Friends of the Lubicon
PO Box 444 Stn D,
Etobicoke ON M9A 4X4
Tel: (416) 763-7500
Email: fol (at) tao (dot) ca
www.lubicon.ca
February 26, 2008
Oil companies obviously have their own agenda and it's not the environment. When the consequences of the mad headlong rush to exploit the tar sands becomes controversial even among the oil companies, it's time for people who are concerned about the fate of the planet, and about the fate of those who are in the way of the mad headlong rush to exploit the tar sands, to take a position on what's happening in Alberta.
On a related front, attached is a letter to the Edmonton Journal that provides perspective on how much nuclear energy is going to be necessary to transform the asphalt-like tar sands into refined oil and huge amounts of greenhouse emissions -- three times as much as it takes to produce notoriously dirty conventional oil.
Moreover the amount of water that will be required to produce the nuclear energy and to extract the bitumen is almost beyond comprehension.
Two thirds of the energy produced by a nuclear plant goes into waste heat that has to dissipated and carried away from the nuclear plant in water that is then forever contaminated by radioactivity. That's if things go right and temperatures don't get out of hand defeating containment of the fissionable materials used to make nuclear energy resulting in deadly release of highly radioactive and toxic elements into the atmosphere and environment -- the dreaded so-called "meltdown"
On the bitumen side of things, it takes between 3 and 5 barrels of water to produce one barrel of tar sands oil and that water is then also forever contaminated and unusable for anything else. Hundreds of thousands of barrels of tar sands oil are currently being produced per day and the amount of tar sands oil targeted for recovery by the oil companies is estimated at somewhere between 280 and 300 billion barrels. That's the loss of a lot of water in a province, and a world, where the availability of finite water resources is already a great and growing concern concern.
ALBERTA
The Globe and Mail
Norval Scott
February 25, 2008
CALGARY -- A business-led lobbying effort to create a partial moratorium on oil sands development in order to free up conservation land has divided Canada's major energy companies, while a government decision on the issue will likely be delayed until after next Monday's provincial election.
Major oil producers - led by Petro-Canada Corp., Suncor Inc., Husky Energy Ltd., Shell Canada and Imperial Oil - have for the first time called on Alberta to slow development in the Athabasca region.
The group, which also includes Devon Canada and ConocoPhillips Canada, signed a private letter last month calling for the province to suspend land lease sales until at least 2011 in three areas around Fort McMurray, saying any additional sales "would continue to reduce the available options for the establishment of new conservation areas."
The letter was also signed by Environment Canada and the Pembina Institute, a Calgary-based environmental group, and presented on behalf of the Cumulative Environmental Management Association, a group of 46 industry, government and aboriginal members working in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo.
Further granting of new surface and sub-surface rights would continue to reduce the available options for the establishment of new conservation areas that would serve to accomplish a balanced suite of regional outcomes," states the letter to the Alberta departments of Energy, Environment and Sustainable Resources Development, a copy of which was obtained by The Globe.
The request for a development freeze in some areas has been rejected by at least four major companies belonging to the group and operating in the oil sands. In a letter to CEMA, Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. said the recommendation had been drawn up in "haste" and that the company opposes any suspension on lease sales. EnCana Corp. also believes the proposals have a "lack of clarity," particularly over what lands would be banned from development in the future, spokesman Alan Boras said.
In its own letter to the association, UTS Energy Corp. said that while it supports the concept of protecting some areas from development, it is concerned that projects in adjoining areas could be hampered. A fourth group, comprised of OPTI Canada Inc. and Nexen Inc., also opposed the call for a partial moratorium.
According to documents obtained by The Globe and Mail, a clear majority of CEMA's members support or conditionally support the letter.
The Alberta energy regulator and Syncrude Canada, the largest oil sands producer, abstained from a vote on it.
The Alberta government is currently formulating its response, Alberta Energy spokesman Bob McManus said. He wouldn't indicate what that response might be, and denied suggestions that the timing of any response would be affected by the provincial election, saying the vote "has nothing to do with it.
"The leasing and licensing system has worked well for many, many years and is the cornerstone to Alberta's [oil sands] development," Mr. McManus said.
He added that while the lack of consensus behind the CEMA proposal is "a bit outside the normal course of business, it doesn't mean it won't be considered."
The CEMA letter recommends the government immediately halt selling new oil sands leases - licences that allow companies to find and produce crude - in three areas that have so far seen little development. One area is southeast near the Saskatchewan border, while the other two are south and east, respectively, of Wood Buffalo National Park.
In total, the regions cover approximately one-sixth of the Athabasca reserves, where the bulk of Alberta's oil sands production and development occurs.
CEMA's members have been working since 2005 to create a framework for land management that would define what land should and should not be used for oil sands development, and are to meet in June to vote on the final recommendations to be forwarded to government. However, a letter had to be sent early to prevent any more sales of land that the group believes should be environmentally protected, CEMA president Randall Barrett said.
"The concern was that if we didn't get the letter in, then land sales would continue to go ahead, and we needed to signal to the government that these areas should be set aside," Mr. Barrett said in an interview.
While CEMA has no position on the pace of development, the framework being created represents a "more reasonable and orderly approach toward development," he added.
Premier Ed Stelmach has consistently refused to "touch the brake" on oil sands development.
Since receiving the letter on Jan. 18, Alberta Energy has accepted nearly $18-million in proceeds from a Jan. 23 land sale, although it's not clear if any of the leases sold were in the areas designated by CEMA.
CEMA's Mr. Barrett said he had been in talks with government bodies over the letter. He expects to receive an official response within the next three weeks.
Gord Lambert, vice-president of sustainable development for Suncor, the second-largest producer in the oil sands, said the move "is really to indicate and highlight to the government that there are areas that are potential candidates for conservation and that they should be protected. Oil sands development can be done along with conserving habitats."
The Edmonton Journal
Monday, February 25, 2008
I wonder how many Albertans know where their political candidates stand on nuclear power. I also wonder how the candidates formed their views on this issue. Did they research various aspects of nuclear power, or have they just heard from the industry representatives who are lobbying hard to bring nuclear power to this province?
Some of these lobbyists have a dream that could turn into a nightmare for those of us who live in northern Alberta. They are dreaming of not just one nuclear reactor near Peace River, but multiple reactors sprinkled all over the oilsands.
On the website of the Energy Alberta Corporation, the company that just sold its interest in a site near Peace River to Bruce Power of Ontario, you will find a business plan under the heading "project overview." This plan sepculates that up to 13 huge advanced CANDU reactors, each producing 1,100 megawatts of electricity, could be needed in Alberta in the next few years. Five would be for extracting bitumen, six for upgrading bitumen and two to meet a general increase in demand for electricity.
This is assuming that these untested reactors actually work. Atomic Energy of Canada, which designed the Maple reactors at Chalk River which still don't work several years after they were built, is not yet finished designing the "advanced" CANDU. But it is desperate to sell at least one reactor in Canada to justify the billions of dollars in federal subsidies it receives.
Another proponent of nuclear power in Alberta is Cosmos Voutsinos, a retired engineer from Lethbridge. In a white paper called Using Nuclear Energy to get the Most out of Alberta's Tar Sands, he calls for the construction of nuclear reactors 40 kilometres apart throughout the oilsands area.
"Nuclear plants spaced at 40 kilometres apart can form a grid that will power all tarsands locations for all their needs: SAGD (steam-assisted gravity drainage), bitumen mining, upgrading of bitumen, heating the ore, hydro-transport heating, industrial power, pipeline power, etc.," the paper states.
This document was provided to members of the McIntyre Collegium, "a private club of influential conservatives," in October 2006. The McIntyre Collegium submitted a report on nuclear power which was tabled in the legislature.
The federal government has also been exploring the idea of replacing natural gas in the oilsands with nuclear power. A March 2007 report to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Natural Resources estimates that it would take 20 large or 120 small nuclear reactors to meet this need.
The report also discusses carbon sequestration and does not recommend building nuclear power plants in the oilsands until more research has been done. However, Lee Richards, the chairman of the committee which prepared the report, told the Fourth Annual Canadian Oil Sands Summit in Calgary that "Canada's own CANDU nuclear technnology is a clean and proven reliable energy source that can be considered as part of the energy supply mix."
Wake up, Albertans! In addition to massive greenhouse gas emissions, toxic tailing ponds and destruction of the boreal forest, northern Alberta could become home to radioactive wastes that would have to be isolated from the environment for hundreds of thousands of years.
The coffee is not just percolating, it is boiling over!
Brenda Brochu, president, Peace River Environmental Society, Peace River
© The Edmonton Journal 2008
fol-request at masses.tao.ca