Liz Barratt-Brown's Blog: Moving Beyond Oil

The tar sands "pollution delivery system" coming to a Great Lake near you

2008-10-09T20:18:45Z

Yesterday, two important reports were released and their conclusions are startling. First was the Munk Centre's report cataloguing a "pollution delivery system" from Alberta, Canada, to the Great Lakes. It warned that the air and water pollution from increased tar sands refining in the Great Lakes region will adversely effect the Great Lakes - which represent some 20% percent of the earth's fresh water supplies and serve 30 million people just on the U.S. side of the border. As my colleague, Josh Mogerman, queried "Which is more important to North America, fresh water or more oil?"

The second report was a report by the RAND Corporation and commissioned by the National Commission on Energy. It concluded that in spite of the dangerous global warming pollution and profligate water and energy use from further developing our transportation fuels from Canada's tar sands, they are likely to be highly resistant, unlike liquid coal, to pricing carbon. The report's author noted in a Greenwire piece, you'd have to price carbon at $250 per ton before you'd see an impact on slowing the tar sands.

So, in sum this means that investment in the tar sands is likely to continue to grow in spite of the threat of putting a price on carbon pollution. Any limitation on its development will have to come through government policy and regulation directed at its development or policies such as the Low Carbon Fuel Standard adopted by California. Pricing carbon, whether that is through a cap-and-trade system or a tax, is not likely to be enough - we need to do more and we need to do it fast.

Before we know it, this "pollution delivery system" will be constructed and Americans will never have had the chance to debate a clean energy future. All the major oil companies are busy - right now - building this system and they have gotten help in a big way from Congress. Last week, the dirty secret of the "Bailout package" was the nearly billion dollars in subsidies for refinery expansions that record-profit earning oil companies have already committed to building. And those subsidies don't require those expansions to control their carbon dioxide or other pollution.

We like to say that we are at a global warming and energy cross-roads, but that implies a choice. We need to insist that our politicians debate this choice out loud and in an accountable way rather than bury these subsidies in the fine print of a massive bill. We, the American people, know we can do better - there are all kinds of solutions from improving our infrastructure and public transportation to mass-producing plug in hybrid cars to investing in smart growth. And guess what? If we do all this, we can also help climb our way out of this mess we are in by creating good jobs for Americans in building the clean energy future.

Last week, I heard an old tax professor of mine from law school deride the bailout bill's tag-ons, like the tax relief for the production of arrowheads and bicycle commuting benefits (which actually sound good to me!) What he failed to mention were the really big ones - the billion dollar ones - that will ensure the tar sands "pollution delivery system" is delivered lock, stock and barrel to a Great Lake near you.

That is, unless you and I demand a different future.

Charting a Greener Course for Aviation Fuels

2008-09-25T15:23:24Z

Today, key players in the aviation industry, led by Boeing and Virgin Atlantic Airways, have joined forces with academics and environmental groups to launch a push for low carbon fuel. This new coalition, Sustainable Aviation Fuels Users' Group, is being advised by NRDC and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to ground test and bring to market the next generation of low carbon, sustainable aviation fuels. For the first time, the development of a fuel will be monitored from the growth of the plant through to its refining into a fuel. This is a whole new way of thinking about producing fuels and nothing like this is done for fossil fuels.

What is fundamentally at stake is a race for our energy future. There are two paths ahead of us - ever dirtier high-carbon fuels such as tar sands oil and liquid coal or developing new, lower carbon fuels that don't harm the environment.

The group will focus on two potential new low carbon fuels - jatropha and algae - which are considered "next generation" biofuels because their production is intended not to compete for food or water resources or for land important for conserving nature or carbon. It is also committed to developing fuels that will benefit small scale farmers and local communities.

While the group acknowledges in its pledge that efficiency and bringing down the carbon content of their fuels overall are critical components of reducing global warming pollution, the reality is that as long as planes are flying, they are going to use fuel. Right now, the majority of that fuel is coming from controversial sources, politically and environmentally. It is encouraging to think of a future fuel that could alleviate the damage from fossil fuel extraction and combustion and benefit, rather than tear apart, local communities and our environment. That is what this group is ambitiously setting out to do.

So how will the aviation sector help develop these low carbon fuels?

Importantly, the group has agreed to adopt the standards of a global, multistakeholder process called the Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels (RSB) and certify - through third party verification - aviation biofuels through rigorous environmental and social screening.

The challenges ahead are weighty. But the group has laid out important parameters in their pledge:

1. Jet fuel plant sources should be developed in a manner which is non-competitive with food and where biodiversity impacts are minimized; in addition, the cultivation of those plant sources should not jeopardize drinking water supplies.
2. Total lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions from plant growth, harvesting, processing, and end-use should be significantly reduced compared to those associated with jet fuels from fossil sources.
3. In developing economies, development projects should include provisions or outcomes that improve socio-economic conditions for small-scale farmers who rely on agriculture to feed them and their families, and that do not require the involuntary displacement of local populations.
4. High conservation value areas and native eco-systems should not be cleared and converted for jet fuel plant source development.

These criteria should be consistent with, and complementary to emerging internationally-recognized standards such as those being developed by the Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels."

Bringing these new, lower carbon fuels on-line could make a critical dent in fossil fuel use, especially as the use of high carbon, dirty fuels, such as those derived from Canadian tar sands oil and liquid coal, are on the rise. Already tar sands oil makes up 8% of overall U.S. oil consumption of 21 million barrels of oil per day and could quadruple over the next decade. These fuels take a lot more energy and water to extract and process. And they are irreversibly scarring the irreplaceable wildlands of the western part of our continent. Four tons of soil - euphemistically called "overburden" - is mined where once pristine Boreal forest stood - a living part of one of the largest intact ecosystems on earth and one of our largest carbon storehouses.

At the first "Eco-Aviation" conference in Washington D.C. last June, the Chairman of Air New Zealand stood before an assembled crowd of representatives from the aviation and aerospace industries and proclaimed that now was the time to tackle climate change. He said that the sector should take up serious efforts to address what was becoming the issue of our day - global climate change. Virgin Atlantic Airways (VAA), in partnership with Boeing's Commercial Aviation division, had much the same message and a zippy ad about VAA's first biofuels test flight last February.

This was the opener for what was to become the Sustainable Aviation Fuels Users' Group being launched today. In the absence of federal leadership on developing low carbon fuels, initiatives such as this are critical to jumpstarting a new fuels future. Low carbon fuels - together with efficiency and moving much more of the energy for our transportation to the grid and then greening the grid - hold the promise of actually reducing our dependence on oil and helping us combat global warming.

We will work hard to see that it is the work of this initiative - not the high carbon fuels agenda - that takes flight. Our planet depends on it.

A Victory for Clean Energy: Section 526 Stands Strong

2008-09-24T21:50:42Z

Following nine months of assault on Section 526 of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, Congress decided today to keep intact a critically important fuel contracting requirement- marking a big win for clean energy supporters.

The provision-- known as "Section 526" to its adversaries and aficionados-- requires that the federal government not enter into contracts that would lead to the purchase of synthetic, alternative, or nonconventional fuels with higher global warming-related emissions than conventional fuels. The intention is to keep the government, which is the largest single fuel purchaser in the U.S., from using taxpayer dollars to buy high carbon fuels such as Canadian tar sands, liquid coal, and oil shale. This is seen as a big line in the sand for global warming advocates.

The drama played out over the last few weeks in the debate over the Defense Authorization Bill - a massive bill that is now on its way to the President to sign. Instead of repealing or weakening the language - as the Canadian government, the Department of Defense (DOD) and oil companies were aggressively pushing for - a statement accompanying the bill basically says that the provision can be implemented without change. The bill also requires DOD to report back to Congress on ways to reduce global warming pollution from these high carbon fuels. Of course, we will remain vigilent against new attacks on Section 526, but this decision in the Defense Authorization Bill debate should carry great weight.

The Defense Authorization Bill also dropped all references to long-term contracting for these fuels that could have resulted in the development of new liquid coal plants and expansion of refineries to take tar sands oil.

The irony was that while parts of DOD were arguing against Section 526, other parts of DOD were emphasizing the growing link between the nation's national security interests and the impact of global warming. The production of unconventional fuels, such as tar sands, liquid coal, and oil shale, emit more than three times the global warming pollution per barrel as conventional oil. They also use up a huge amount of water and energy, and irreversibly scar regions that are huge reservoirs of carbon, like the Canadian Boreal forest. The massive commercialization of these fuels will make our nation less, not more, energy secure. As a result, Section 526 serves a key national security purpose.

The bottom line is Americans want their government to invest in new clean energy, not dirty fuels of the past. We hope that today's victory for this "little section that could" helps give a boost to all efforts for a cleaner energy future. In this tough political environment, where chants of "drill, drill, drill!" are not uncommon, this is indeed a bright moment.

$25 million to paint a tar sands black hole green?

2008-04-29T20:38:25Z

Canada has sent its fourth delegation in so many months to Washington D.C. to convince Americans that there is no need to worry about the tar sands oil extraction in northern Alberta. This barrage of visits reminds me of when a colleague of mine in the state department looked at the four-color brochure in three languages meant to dispel concerns about British Columbia's clear cut logging and said, "Boy, they must have a really big problem up there."

The visit coincides with the launch of a $25 million campaign by Alberta to dispel the "myths" that there are environmental problems in the tar sands. When the Alberta Premier was in Washington D.C. in January, he made this claim before a Senate committee, likely stunning even those in the industry who know full well there are many serious problems there. Mark Cooper, who is travelling with the Deputy Premier this week, was a bit more upfront when he told the Globe and Mail yesterday that there's "no doubt" Alberta needs to do more on the environmental front in the tar sands, but that their mission aims to "correct the myths, inaccuracies, and distortions" about the province's record.

We asked for a meeting with the Deputy Premier, whose vague schedule was only announced mid-week last week (are they worried about the protesting polar bears that plagued the Premier on his January visit?) but were declined. We would have asked what Alberta is doing to clean up this oil source and to have had the chance to tell him why conservation groups on both sides of the border are so worried. Instead we ran this ad today in Capital Hill's Roll Call magazine, which we hope will get the attention of Deputy Premier Stevens and other decision makers in Canada:

We would have asked his views on the critique that in spite of Canadian Federal and Alberta government plans to address global warming pollution, carbon dioxide emissions in the tar sands are expected to nearly triple (29 MT to 80 MT) by 2018 and then to reduce to 49 MT by 2050, according to the Pembina Institute's analysis. This is akin to saying you were going to eat a gallon of ice-cream but because you are going on a diet, eating two quarts instead. Not much of a diet.

We would also have asked about plans to clean up the enormous toxic tailing lakes that are being held back by the world's largest dam and can be seen from space. And finally we would have asked about the government's efforts to meaningfully address the cancer fears of neighboring aboriginal communities.

We asked the Deputy Premier today in a press statement to slow down development so that these serious environmental concerns can be addressed. We are not alone. The majority of Albertans want a slow down, including the mayor of the town that is the epicenter of tar sands mining.

But instead of tackling these serious problems back at home, Alberta is here in Washington trying to undermine a newly passed provision of the Enegy Independence and Security Act, Section 526, which prohibits our Federal agencies from purchasing unconventional or synthetic fuels that have higher greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels. There is some irony here. If the global warming plans touted by the Canadian and Albertan government will really control greenhouse gases effectively, why are they seeking an exemption from this law?

This turn of events from a country that was once the self-appointed "greenie" of North America saddens me. Having worked along side Canada on the acid rain issue in the 1980s and to put in place the treaties on Climate Change and Biodiversity at the Rio Earth Summit in the early '90s, I feel that we have lost a partner in the race to save the planet.

We will await their reply. But I am afraid it will be more greenwashing, rather than a true coming to terms with what is not only a growing black hole in Alberta but a black eye to Canada's reputation.

One tar sands project = 800,000 cars = significant, Canadian Court says

2008-03-06T17:13:16Z

Yesterday, our Canadian colleagues won a landmark tar sands case. The Canadian Federal Court found that there were gaping holes in the environmental assessment of a huge tar sands project that would strip mine the Boreal forest for oil. The Kearl project would have emitted CO2 over the next 50 years equivalent to 800,000 cars.

It is not news that these tar sands projects have huge emissions associated with them. What is news is that the Canadian Federal Court has weighed in and said - yes, we agree with you - global warming pollution equivalent to 800,000 cars is not "insignificant" as the defendants, Imperial Oil (and parent company ExxonMobil) argued.

It is also significant because the court basically disagreed that "intensity-based" emissions targets were adequate to address the global warming implications of the project. This is one act on a big Canadian stage, where Canada's Prime Minister and Alberta's Premier have both put forward global warming plans that are based on "intensity-based" targets, not absolute reductions. In Alberta's case, their recently released plan, by their own admission, would result in a 15% reduction from today's levels by 2050 -- not anywhere near the 80-90% reductions from 1990 levels scientists are calling for.

This court case also has important implications for the U.S. The oil from the Kearl project would be destined for U.S. markets. As more states adopt low carbon fuel standards modelled on California's LCFS, the carbon dioxide emissions from projects like the Kearl become increasingly important. LCFS are meant to take into account so-called "lifecycle" emissions from "well to wheel". Those emissions start upstream with extraction and extraction of oil from the tar sands produces three times the carbon dioxide pollution per barrel as compared with conventional oil. That means that projects like the Kearl could make it more difficult for us to lower the carbon in our fuels. Ditto for acheiving real reductions under carbon caps.

Congress is also worried about these "lifecycle" emissions. In Section 526 of the energy bill signed into law in December last year, federal agencies are barred from purchasing "unconventional" fuels like tar sands that have higher lifecycle emissions than conventional oil extraction. Since emissions are embedded in products - from oil for our cars, trucks and airplanes to steel for our construction - what Canada does, and increasingly what Alberta does in the tar sands, has huge implications for the U.S. Our energy economy and our atmosphere are inexorably intertwined.

“This is a huge victory,” said Sean Nixon, the Ecojustice lawyer who represented the Pembina Institute, Sierra Club of Canada, the Toxics Watch Society of Alberta and the Prairie Acid Rain Coalition in the case.

Congratulations to the environmental groups that brought the case and to the Federal Court for looking through the Alice in Wonderland arguments and finding that big pollution is just that. Let's hope this case has drawn a new line in the sand - the tar sands - for controlling the huge global warming pollution from their excavation.

Let's also hope this decision will give the Alberta and Federal governments good reason to redo their global warming plans to take into account cumulative emissions and set absolute reductions. That's the only thing that counts in our atmosphere after all.

Photo Credit: Garth Lenz

Mordor of the North - Tar Sands premiers as “The Most Destructive Project on Earth”

2008-02-28T20:40:35Z

Those who visit the Canadian tar sands in Alberta often describe what they have seen as a visit to Tolkien’s Mordor – miles of open pits and lagoons of toxic waste water and a night sky lit by fires and lights of a great industrial complex where there was once an intact Boreal forest of trees, rivers and fens populated with woodland caribou and nesting birds. In the epic Tolkien tale, the Dark Lord Sauron is willing to destroy everything in his path to build his power base from his dark Kingdom of Mordor and capture the One Ring forever.

And while the exploitation of the tar sands looks frighteningly like Mordor, what may be more analogous is the tale of greed and desperation that would drive oil companies to strip mine and drill for ever harder to access fossil fuels. With the price of oil at an all time high and profits in the billions, even a company that casts itself as “Beyond Petroleum” – British Petroleum – could not resist the dark pull of Mordor of the North and has re-entered the tar sands. As oil reserves in other parts of the world decline, the pull magnifies.

The struggle between the quest for billions, literally scraped out of the earth, and a world fearful that our addiction to fossil fuels will be the planet’s ruin is not new. But what is new is that this story is increasingly playing out in the media – in Alberta, Canada, the U.S. and Europe. And even in the Alberta provincial election itself.

In the last month, there has been a barrage of news stories. One piece following another in such rapidity that even those of us following the tar sands issue closely could not keep up: Billions committed to develop the tar sands and the web of pipelines; pipelines approved and purchased by major oil companies; and refineries readied to take the dirty oil, with potentially enormous increases in carbon dioxide pollution. A piece ran last Friday in the Houston Chronicle with the title, “Canada's oil sands, open arms alluring.”

However, just as many in Tolkien’s Middle Earth warned about the impacts of Mordor’s growing reach, there are those who warn of the repercussions of this new push for tar sands oil. Recent news stories have highlighted the high carbon future tar sands oil will lock us into. Canada’s national newspaper, The Globe and Mail, ran an eight part series, starting with “An empire from a tub of goo,” evaluating the challenges and huge environmental costs of producing oil from the tar sands. Another piece from The Globe and Mail, “The Long Arm of the U.S.,” suggested that just as Canada’s exports of oil and electricity are reaching into the U.S., the U.S. is increasingly extending its environmental protections to include Canada because of a vacuum of leadership there. It explored the role that California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard and Section 526 of the newly passed Energy Security and Independence Act (EISA) will have on limiting the flow of tar sands high carbon oil into the U.S.

Perhaps the most startling piece of all was an editorial in The Times of London– not the more left leaning Guardian or Independent – calling on Shell, BP, and other oil companies to get out of the tar sands or risk not only being called Big Oil but Bad Oil and on the next U.S. President to make this a priority since it was unlikely that “…companies themselves could resolve to end this new filthy habit.”

Does the peaceful hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, and his heir, Frodo, stand a chance against the power of Mordor? What it takes in Tolkien’s tales is a strong Fellowship. We may not have that yet, but the first calls for a slow down in the pace of tar sands oil development might give us the space to choose a better future for ourselves. In what can only be seen as a chink in the armor of the Mordor of the North, major tar sands oil companies have joined with an environmental group and Environment Canada, a branch of the Canadian Federal Government, to propose a moratorium on new leases based on environmental concerns. And the tar sands have become an election issue in Alberta itself.

Yesterday’s Calgary Herald led with the story, “Most candidates in Pembina survey want oilsands slowdown.” A majority of nearly 200 Albertan politicians who are up for election on March 3 are now on record supporting what surely would have been an act of political suicide just a few years ago. This will further isolate the Premier, Ed Stelmach, who has refused to “touch the brake” on developments in the tar sands. The Calgary Herald piece also noted that his most serious opponent, the Liberal leader, Kevin Taft, has said that calls for a moratorium show the province needs to rethink how it’s developing the tar sands and that, if the Liberals were in power, the party wouldn’t approve new tar sands projects until a detailed plan is drafted for managing impacts on the environment, infrastructure and labor.

With the recent release and coast-to-coast pickup of the Ottawa-based Environmental Defense report “The Most Destructive Project on Earth”, a new era for the tar sands has been ushered in. When you hear politicians like Alberta NDP Leader, Brian Mason, quoted saying “The devastation on water and the environment is severe…And it’s really one of the reasons we think we need to be reforming our economy into a green energy economy,” you know the Fellowship is growing and, as in Tolkien’s story, a Fellowship can set us on a better path – this time for our energy future – one that does not carry the cost of the destruction we see in the tar sands.

The Ring is back in play.

PHOTO CREDITS: Tar Sands pits - Garth Lenz; Crane and truck - Pembina Institute

New fuel economy savings marred by tar sands

2008-02-05T20:09:58Z

There has been a great deal of discussion about whether the trend towards greener energy will hold or fade away. As the price of oil goes up and stays up, greener energy – such as renewable, wind and solar energies – should flourish and efficiency should dramatically improve. But it is also true that renewable and efficiency spending, while up significantly, is in a race with so-called “unconventional fuels” – synthetic fuels like Canadian tar sands, liquid coal, and oil shale – for our energy future (The New York Times). Huge investments are being made to scrape the bottom of the barrel for oil. Instead of moving forwards to develop energies for our future, the large oil companies are putting their money into developing the dirty, polluting fuels of our past.

A stark example of this is the 1.2 million barrels a day production of tar sands oil that is expected to quadruple within the next decade. With its high carbon footprint and profligate use of water and energy to make that oil (three times as much carbon dioxide/barrel is emitted compared to extraction of conventional oil), it is not about to receive any environmental awards from Al Gore. Putting aside the significant impacts in Canada, we wanted to know how much this expansion might undercut the hard fought for emissions savings gains made in the recently passed energy bill.

The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA) among other features, includes the first increase in CAFE standards – fuel economy standards – in over thirty years. The law requires new cars and light trucks to meet a 35 mile per gallon fleetwide average by 2020 and for medium and heavy duty vehicles to make “maximum feasible” and “cost effective” improvements in mileage. NRDC heralded the passage of the new law, saying that it represents real progress in achieving cleaner cars and fuels.

To do our analysis, we took a look at the fuel economy savings under EISA and calculated that together, the improvements to CAFE and to medium and heavy duty vehicles (M&HDV) yield a savings of 184 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in the year 2020 or a cumulative savings of 700 million metric tons between 2011, when the fuel economy requirements start taking effect, and 2020, the year when they are in full effect.

What we found is that, at its projected rate of expansion, tar sands oil production will take away between 19 and 27% of the annual greenhouse gas reductions of the new CAFE and M&HDV in the year 2020. The range reflects optimistic to pessimistic assumptions about greenhouse gas intensity of tar sands oil production. As tar sands are ramping up, the ding is even greater, taking away between 38-51% of these requirements. After 2020, it is likely that we will see additional carbon saving benefits as new vehicles phase into the market. However, once the phase in is complete and tar sands continues to grow, savings could be eroded further.

How did we do our analysis? We started by looking at when the additional benefits of EISA would come into play. The EISA CAFE requirements gradually ramp up between 2011 and 2020 to achieve a fleetwide average of 35 miles per gallon. We also looked at the impact on medium and heavy duty vehicles (HDV) using ACEEE assumptions about what savings the law’s “maximum feasible” and “cost effective” language might yield. Then we looked at the incremental tar sands emissions in 2011 onward– the year that the Energy Bill savings start occurring.

Using projections from the Pembina Institute of Alberta, we compared those projected emissions to full life cycle greenhouse gas reductions per gallon of gasoline equivalent avoided. We made sure we looked only at the additional emissions from tar sands production as compared with conventional oil production. We also made sure that we looked only at those increased tar sands emissions from 2011 forward.

The Pembina data for tar sands production is derived from data using forecasted annual greenhouse gas emissions from tar sands projects that have been approved, planned or announced to date – a production level of 4.8 million barrels per day in 2020. The production capacity added between 2011 and 2020 would produce an increase in annual emissions of 34 and 49 million metric tons of carbon dioxide over conventional oil.

What was most surprising about this analysis is how big a role tar sands oil production will play in making it more difficult for us to reduce greenhouse gases associated with our consumption in the United States. Roughly 75% of tar sands oil is exported to the U.S. and turned into gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. Thus, a huge part of the tar sands emissions are associated with U.S. consumption. But, depending on how these emissions will be treated under future global warming measures, Canada will also be responsible for a huge chunk of these emissions. Those of us following this issue know that Canada is already having serious trouble meeting its Kyoto Protocol requirements, or its international treaty obligations, to reduce its greenhouse gases because of the tar sands, where growth of emissions is occurring faster than any other sector . Taken together, it is clear that tar sands emissions will make it considerably more difficult for us – as North America – to meet our goals.

The other surprising take-away from our anlaysis is the contrast between the decades long struggle by the U.S. environmental movement to strengthen the CAFE standards – one of the most noteworthy battles in environmental rule-making – and fuel efficiency in our country and North America more generally, and the relative obscurity of the tar sands. How can Canadian tar sands oil production – production that most Americans south of the border know nothing about – potentially take such a big bite out of our new CAFE standards? At a minimum, it requires our two countries to take a hard look at the role of dirty fuels in our collective energy future.

At 1.2 million barrels per day, the tar sands is already supplying 5% of our ravenous consumption of 21 million barrels of oil a day . But other dirty fuels – liquid coal and oil shale – are not far behind. What is clear is that we have a long road ahead to really secure the CAFE gains made by the passage of the historic Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 and to make the deeper cuts that are required of us as North Americans if we are to get serious about stemming the devastating implications of global warming.

Can we dare to imagine a world where the money currently being invested in the tar sands, some $100 billion over the next decade, is invested instead in technologies to reduce emissions, in public transportation and in truly greener fuels?

Can we dare not to?

[1] Elliot, Langer and Nadel, “Reducing Oil Use through Energy Efficiency: Opportunities Beyond Cars and Trucks,” ACEEE Report EO61, January 2006.

Bearing witness to the myth that tar sands are a clean fuel

2008-01-18T16:59:40Z

Premier Stelmach came to town this week to promote increased production of tar sands oil and was met by protestors and serious questions about the impacts of this production on Alberta and on the U.S. I wonder what he expected? Maybe the good old days (the Edmonton Journal reported this morning that the Premier is meeting with our own VP Dick Cheney today, perpetrator of the secret Energy Task Force). But those days are largely gone and a new urgency about global warming and energy conservation has taken their place. No longer is it really acceptable to come to Washington and talk about environmental concerns around oil production as “myths”.

The Premier returns to Alberta today and we are left to ask what did his visit accomplish? His visit has generated a huge amount of Canadian press with headlines like “Protestors dog Stelmach in Washington”, "Stelmach Mauled in D.C.", “Premier Defends Oilsands in D.C. Visit”, and “Stelmach fights ‘dirty’ image of Oilsands in Washington”. These headlines could, of course, paint the Premier in some parts as Heroic, but more likely than not, they point to a deep misunderstanding about how much the landscape has changed in Washington D.C. and across the country.

Global warming has arrived. Even our new National Intelligence Director recently suggested that global warming is a threat perhaps more serious than terrorism. Multiple members of Congress have introduced legislation to address global warming. The first global warming bill, Lieberman-Warner(PDF), passed 11-8 this fall in the Senate Committee responsible for moving a bill forward. Bills are expected to be taken up in Congress this year.

And who would have thought it could happen? President Bush signed into law a new energy bill that requires that cars meet a 35 miles-per-gallon fleet-wide standard, raising fuel economy standards for the first time in 30 years. The bill also contained a Renewable Fuel Standard that mandates production of environmentally-sensitive biofuels. The provision that may have the greatest impact on tar sand production in the future is the little-known section 526 that prohibits procurement of "unconventional oil" by the federal government that has higher lifecycle CO2 emissions than conventional oil.

At the state level, there is even more activity. 600 mayors have adopted “mini Kyoto-protocols” – the international agreement to cut emissions that the Bush Administration has refused to sign. Eighteen states have made commitments to cap carbon. Twelve states are considering doing the same. And another twelve are considering following the lead of California and adopting Low Carbon Fuel Standards.

This all marks a directional shift that few will say is likely to revert back. All the Democrats running for President have endorsed strong global warming legislation and even a couple of the Republicans, including the arguable front-runner, John McCain. So, in my view, the gig is up. We are becoming a nation that is low carbon-minded if not low carbon in fact. What does this mean for Alberta and for Premier Stelmach? We may not want to commit to a high carbon spider-web of new pipelines and refineries to refine tar sands oil from Canada. We may not want the North American West to become drilled, strip-mined and spoiled for oil. We may not want the Midwest to be refining the dirtiest fuel that can be bought on the market. Maybe we’d rather have our big oil companies invest instead in renewable fuels. After all, it’s about the gas we put in our gas tank and, as a result, we have the right – and the responsibility – to say no to dirty fuels of the past.

When the Premier gets home, I hope he'll put his energy behind cleaning up the tar sands, not waging a PR battle, which history has shown, he is bound to lose.

Photo Credit: Oil Change International 2008

NRDC asks airlines to oppose dirty fuels and cut global warming pollution

2008-01-10T21:37:07Z

Today we are sending letters to 15 U.S. and Canadian airlines asking that they participate in a new campaign we are launching called “Cool Fuels.” We’re asking participants in “Cool Fuels,” to adopt their own corporate “Low Carbon Fuel Standard” and to publicly oppose the expansion of what we are calling “dirty fuels.” Dirty fuels are fuels derived from the tar sands, liquid coal, and oil shale and they may well be our “fuels of the future” if we don’t get serious about developing greener, cleaner alternative fuels. Already over 1 million barrels of tar sands oil is shipped to the U.S. every day. To get this oil, all the big names in the oil industry are up digging the heart out of the Canadian boreal forest, our largest terrestrial storehouse of carbon and home to lynx, bear, caribou, nearly half of our nesting songbirds, and most importantly, aboriginal communities that have lived in peace with the land for millennia.

And getting this oil is dirty business. It has to be strip mined or boiled out of tons of gravel, dirt and peat that was once a beautiful, natural landscape of old growth trees, fens and wetlands. What was once miles upon miles of green and blue forest is now one of the world’s largest industrial landscapes. For every barrel of oil that is produced. 2-5 barrels of water must be used. And for every barrel, over two tons of dirt – or what is euphemistically called “overburden” – has to be disposed of. Massive amounts of natural gas is used, which means using clean fuel to create a dirty fuel, which is like throwing good money after bad. And now they are seriously debating building two dozen nuclear reactors to do the job. Is this what it takes to fuel our addiction to oil? How do we feel about that? As a biologist was quoted saying in a recent, excellent California SacBee piece, what disturbs her the most is that we are destroying their forest to produce this oil and not even trying to conserve. That’s where the airlines come in. Our research shows us that our biggest U.S. carriers, United Airlines, American Airlines, and Southwest, are already using tar sands oil in the Chicago and Denver airports. Northwest is also a big carrier and is likely fueling from tar sands oil at its largest hub, the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport. We traced this oil back from the airlines, to the airports, to their fuel distribution terminals, to the refineries and then back all the way to Alberta. It’s a spider web of addiction and it’s growing larger and larger. This doesn’t have to be the case. The airlines have lots of opportunities to substitute fuel efficency and alternative fuels for dirty fuels.

Airlines can reduce their fuel use – through improved air traffic control, routing, descent practices, and moving to electric towing at airports. They can modify their existing planes and, when they need to increase their fleet, to buy new, more efficient models, such as Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner. And they can get serious about developing the next generation of jet fuels – from biobutanol to algae derived fuel. Unfortunately, some of our major U.S. airlines are going backwards, not forwards. United Airlines and American Airlines are on record supporting the expansion of the pipelines bringing tar sands crude to the Chicago region and Jet Blue is on record supporting the development of liquid coal, albeit a “greener” variety. What is alarming is that this seems to be going on below the radar.

Most companies are busy signing on to statements and groups about reducing their global warming impact, but in practice the airlines and the major oil companies, like BP, Chevron, Conoco Philips, Exxon Mobil, Murphy Oil, Shell and Suncor, are all digging themselves deeper and deeper into the dirtiest of dirty carbon dependent future. BP, of the expensive branding campaign, “Beyond Petroleum,” just announced in December that it is investing in the tar sands. So now they must more rightly be called the “Bitumen Polluter,” for the gooey-tarlike substance they’ll soon be mining in what was the home of loons and caribou.

When I think about all this, I feel both despondent and hopeful. Despondent, because I wonder when some of our biggest U.S. companies are finally going to get it beyond ‘greenwashing’ about global warming. And hopeful, because we are all customers of these companies and can let them know loud and clear that we want them to clean up this part of our carbon footprint. A start is by urging them to participate in “Cool Fuels". So let’s get them aboard and get them moving forward, not backwards!