Oilsands Producers Get Failing Grade on Environment
A new report card has given a failing grade to nine of 10 Alberta oilsands producers on their environmental performance.
The study by the Pembina Institute and the World Wildlife Fund ranked 10 operating and proposed oilsands mines on 20 different environmental indicators, including environmental management, land impacts, air pollution, water use and management of greenhouse gases.
The report said seven of the 10 producers participated in the study and only one was given a passing grade.
While Albian’s Muskeg mine ranked highest with a 56 per cent grade, Syncrude and Syneco ranked last, with only 18 per cent. The average score among all oilsands projects surveyed was only 33 per cent.
“We found that oilsands companies are making weak efforts to manage their environmental impacts,” Dan Woynillowicz of the Pembina Institute said in a statement.
“We found only one mining operation came close to a passing grade and that substantial improvements in environmental performance were possible for all projects.”
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The study found that the companies “lagged in several key areas.” It noted, for example, that the Albian Muskeg River Mine was the only operation that had voluntary targets to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
Rob Powell, spokesman for the World Wildlife Fund, said companies are not the only ones to blame.
“I think the government has taken rather a laissez-faire approach to regulating this industry, relying too heavily on voluntary efforts by the company. And in many cases, the companies haven’t chosen to do those things. They haven’t established targets for reducing their emissions, for example.”
It also found that no project or company has publicly reported targets to reduce water usage from the Athabasca River.
No company scored better than 50 per cent on the five water-related questions, and only three scored any marks at all for plans to deal with greenhouse gas production, with Albian’s existing Muskeg mine racking up a 66 per cent grade.
The report made a number of recommendations, including the need for greater transparency from government and industry on environmental performance and a stronger commitment to voluntary reductions in environmental impacts.
With files from the Canadian Press
© 2008 CBC News
If this were school, the top-rated company would be getting an “F” with a score of 56%, and the others would be getting penalized and forced to do extra work to bring their grades up or get booted out.
So long as we Canadians are guaranteed yankee dollars for 70 percent of the oil extracted from these tar-pits of hell, nothing will change. We will be only too happy to keep supplying the American appetite and take the blame for the mess left behind. And that’s nothing less than we deserve for all the American ass-kissing we’ve been doing since Mulrony-Reagan gifted us with the Canada-US free trade agreement.
The Conservative Party, which Prime Minister Stephen Harper heads is a merger/rejoining (some would say take over of PC by CA) of the former Progressive Conservative and Canadian Alliance Parties. Stephen Harper was the former leader of the Canadian Alliance, which was born in Alberta. What is good for the Alberta Oil Sands is good for Canada, as far as Stephen Harper is concerned. This is the central point.
Has anyone seen the special on the Alberta Oil Sands? Seems that Alberta’s Environment Minister only barely believes in the concept of “Global Warming” - and guess where his office is located!
http://www.cbc.ca/national/blog/video/environmentscience/crude_awakening.html
The results may change, but at this moment these are the CTV poll results:
Should Alberta impose mandatory standards on the oilsands industry?
Yes, they need to set tough guidelines
2049 votes (84 %)
No, the industry can manage its own regulations
400 votes (16 %)
Total Votes: 2449
My guess is that many of those who say “No” are either Conservative insiders or benefit in some way from the Alberta Oil sands (some may even be Americans).
Report criticizes oilsands companies on environment
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080110/oilsands_080110/20080110?hub=Canada
“It noted, for example, that the Albian Muskeg River Mine was the only operation that had voluntary targets to limit greenhouse gas emissions.”
Huh? is this so-called environmental group nuts?
How in the world can an oil producer “limit greenhouse gas emissions”??? The product they produce is unavoidably destined to be turned into greenhouse gas the moment it gets sent down the pipeline or loaded on the train.
Apparently, Canadian “democracy” is like the American version.
Go pull a lever every few years to earn the right to complain when the elected government ignores the will of the people.
zoya, could you explain a bit more fully what FTA/NAFTA gave the US concerning Canada’s Oil - I’m lazy and get the feeling that it is something that isn’t talked about much down there.
PJD - I think I know what you are getting at, but I think that the Enviromentalist’s position is not too well explained. They were focusing on the voluntary targets part.
There are things that the Oil industry can do to reduce greenhouse emissions with the oil sands, but the require a slower extraction of oil from the tar-sands. And they don’t want to do this because the price of oil is quite high. When the price of oil gets too low, then Alberta reduces its production of oil because it costs more to extract it from the tar sands than it does from the ground in Iraq.
What they want to do (again with voluntary targets) is cut emission intensities - which means that, while the amount of green house gases emitted per unit of oil extracted goes down, the overall green house gases emitted actually goes up. Or something like that.
Finally, I saw a documentary on BBC or Australian TV at a friends house that showed an icebreaker charter exploring the melting Arctic. Most people are so far removed from this impeding crisis, they aren’t even really aware it is about to flood their costal cities in SINGULAR years according to some scientists (keep in mind NONE of the previous computer climate models showed the Northwest Passage opening up to shipping from Europe to Asia, not even in a hundred years.) In other words we are in a veritable runaway “Three Mile Island” crisis and if Greenland goes the respiratory disease from drowned corpses will find their way to an Airbus near you.
The only logical conclusion that a sane individual could draw, once he has done research on it, is that we must outlaw the private automobile and the electric light. We have to go into darkness in order to halt the carbon output until we can switch to non-carbon footprint alternatives. Oh, and since peasants are causing half of this, through their slash and burn activities to make rain forest into farmland, we have to force madatory mass sterilization on the world.
Nothing less drastic will have an impact on this super thin eggshell we call our atmosphere.
If you don’t believe this, then, by all means, become a neocon and buy a Hummer. Kill your children, you despicable religious wackos (present company, of course, excluded.)
aaah quit yer bellyachin’… oil.. we need more of it, you environ-mental wackos go f-ck yerselfs, there is more oil in Alberta than Saudi Arabia and Venezooala put together
OIL SANDS ALERT– ANOTHER NAIL IN OUR COFFIN
The pursuit of mining the oil sands in Canada and the oil shales in the western U.S. while sidetracking alternative energy development, highlights the contempt for our planet by the energy cartels. Their extraction require massive amounts of energy which compounds their contributions to greenhouse gasses and related pollution. The environmental destruction resulting from their massive excavations, and wasteful consumption of water only add to their ddisasterous effects.
These interests are well represented in the current administration who have continuously opposed real measures for conservation & carbon warming mitigation. Until we replace this administration with one that will stand up to these thugs and invoke needed reforms, the degradation to our habitat from their reckless environmental policies can only accelerate.
Tar sands are like scraping the bottom of the barrel. It takes a lot of water and natural gas to produce something like oil at a very high cost of production compared with the Middle East. I would rather that they forget about the tar sands and pipe the natural gas here for use in automobiles. It is much cleaner than gasoline and you can fill up in your garage for less than $2 per gallon equivalent energy. The Honda Civic GX natural gas vehicle is rated the cleanest and greenest car made. With new adsorption technology, natural gas can be contained at 500 psi instead of 5000 psi for the same range.
The globalresearch article is good, as well as the sacbee.com article there’s a link for; and the two CD articles are complementary information anyway. The globalresearch one provides interesting geological information I’ve otherwise not found in other articles mentioning on these oil sands, which the GR article is wholly about.
“Tar Sands vs. Clean Water: Eating the Earth for Cars
by Mark Robinowitz
Global Research, December 11, 2007
oilempire.us ”
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7588
“Published on Monday, December 10, 2007 by The Independent/UK
BP’s Project in Alberta: A License to Wreak Environmental Havoc
by Mike Hudema”
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/12/10/5735
“Published on Monday, December 10, 2007 by The Independent/UK
BP Set To Commit ‘The Biggest Environmental Crime in History’
by Cahal Milmo”
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/12/10/5734
Actually, the following article is also very good to read and make others know about.
“War and “Peak Oil”
Confessions of an ‘ex’ Peak Oil believer
by F. William Engdahl
Global Research, September 26, 2007″
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6880