First described by Canadian explorer Alexander MacKenzie (1764 -1820), the Athabasca oil sands region in northern Alberta is increasingly providing vital oil to the world.
Some people think of the oil sands as a modern devil incarnate; they claim that the resource extraction process is causing both local pollution and climate change from carbon dioxide gas (CO2), emitted by the extraction process and, later on, consumption of the oil.
For example, the messianic zealots of
350.org want “
tar sands free towns” while having no compunction to use oil (from wherever) for their travels. Similarly, the David Suzuki foundation is promoting Andrew Nikiforuk's book “Tar Sands, dirty oil and the future of a continent” with claims such as “oil sands: poison the water supply, drain the Athabasca and contribute to climate change.”
None of this is true, as recently demonstrated at the latest SETAC conference.
SETAC
The Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) held its latest North America Annual Meeting in Nashville in November 2013. One of the special sessions was on the Canadian oil sands and the environmental impact of that resource industry. Richard A. Frank of Environment Canada and Jonathan W. Martin, University of Alberta have published a summary of the full-day platform session on the Canadian
Oil Sands.
Of particular interest is the part on Oil Sands Process-affected Water (OSPW). That, for example, showed that the acute toxicity to Hyalella azteca (an aquatic plant species) exposed to commercial mixtures of the common process-water constituents called naphthenic acids (NAs) was 20-fold more toxic than a mixture of NAs extracted from OSPW. Another study showed that Athabasca River surface water extracts revealed that the waters upstream and downstream of the oil sands development area indicated no significant evidence of contamination by OSPW.
Yes, there were also some indications of higher concentration or effects compared to baseline or background levels. However, over all, the oils sands extraction does not negatively affect the local aquatic system.
The question then returns to the “global impact,” e.g. via CO2 emissions from the oil sands extraction.
Global Impact
Activists like David Suzuki, rocker
Neil Young and a few other
deluded souls claim that the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the oil sands extraction process are causing “climate change” and a whole slew of subsequent effects, from the Arctic ice melting to hurricanes and typhoons, etc. Such claims, of course, are total hogwash.
To begin with, neither the frequency nor intensity of landfalling hurricanes has increased over the last 150 years, as apparent from the figure below. In fact, if there is any trend at all, it rather looks like it’s getting smaller despite rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere.
More importantly though, there is ample evidence, both theoretical and practical, that CO2 is and cannot be a climate controlling agent at all. I’ve mentioned some reasons already in previous posts, like “
Doubling Down on Carbon or Invest in Mouse Traps Now” and “
Calling the Climate-Change Bluff.”
For a practical example, just look at planet Mars (nearest planet to Earth) whose atmosphere consists almost entirely of CO2 (95% on Mars versus 0.04% on Earth). While the day time temperature on Mars is similar to that on Earth the night time side is rather cold with MINUS 200 F. Though the cold little Green Martians would really welcome some positive “climate change” the CO2 there is of no help.
Pipelines
THE question of the time appears to be whether or not construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline (XL) from the oils sands south to Texas is going to be with or without “any significant environmental impact.” The current US administration has been keeping it in limbo for over five years now. As the Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister just noted at the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C., the back and forth of the decision making process has been going on rather long already.
Apart from the potential for thousands of well-paid construction jobs, even if construction of the XL would not provide a single permanent job at all within the US (which, clearly is not the case), it would provide the US with a long-term energy supply from its reliable and friendly neighbor to the north.
Moreover, there are already tens of thousand miles of pipeline criss-crossing the US and Canada. Without doubt more pipelines will be built here and there in the future. The only question is: does the US want a stable access to Canadian oil sands oil or not?
