deep trouble the reality of in situ tar sands operations
DESCRIPTION
In an effort to distance themselves from the powerful, but negative, images of open-pit mining in the Alberta tar sands, many oil companies are now touting the advantages of their in situ (or underground) operations.TRANSCRIPT
DEEP TROUBLE THE REALITY OF IN SITU TAR SANDS OPERATIONS
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RESEARCH AND WRITING
Keith Stewart works on energy policy and green energy solutions for Greenpeace Canada, building on 14 years of experience as an environmental researcher and advocate. He has a PhD from York University and has taught courses on environmental policy and politics at the University of Toronto as well as at York, Trent and Ryerson universities.
Melina Laboucan-Massimo works on supporting and building community resistance to the tar sands as a climate and energy campaigner with Greenpeace Canada. She grew up in the Peace River region of northern Alberta, where in situ development is expanding rapidly, and is a member of the Lubicon Cree First Nation. Melina has been working as an advocate for Indigenous rights for the past 10 years. Before joining Greenpeace, Melina was pursuing her Masters in Environmental Studies at York University.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSGreenpeace would like to thank all those who graciously shared their personal experiences with in situ tar sands operations. In particular, we would like to thank the Beaver Lake Cree First Nation and the law firm of Woodward and Company, LLP.
CONTENTS
1 _Introduction
3 _ClimateChange
5 _AirPollution
7 _WaterContamination
8 _WaterUse
9 _LandscapeandHabitatDisturbance
11 _FirstNations’TreatyRights
12 _DoestheWorldNeedOilfromtheTarSands?
DESIGNBrigitte Binet
PHOTO CREDITS Cover : Aerial view of Petro-Canada SAGD site in the Boreal Forest north of Fort McMurray, Alberta, July 2009, ©Jiri Rezac, Greenpeace / p.1 Alberta Pipeline, ©GFWC. / p.2 Waschuk Pipeline, ©Jasonwoodhead (flickr) / p.3 Jingletown (fotopedia) / p.5 © John Woods, Greenpeace / p.6 Suncor, Chris Schwarz / p.7 Source: oilgoneeasy.com / p.8 Source: twflood.com / p.9 © Richard Grimshaw / p.10 Caribou, © Wayne Sawchuck, Satellite Foster Creek project: source: Google Earth / p.11 Beaver Lake, by Maren Van Nostrand / p.12 © Greenpeace | EM / p.14 Satellite Exxon Cold Lake tar sands project, source: Google Earth
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INTRODUCTIONIn an effort to distance themselves from the powerful, but negative, images of open-pit mining in the Alberta tar sands, many oil companies are now touting the advantages of their in situ (or underground) operations.
A supposed alternative to open-pit mining not only has some public relations benefits, but masks what is really necessity as virtue, as over 80 per cent of the oil locked up in the Canadian tar sands are too deep to be mined.
These deeper deposits of bitumen (a tar-like substance which can be processed into synthetic crude oil) must be exploited through in situ extraction. The most common method is known as steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD), which involves heating the bitumen with super-hot steam from an underground pipe so that it begins to flow. The bitumen, together with much of the water generated by the cooling of the injected steam, can then be pumped to the surface from another pipe laid beneath the one that brings the steam.
In situ extraction has been used in the tar sands for over 20 years, but production is growing rapidly and is projected to become the largest source of crude oil in Canada.
Yet while the impacts of in situ tar sands operations are less visible than those of open-pit mining, the impacts on the environment and local communities are no less real; in many cases, such as with greenhouse gas emissions or the sheer expanse of landscape that is affected, they are worse.
This report examines the various claims made by the oil industry with respect to the supposed benefits of in situ tar sands operations, and compares them with the evidence from the industry itself, from government documents (including briefing notes obtained under the Access to Information Act), and from the peer-reviewed scientific literature.
We have also included first-hand accounts from people in the affected area. They have a direct experience, that is not being captured in government or academic reports, of how their communities are being treated as a sacrifice zone in order to feed the broader society’s addiction to ever-dirtier oil.
It doesn’t have to be this way. As the world runs out of cheap, easily-accessible oil, we have a choice.
We can pursue the last drop of oil, using vast amounts of money, natural gas, and water to literally melt the oil out of the ground in northern Alberta.
Or we can choose to invest in going beyond oil. That won’t happen overnight, but it can be done, over the same timeframe and with the same resources that would go into expanding the tar sands.
This choice should not, however, be made based on a series of sugar-coated half-truths about in situ tar sands operations.
VOICES FROM AFFECTED COMMUNITIES
“ I look at what is happening to our traditional hunting lands, and I lie awake at night. I worry that this is not just the end of our way of life, but the end of all of our lives.” 1 — Chief Al Lameman, Beaver Lake Cree First Nation
1 Personal communication (February 14, 2011).
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WHAT’S IN A NAME?
020252023202120192017201520132011200920072005
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Figure 2.2 Growth Case - Western Canada Oil Sands & Conventional Production
Carrie Tait, “Oil Sands? Bite your tongue”, The Financial Post, Friday, November 13, 2009“First they were tar sands. Then they were oil sands. Now? Enhanced oil projects.
“At least according to En-Cana Corp. and its oil-sands spinoff, Cenovus Energy Inc. The pair want to distinguish their oil-sands operations, which employ the underground and more carbon-intensive steam-assisted gravity (SAGD) drainage method, from the more aesthetically offensive open-pit mining efforts that are accompanied by deadly tailings ponds. As a result, the two firms have ditched the term ‘oil sands’ from their lexicon and replaced it with ‘enhanced oil projects’ or just ‘oil projects.’”
FIGURE 1.GROWTH CASE - WESTERN CANADA OIL SANDS & CONVENTIONAL PRODUCTION
Source: Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, Crude Oil: Forecast, Markets and Pipelines (June 2010).
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WHAT’S IN A NAME?
CLIMATE CHANGETHE CLAIM: “We will continue to reduce greenhouse gas emissions per barrel of production.”
— Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers 2
THE REALITY: Greenhouse gas emissions per barrel of oil in Canada have been steadily increasing as oil from the tar sands has become a larger share of total oil production, and absolute emissions have been rising as oil output has grown. While the emissions per barrel from tar sands production declined in the 1990–2006 period, this trend is expected to be reversed if in situ production, which has more greenhouse gas emissions per barrel than either tar sands mining operations or conventional oil extraction, grows to be a larger share of total oil production.
RESEARCH FINDINGSEnvironment Canada (the federal government’s environment ministry)
“[T]he average GHG [greenhouse gas] intensity for all oil and gas production and processing activities increased by 10% between 1990 and 2008. During this period, the intensity for conventional (light, medium and heavy) oil production increased by 24%. Oil sands mining, extraction and upgrading activities were about 1.5 times more GHG-intensive than conventional oil production in 2008.”3
Total emissions from oil sands mining, extraction and upgrading went from 16.8 million tonnes in 1990 to 37.2 million tonnes in 2008.4
2 Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, “Canada’s Oil Sands: What We’re doing: Climate Change”, http://www.canadasoilsands.ca/en/what-were-doing/green-house-gas.aspx (accessed October 29, 2010).
3 Environment Canada, National Inventory Report: Greenhouse Gas Sources and Sinks in Canada 1990–2008 (April 2010), p. 23. It should also be noted that an increasing propor-tion of bitumen is being exported to the US for upgrading and refining, so that “emissions associated with the upgrading and refining of bitumen were increasingly avoided in Canada, which also contributed to reductions in overall oil production intensity” (ibid, pp. 69–70).
4 Ibid, p. 86.
Environment Canada projects that the oil sands emissions will increase to 108 million tonnes in 2020, accounting for 44 per cent of the anticipated increase in Canada’s GHG emissions between 2006 and 2020.5 This projected increase is greater than the entire 2008 national emissions of Norway (54 million tonnes) or Denmark (64 million tonnes).
Natural Resources Canada (federal energy ministry) internal briefing notes obtained under the Access to Information Act
“This trend [reduced GHG emissions per barrel from 1990 to 2006] may be reversed in coming years for several reasons:
The dramatic energy efficiency gains of the past two decades are unlikely to be continued in the future unless there is a substantive shift to new extraction and upgrading technologies.
Many of the ‘easiest’ reserves have already been exploited and much of the future development will focus on more marginal reserves that are ‘harder’ (more energy intensive) to extract.
The proportion of the overall production from the more GHG-intensive in-situ projects is expected to rise in comparison to the less emissions-intensive surface mining operations.”6
5 Environment Canada, Turning the Corner: Detailed Emissions and Economic Modelling (2008), p. 42.
6 Natural Resources Canada, “Oil Sands—GHG Emissions”, Issue Paper (December 5, 2008). Document released under the Access to Information Act.
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United States Environmental Protection Agency
“We estimate that GHG emissions from the Canadian oil sands crude would be approximately 82 per cent greater than the average crude refined in the U.S. on a well-to-tank basis.”7
Government-Appointed Task Force on Carbon Capture and Storage Potential
“The oil sands are the fastest growing sector for domestic GHG emissions and so there are real opportunities for reductions. However, oil sands operations are very diverse (both geographically and technically) and only a small portion of the CO2 [carbon dioxide] streams are currently amenable for CCS [carbon capture and storage] due to both the size of emissions streams and the concentrations.”8
7 Letter from Cynthia Giles of the US Environmental Protection Agency to Jose Fernandez and Kerri-Ann Jones of the US State Department (June 16, 2010), on the Environmental Impact Statement for the Keystone XL pipeline, p. 2, available at http://yosemite.epa.gov/oeca/webeis.nsf/(PDFView)/20100126/$file/20100126.PDF?OpenElement.
8 The ecoEnergy Carbon Capture and Storage Task Force, Canada’s Fossil Energy Future: The Way Forward on Carbon Capture and Storage, report to the Minister of Alberta Energy and the Minister of Natural Resources Canada (January 9, 2008), pp. 8–9.
Peer-Reviewed Academic Literature
“Thirteen studies of GHG emissions associated with oil sands operations are reviewed. The production of synthetic crude oil (SCO) through surface mining and upgrading (SM&Up) or in situ and upgrading (IS&Up) processes is reported to result in emissions ranging from 62 to 164 and 99 to 176 kg [kilograms] CO2eq/bbl [carbon dioxide equivalent/barrel] SCO, respectively (or 9.2–26.5 and 16.2–28.7 g [grams] CO2eq MJ [megajoules]−1 SCO, respectively), compared to 27–58 kg CO2eq/bbl (4.5–9.6 g CO2eq MJ−1) of crude for conventional oil production. The difference in emissions intensity between SCO and conventional crude production is primarily due to higher energy requirements for extracting bitumen and upgrading it into SCO.”9
9 Alex Charpentier, Joule Bergerson and Heather MacLean, “Understanding the Cana-dian oil sands industry’s greenhouse gas emissions.” Environmental Research Letters 4 (2009): 014005.
FIGURE 2.
WELL-TO-REFINERY-ENTRANCE’S GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS PER BARREL OF SYNTHETIC CRUDE OIL FROM SURFACE MINING AND IN SITU SANDS OPERATIONS VERSUS CONVENTIONAL OIL
Source: Alex Charpentier, Joule Bergerson and Heather Maclean, “Understanding the Candadian oil sands industry’s greenhouse gas emissions.” Environmental Research Letters 4 (2009): 014005
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Source: Alex Charpentier, Joule Bergeron and Heather Maclean, «Understanding the Candadian oil sands industry’s greenhouse gas emissions.» Environmental Research Letter 4 (2009): 014005
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AIR POLLUTIONTHE CLAIM: “We will not emit any poisonous waste to the air, rivers, fresh water or soil.” — Statoil, from its commitment to responsible development in the oil sands 10
THE REALITY: In situ oil sands operations are major air polluters.
RESEARCH FINDINGSNatural Resources Canada
“Air pollutant intensities for oil sands are more than double those for the production of conventional light/medium crude oil.”11
Environment Canada
Oil companies routinely report 16 different toxic and smog-causing air emissions from their in situ oil sands operations to Environment Canada’s National Pollutant Release Inventory. These emissions would be higher if the emissions associated with upgrading the resulting bitumen into synthetic crude oil were included, as most upgrading takes place off-site.
VOICES FROM AFFECTED COMMUNITIESDonna Dahm, high school teacher in the Peace River region, where in situ extraction is expanding rapidly
“I live in a rural agricultural area in northwestern Alberta — an area that has recently been the site of massive expansion of bitumen extraction. Over the past five years, we have experienced the ‘Alberta advantage’ — we now have the advantage that comes with 300 trucks a day wheeling past our home at every hour of the day or night, the emissions from hundreds of extraction sites and the added value of the deterioration of our health. These ‘advantages’ that the Alberta government so reverently refers to in their defense of indiscriminate resource extraction are clearly the rewards garnered by
10 Statoil, Balancing our Responsibilities: Statoil in Brief 2009/2010, p. 21.11 Natural Resources Canada, “Oil Sands—Air Pollutant Emissions”, Issue Paper
(December 5, 2008). Document released under the Access to Information Act.
the industry executives in their Calgary office towers as they amass huge dividends for their shareholders. There are few advantages in my community when our local and provincial governments are using my tax money to provide roads and infrastructure to support the very activities that are threatening the health of our community.
“I know, without a doubt that if these continual emissions were being spewed out daily to the Legislature grounds in Edmonton or to downtown Calgary office towers, there would have been a massive and immediate effort to eliminate the emissions.
“When community members have expressed concern to our local and provincial governments and regulatory bodies (ERCB and Alberta Environment) regarding our serious health concerns related to our exposure to harmful emissions from this extraction activity we are repeatedly told that the ‘odours’ have no identifiable source and there is no reason to be worried about our health. That ‘risk assessment’ may be acceptable for the group of policy makers and corporate executives who don’t live with the emissions day in and day out and have no exposure to the bitumen extraction activities. But why is it not only acceptable, but blatantly supported by our governments and regulators, to expose others to emissions that clearly have a deleterious effect on our health. Furthermore, the regulatory bodies continue their approvals, one project at a time, with no consideration of the cumulative effects of compounds in the emissions, or the resulting detrimental effects of combinations of compounds.
“Why are we repeatedly and consistently experiencing exhaustion, joint pain, respiratory difficulties and headaches if there is no risk? It is clear that the well-being of our community is for sale, or more accurately, to be given away to any industry that wishes to set up shop to make a buck.”12
12 Personal communication (February 16, 2011).
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Air Emissions rEportEd by ninE in situ oil sAnds opErAtion to EnvironmEnt CAnAdA’s nAtionAl pollutAnt rElEAsE invEntory in 2009
substAnCE rElEAsEs to Air (in tonnEs) HEAltH And EnvironmEntAl impACts
benzene 9.27 Toxic and known human carcinogen (cancer-causing)
Cadmium 29.0 Toxic and known human carcinogen (cancer-causing)
mercury 6.8 Toxic, causing damage to the nerve system
Hydrogen sulphide 54.1 Toxic, and at high concentrations can asphyxiate animals and people.
sulphur dioxide 7,151 Causes acid rain and smog
nitrogen oxides 1,653 Causes acid rain and smog
Carbon dioxide 9,776,526 Principal greenhouse gas (this is the equivalent of the tailpipe emissions of 1.6 million cars)
Source: Data from Environment Canada, National Pollutant Release Inventory database, http://www.ec.gc.ca/inrp-npri/default.asp?lang=En&n=4A577BB9-1 (accessed Oct. 29, 2010).
100080
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250
Source: OSTRM
In SituMiningUpgrader hydrogen today Added future upgrader hydrogen Upgrader fuel (assumes no coke burning)
400
standard cubic feet / barrelall figures are estimates and will vary
100080
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250
Source: OSTRM
In SituMiningUpgrader hydrogen today Added future upgrader hydrogen Upgrader fuel (assumes no coke burning)
400
standard cubic feet / barrelall figures are estimates and will vary
Source: Alberta Chamber of Resources, Oil Sands Technology Roadmap (January 30, 2004), p. 52.
FIGURE 3.
CURRENT OIL SANDS NATURAL GAS DEMAND
TABLE 1
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THE CLAIM: “In situ drilling, unlike opencast mining, does not create a large physical footprint or involve tailings ponds or liquid residues.”13 — BP website
THE REALITY:
The contaminated water is being pumped into what are essentially underground tailings ponds. The federal government’s top scientific advisors on groundwater are calling for no new approvals for in situ operations, due to the potential negative impacts on groundwater aquifers.
RESEARCH FINDINGSCouncil of Canadian Academies (an independent scientific advisory group that was asked by the federal government for advice on groundwater management)
“Since more than four-fifths of the total bitumen reserves in Alberta are accessible only by in situ methods, the demand for groundwater for in situ production could be as great as, or greater than the demand for surface water for oil sands mining, unless new extraction processes are adopted… A thorough understanding of the hydraulic controls on SAGD operations, critical for constraining the injection and production fluids and preventing crossformational migration and contamination of productive aquifers, is absent. The key parameters that control the extent of leakage, the confining pressures in the overlying layers, the integrity of the aquitards and the presence of downward gradients are generally difficult to measure comprehensively and therefore are not well characterised. Away from the bitumen, the degree of hydraulic connectivity to down-cut and often buried glacial scours and to modern river courses needs to be better understood before more underground injection sites are approved.” 14
13 BP website, http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9032750&contentId=7059983. Accessed November 8, 2010.
14 Council of Canadian Academies, The Sustainable Management of Groundwater in Canada: Report of the Expert Panel on Groundwater (2009), pp. 146–7.
WATER CONTAMINATIONNational Roundtable on the Environment and Economy (advisory body appointed by the federal government)
“A very important unknown cumulative effect of oil sands operations may be that of the impact to groundwater aquifers. The significant groundwater use by in situ operations could potentially affect drawdown of fresh or shallow saline aquifers, change groundwater levels, and allow freshwater to infiltrate voids created by bitumen removal. The aquifers in the regions are currently not accurately mapped and so the potential impact is very uncertain.”15
VOICES FROM AFFECTED COMMUNITIESElder Midge Johnson, Beaver Lake Cree First Nation
“We used to be able to stop at a bog and clear away and drink the water that ran back in. Now the horses won’t drink the water. It’s gone bad.”16
Flora Gladue, Beaver Lake Cree First Nation
“The fish don’t taste good anymore because of the pollution from the oil sands. They don’t taste the way they did before. They used to be pure fish, clean fish. Now, with all the pollution from oilsands development, they don’t taste the same. Maybe they eat the pollution or they drink water with it and after that they just don’t taste good.”17
15 National Roundtable on the Environment and Economy, Changing Currents: Water Sustainability and the Future of Canada’s Natural Resource Sectors (June 2010), p. 92.
16 Personal Communication (June 2008).17 Personal Communication (July 2009).
Source: Alberta Chamber of Resources, Oil Sands Technology Roadmap (January 30, 2004), p. 52.
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WATER USETHE CLAIM: In situ projects will minimize their use of water and willuse non-potable water, e.g.: “Water, while plentiful in Northern Alberta, is a finite resource. We designed Phase 1 to recycle more than 90% of the water and to use non-potable groundwater.” — Opti-Nexen, referring to its Long Lake in situ operation18
THE REALITY: The cumulative impact of water use by in situ operation is of concern to scientific advisors, and most in situ operations are using far more water than projected in the environmental impact assessments used to get approval for the project.
RESEARCH FINDINGSCouncil of Canadian Academies (an independent scientific advisory group that was asked by the federal government for advice on groundwater management)
“Although 90 to 95 per cent of the water used for steam [for in situ oil sands production] is reused, 1 m3 [cubic meter] of bitumen produced still requires about 0.2 m3 of additional groundwater (NEB, 2008). Eventually, most of the groundwater used for steam injection or processing ends up either being deep-well injected or stored in tailings ponds. This groundwater is considered lost as a resource for consumptive use...
“Since more than four-fifths of the total bitumen reserves in Alberta are accessible only by in situ methods, the demand for groundwater for in situ production could be as great as, or greater than the demand for surface water for oil sands mining, unless new extraction processes are adopted... Knowledge is lacking as to whether the aquifers in the Athabasca oil sands region can sustain these groundwater demands and losses.” 19
Industry Consultants
Research by the industry shows that actual water use is much higher than was predicted in the projects’ design, as put forward in environmental impact statements (see Table 2).
18 Opti-Nexen, “Responsible Development,” http://www.nexeninc.com/en/Operations/OilSands/LongLake/ResponsibleDevelopment.aspx. Accessed November 8, 2010.
19 Council of Canadian Academies, The Sustainable Management of Groundwater in Canada: Report of the Expert Panel on Groundwater (2009), pp. 144 and 210.
In the Opti-Nexen Long Lake operation, for example, the excess water demand has led the company to make an application to use 17,000 cubic metres per day from the Clearwater River (equivalent to the amount of water used by 50,000 households), in spite of committing to using only non-potable water when it submitted its application for the project.20
Natural Resources Canada
“Alternatives to water-based extraction processes could reduce water dependency for next generation oil sands plants; however, these replace water issues with significant air emissions, either from solvents which might be used or with sulphur dioxide from thermal processes.”21
VOICES FROM AFFECTED COMMUNITIESCleo Reece, co-chair of Keepers of the Athabasca, and member of the Fort McMurray First Nation
“Nexen’s claims are misleading. They say one thing and do another. They got approvals from the Energy and Resources Conservation Board on the condition of explicitly not using surface water and here we are a few years later and they are looking for 17,000 cubic metres per day from a heritage river. Alberta Environment needs to turn down the application because Nexen is telling one story to get its initial approval and a different one to allow it to get out of its original promises. We need to protect and preserve the water, the sacred gift we have been given, not only as a treaty right but as our responsibility for the future of the generations yet unborn.” 22
Ruth Kleinbub, Clearwater Heritage River Society
“We’re constantly told how environmentally friendly SAGD or in-situ is. I’m really questioning that at this point... I think it’s time the government sort of says ‘OK. Enough is enough.’ We’re hoping desperately that they do.”23
20 Dan Healing, “Oilsands Plan Angers Environmentalists”, The Star Phoenix (April 9, 2010).21 Natural Resources Canada, “Oil Sands—Water Use and Management”, Issue Paper (De-
cember 5, 2008). Document released under the Access to Information Act.22 Personal communication (February 15, 2011).23 Cited in Carol Christian, “Environmentalists dispute water withdrawal from Clearwater River”,
Fort McMurray Today (July 28, 2010).
WAtEr usE by in situ oil sAnds FACilitiEs: dEsign vErsus ACtuAl
In Situ oil sands Facility
steam-to-oil ratio: design
Cumulative steam-to-oil ratio: Actual
Firebag 2.0 3.4
Great Divide 2.7 4.0
Christina Lake 2.7 2.3
Long Lake 3.3 6.5
Surmont 2.5 3.5
Foster Creek 2.5 2.5
Joslyn 3.0 4.3
MacKay River 3.3 2.5
Tucker Lake 3.0 13.8
Average of 9 facilities 2.8 4.8
Source: Data from RPS Energy, JOGMEC SAGD Performance Study Final Presentation, Tokyo, September 29, 2009.
TABLE 2
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THE CLAIM: “The SAGD (Steam assisted gravity drainage) technique has a far less impact on the landscape than conventional mining operations”24 and “92 per cent of the area will remain undisturbed throughout the operation period.”25 — Statoil
THE REALITY: In situ tar sands operations cover a much larger area than mining operations, and fragment ecosystems in a way that is less obvious but is still deeply disruptive to wildlife habitat.
RESEARCH FINDINGS
Peer-Reviewed Academic Literature
“Despite the fact that less land is directly disturbed for in situ projects, we have shown that in situ developments can influence a magnitude of habitat that is larger than surface mining when edge effects and natural gas production are considered in the analysis.”26
Athabasca Landscape Team (a multi-stakeholder committee with representation from industry, academics and government, that was created to provide advice to the Alberta government)
“Boreal caribou will not persist for more than two to four decades without immediate and aggressive management intervention. tough choices need to be made between the management imperative to recover boreal caribou and plans for ongoing bitumen development and industrial land-use.... Land-use footprint, associated with oil sands (bitumen) extraction and forest harvest, is likely to increase throughout the Athabasca Landscape area over the next 50+ years. The highest risk to caribou occurs in areas that are underlain with thick bitumen deposits.”27 (Emphasis in the original.)
24Statoil, website, http://www.statoil.com/en/EnvironmentSociety/RelevantTopics/OilSand-InCanada/Pages/default.aspx. Accessed October 29, 2010.
25 Statoil, Balancing Our Responsibilities: Statoil in Brief 2009/2010, p. 21.26Sarah Jordaan, David Keith and Brad Stelfox, “Quantifying land use of oil sands produc-
tion: A life cycle perspective,” Environmental Research Letters 4 (2009).27 Athabasca Landscape Team, Athabasca Caribou Management Options Report, report
prepared for Alberta Caribou Commission (June 2008), pp. i–ii.
LANDSCAPE AND HABITAT DISTURBANCE
VOICES FROM AFFECTED COMMUNITIES
Elder Floyd Cardinal, Beaver Lake Cree First Nation
“It seems like the deer are moving north because of the alfalfa they plant along the new roads and pipeline routes. They carry disease with them that comes from the south. All the projects around Christina Lake are messing up things for the caribou.”28
Elder Rene (Rainy) Cardinal, Beaver Lake Cree First Nation
“Today there are no elk or moose left. The only animal left is deer. Even if the animals come back they are killed if they run on all the roads. These people that are digging up our forest, the oil and gas exploration crews, have frightened off all the animals. They have had to find other places to move to. Very rarely can you track animals here. The only place you see deer are farmers’ fields.”29
BLCN Elder Christine Twin, Beaver Lake Cree First Nation
“Lots of places where we used to go hunting or to pick medicine, we cannot go there anymore because they have put up gates for oil and gas wells. The moose, the ducks and the fish are diseased. When you open them up there are cancers in them or worms. The pollution falls on our medicines and the animals’ medicines and they get eaten and make them sick. Now we have to worry if berries or medicines are safe. The logging is a real problem. There are all these huge cutblocks and lines and the animals have no place to go. They cut right up to the shorelines of the lakes where the animal crossings are, so the animals have to be exposed to cross.”30
28 Personal Communication (June 2008). 29 Personal Communication (February 14, 2011).30 Personal Communication (July, 2009).
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THE CLAIM: “Our industry respects and understands the unique interests and constitutional rights of Aboriginal communities. We support the development of strong business relationships and partnerships based on trust and respect.” — Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers 31
THE REALITY: First Nations have launched lawsuits that identify thousands of violations of their treaty rights and are calling for a halt to the expansion of tar sands operations.
RESEARCH FINDINGS
The Beaver Lake Cree Nation’s ancestors signed Treaty 6 in 1876, and were guaranteed the right to hunt and fish for all time in their traditional use lands.The tar sands projects are illegal and unconstitutional because they violate the treaty — by destroying the very habitat upon which the animals and fish depend.
The legal action that was launched in 2008 (and is being led by the Victoria-based law firm Woodward and Company LLP), is based on the 1982 Constitution and recent Canadian court cases, which establish that the meaningful exercise of treaty rights requires protection of sufficient natural habitat for the animals and fish to thrive. Habitat is what must be preserved under the law — the habitat that is being destroyed by the heavy oil industry. These constitutional rights are the strongest environmental laws in Canada and possibly the world.
31Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, Today, Tomorrow: 2009 CAPP Stewardship Report, p. 3.
The legal challenge has identified over 20,000 violations of the Beaver Lake Cree Nation’s treaty rights. These include:
(i) failing to ensure minimal impairment of the Treaty Rights;
(ii) leaving the Plaintiffs with no meaningful way to exercise the Treaty Rights;
(iii) reducing the abundance and diversity of Wildlife species available to the Plaintiffs;
(iv) compromising the ecological, cultural and/or spiritual integrity of the Core Traditional Territory; and
(v) reducing the available Wildlife habitat of the Core Traditional Territory.32
In 2010, the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation and the Enoch Cree First Nation joined the Beaver Lake Cree Nation in a separate legal action calling for emergency protections for caribou herds in northern Alberta and a halt to industrial development in the caribou’s critical habitat.33
VOICES FROM AFFECTED COMMUNITIES
Jack Woodward, lawyer for the Beaver Lake Cree
“The law is clearly on the side of First Nations. The greatest barrier to justice and victory in this case is the high cost of the legal system. Canada and Alberta do not want to lose this case. But the courageous fight of the Beaver Lake Cree to protect their hunting and fishing grounds is also the world’s fight — to prevent the expansion of the climate-destroying tar sands developments in Alberta. The legal action of the Beaver Lake Cree is supported by those who see the massive destruction of the landscape as an environmental crime, and those who fear that the carbon released by the heavy oil projects may take the planet past the tipping point.”34
32See the Statement of Claim at http://www.beaverlakecreenation.ca/upload/docu-ments/statementofclaim.pdf.
33See http://www.woodwardandcompany.com/media/pdfs/Caribou_JR_-_Filed_No-tice_of_Application_-_colour.pdf.
34Personal communication (February 9, 2011).
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THE CLAIM: “The International Energy Agency has indicated that, even if GHG emissions are tightly constrained, fossil fuels will still be the dominant source of energy in 2030 and that the world will require a wide range of hydrocarbons within a balanced and sustainable energy mix… Oil sands also represent a significant and stable source of oil supply to enhance energy security and diversity, particularly for North America.” — BP, in response to the question “Does the world need oil from the oil sands?”35
THE REALITY: The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Reference Scenario that is being used by BP, Shell and others as justification for expanding tar sands operations was put forward as what the IEA Executive Director labelled a “caution.”36 It is a business-as-usual scenario, in which the Canadian tar sands triple their output, and it puts the world on the path to what the IEA called “massive climatic change and irreparable damage to the planet.”37
RESEARCH FINDINGSThe IEA’s 2009 World Energy Outlook was actually advocating for governments to pursue policies that would lead to a “low-carbon energy revolution.” In this scenario, the global growth of unconventional oil would fall dramatically, “with Canadian oil sands particularly heavily affected.”38
As the high-cost supplier, tar sands production is particularly sensitive to changes in the global demand for oil, which is why Canadian tar sands projects accounted for over 85 per cent of all of the upstream oil and gas projects in the world that were cancelled or pushed back by at least 18 months globally in response to the 2008 economic recession.39
35 BP, Sustainability Review 2009:Operating at the Energy Frontiers: How a Revital-ized BP Is Driving Efficiency, Momentum and Growth, p. 14.
36Cited in November 10, 2009 IEA press release, available at http://www.iea.org/press/pressdetail.asp?PRESS_REL_ID=294.
37IEA, World Energy Outlook 2009, p. 44.38IEA, World Energy Outlook 2009, p. 216. The IEA also noted that its low-carbon scenario
would also dramatically cut air pollution and reduce fuel costs in the transport sector by $6.2 trillion over the 2010–2030 period, helping to pay for the cost of making the change.
39 IEA, World Energy Outlook 2009, Table 3.2 on p. 142.
DOES THE WORLD NEED OIL FROM THE TAR SANDS?
The IEA’s 2010 World Energy Outlook presented (for the first time) a scenario in which the global demand for oil drops over the next 25 years, with the result that for the Canadian tar sands, “projects currently under construction or being planned would suffice to match supply to demand.”40
The IEA also noted, however, that this scenario only offers a 50 per cent or lower probability of keeping global warming below 2 degrees (as agreed to by Canada and other countries under the Copenhagen Accord).41
This is why Greenpeace and the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC) have put forward a more aggressive strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in their Energy [R]evolution blueprint,42 as have other groups, such as WWF.43 Even the US military is beginning to prepare for a world that has gone beyond oil.
The Energy [R]evolution scenarios tap into the large potential for improving the efficiency of the transport sector by shifting freight from road to rail, expanding public transit, and by using much lighter, smaller and more efficient passenger vehicles.
The other major factor reducing the demand for oil will be a switch to electric drive-trains for vehicles. In the Advanced Energy [R]evolution Scenario, the final energy share of electric vehicles on the road increases to 4 per cent by 2020, 19 per cent by 2030 and to over 50 per cent by 2050. Public transport systems will also increasingly use electricity to power their vehicles.
40 IEA, World Energy Outlook 2010, p. 147.41 IEA, World Energy Outlook 2010, p. 389.42Sven Teske, Energy [R]evolution: A Sustainable World Energy Outlook, 3rd edition
(2010), (Greenpeace and the European Renewable Energy Council [EREC], June 2010).
43Stephan Singer et al., The Energy Report: 100% Renewable Energy by 2050, report prepared for WWF, Ecofys and OMA (2011).
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This reduces greenhouse gas emissions because the electricity sector will be the pioneer of renewable energy utilisation. By 2030, 60 per cent of electricity will be produced from renewable sources, the portion rising to 95 per cent by 2050. A significant share of the fluctuating power generation from wind and solar photovoltaic will be used to supply electricity to vehicle batteries and produce hydrogen as a secondary fuel in transport and industry.
When combined, these factors eliminate any global need for oil from the tar sands.
VOICES FROM AFFECTED COMMUNITIESRandall Benson, CEO, Off the Grid Renewable Energy Power Systems, Inc.
“Before I worked for a certain open-pit mine company, I worked for a company which utilized SAGD [in situ] technology. This particular company, solely because of SAGD technology, purported to have a smaller, less impactful environmental footprint then traditional open pit mining.
“I fell for this hook line and sinker… until such time that I became more familiar with the process and technology as an employee. I soon realized that it was as, if not more, energy intensive than open-pit mining, and the huge amounts of water needed to generate the steam required was never going to be recoverable or potable. Instead of creating massive surface tailings ponds they injected the used, toxic water down into the aquifer. This did not sit well with me.
“Perhaps it’s true that the amount of land cleared and used is somewhat less than open mining but it is not any less impactful for the animals, fish and traditional hunting and trapping families who depend on the land. I know this because my family has been and continues to be directly affected by in situ development.
“Between my experiences as an employee, with in situ and open-pit mining, dissent grew within me. I decided to side with the values that were instilled and impressed upon me my entire life by family and local elders, and find something that I could do that would not transgress these values. For the last 10 years (14 if you count school and self-study) I have owned and operated a very successful renewable energy company specializing in solar power, wind power and now solar hot water systems. I am much happier!”44
James Hansen, NASA climate scientist
“It is still feasible to stabilize the climate, but only if we leave the tar sands in the ground. The massive greenhouse gas amounts from the tar sands surely would cause the climate system to pass tipping points, while also trampling on the human rights of Canada’s First Nation communities and greatly damaging the Canadian boreal forest... The world has reached a critical juncture in the climate debate. We can either move into the production of the most damaging fossil fuel, or we can begin to address our destructive addiction.” 45
44 Personal communication (February 7, 2011).45James Hansen, “Open Letter to Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg,”
published in the Norwegian paper Aftenposten, May 19, 2010.
TABLE 3: IEA AND GREENPEACE/EREC SCENARIOS FOR OIL DEMAND IN 2035
2009
iEA sCEnArios For 2035 grEEnpEACE / ErEC sCEnArios For 2035
Current policies
new policies
450 scenario
Energy [r]evolution (basic scenario)
Energy [r]evolution (advanced scenario)
global oil demand (millions of barrels/day) 84 107.4 99 81 59 51
Canadian oil sands production (millions of barrels/day)
1.3 4.6 4.2 3.3No need for new oil sands projects and the phase-out of existing projects is completed or underway
Source: Data from IEA, World Energy Outlook 2010, and Greenpeace/ European Renewable Energy Council (EREC) Energy [R]evolution: A Sustainable World Energy Outlook (2010).
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