweat-shop’ wages and have no environmental regulations. Add mountain pine beetle and the resulting forest fire and damage to watersheds to that, and it’s a bleak picture.”

Looking at climate change through on-the-ground developments, Schindler predicts Alberta “will be worse off than Newfoundland after the cod collapsed”: full of unskilled labour, overexploited resources and no secondary industries.

“In 50 years, Alberta could be the ‘desolate province,’ gutted by unsustainable oil, gas and forestry, too many people, not enough water,” he told Vue.
“We should be looking to what happened in the foothills of Wyoming, Montana, and Colorado to see where we are headed. Edmonton could be the next Butte.” V

Group criticizes Suncor's emissions

jessie — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 11:02:30 -0700

Group criticizes Suncor's emissions

THE CANADIAN PRESS, June 19, 2008 -- Suncor Energy Inc. said yesterday its greenhouse-gas emissions rose 3.6% last year.

Canada's No. 2 oilsands producer says its greenhouse-gas emissions intensity -- the volume of pollution relative to oil output -- rose 3.1% because of "operational challenges" at its oilsands complex near Fort McMurray.

Last year's emissions of gases linked to climate change totalled 11.5-million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, up from 11.1-million tonnes in 2006.

But Suncor said it has cut its emission intensity 44% at the oilsands and 25% company-wide since 1990.

"While we've increased production, we've been able to achieve decreases in emission intensity across the company through improved energy efficiencies and technological improvements. We must now find ways to make further changes and enhancements at our new and existing facilities," said CEO Rick George in a statement.

The company said its renewable energy plans include investing $750 million by 2010 and about one-third of that has already been invested in wind power and ethanol projects.

Oilsands operations have been coming under scrutiny for their greenhouse-gas emissions.

"These kind of numbers are not due to 'operational issues,' " said Greenpeace campaigner Mike Hudema.

"Suncor's skyrocketing absolute emissions and meagre investment of $750 million in renewable energy when they are set to make $20 billion in gross profits this year is not likely to convince stakeholders that Suncor is truly investing in sustainable solutions."

Cap-and-trade or a carbon tax?

jessie — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 07:04:10 -0700

Cap-and-trade or a carbon tax?

Editorial, Jun 1, 2008. Toronto Star -- When two brothers representing federal and provincial wings of the same party can't agree on the best way to fight global warming, one thing's for sure: You know you're in Canada.

MP David McGuinty, the Liberal environment critic in Ottawa, has been championing Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion's proposal to shift taxes from income to carbon. The idea, as Dion has put it, is to "lower taxes on things we want more of – income, innovation, savings and investment, and (to) shift those taxes toward the things we want less of – pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, smog and waste."

But here in Ontario, Premier Dalton McGuinty rejects his brother's carbon tax in favour of a cap-and-trade system, in which government sets a cap on the amount of greenhouse gas every industrial company is allowed to emit, while permitting those who are unable to stay within their caps to buy the surplus room of companies that manage to come in under their caps.

A carbon tax would appear to take direct aim at consumers, while a cap-and-trade system targets industry. But there is, in fact, less difference than one might suspect because the cap-and-trade costs or savings would be passed on to consumers. Both systems are designed to change behaviour by raising the prices of goods and services with a high carbon content and lowering the prices of products with low emissions.

As both schemes work through prices, theory would suggest that for every potential rate of carbon tax (say, 5 per cent or 10 per cent) there is, in fact, a corresponding cap that would produce an identical result.

So, why are the McGuinty brothers at odds?

This is where the unique nature of Canadian politics comes into play. Dion and David McGuinty are talking about a federal carbon tax for all of Canada, while Dalton McGuinty seems to be talking only about the province of Ontario when he says: "Every province has a different economic situation and we feel that from our perspective, a cap-and-trade system is the best way to go."

But the reality is that Canada desperately needs a national climate change policy, to which any provincial add-ons would be just that. By dumping on Dion's carbon tax, Premier McGuinty is tacitly lending support to the national cap-and-trade system favoured by Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government, which, unfortunately, refuses to impose the hard caps necessary to make cap-and-trade work.

Premier McGuinty may sound like he wants to take a leadership position on this issue when he says, "it's one of the things that (Premier) Jean Charest and I are going to continue to talk about (when they meet in Quebec City this week), to see if we might build a foundation for a national cap-and-trade system."

But McGuinty is blowing smoke if he thinks he can get Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach to agree to an effective cap-and-trade system. As premier of the province with the fastest-growing emissions thanks to the tar sands development, Stelmach has been adamant about doing anything on climate change that would have an adverse effect on the oil industry.

That's why Ottawa needs to adopt a national strategy. And since Harper talks vaguely about cap-and-trade without real caps, Dion's approach is the more serious of the two.

The Quebec City meeting, bringing together cabinet ministers from the two provinces as well as the premiers, can be seen as an attempt to recreate the old Ontario-Quebec axis, which has its roots in the 19th century in the days of Oliver Mowat and Honoré Mercier.

Relations between McGuinty and Charest had been cool, as the Quebec premier preferred to cozy up to Harper. But latterly, the relationship between the two premiers has warmed as they have sought to get Ottawa to pay some attention to the plight of the manufacturing sector in central Canada, among other things.

Don't expect the Quebec City session to produce a lot of Ottawa-bashing, however. In addition to a cap-and-trade initiative, the meeting will focus on bilateral issues, like interprovincial trade and labour mobility, including mutual recognition of professional accreditation.

But if the relationship deepens and the federal Conservatives continue to downplay concerns about the economy of central Canada, then the two premiers may join forces against Ottawa.

Oilsands exports threatened by u.s. protests; Environmentalists gearing up

jessie — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 06:56:58 -0700

Oilsands exports threatened by u.s. protests; Environmentalists gearing up

Gordon Jaremko, June 3, 2008, Canwest News Service -- Environmental protests are heating up into a real political risk that Canadian oilsands exports to the United States will be disrupted, a Texas-based bitumen importer and developer said yesterday.

But Alberta industry probably will not be badly set back because exports rejected by the U.S. could instead be sent to other countries where economic development is their main concern, ConocoPhillips vice-president John Lowe said.

"At this point, we're proceeding full-speed ahead," Lowe said after describing environmental concerns closing in on U.S. oil companies.

The U.S. Environmental Integrity Project and Environmental Defence Canada circulated notices they will release a "major new study" of growing U.S. oilsands dependence at news conferences tomorrow in Washington, D.C., and Toronto.

The report will prove more than half of five planned new U.S. refineries are "a major step backward with staggering environmental consequences," the green groups promised.

"The data will show U.S. refineries are placing a major bet on fuel sources that are dirtier to mine, process and refine," the protest organizations predicted.

Oilsands extraction "releases considerably more greenhouse gases compared with conventional oil," said the invitation to a news event that is to include international telephone hookups spanning Canada and the United States.