B.C. Premier John Horgan took the call from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at 6 a.m. Tuesday, “before the coffee had made its way through,” as Horgan told the media four hours later. Horgan had risen at 5:45 a.m. to await significant news about the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Pipeline project his government came to power determined to stop.

Trudeau’s big news — that the federal government has arranged to purchase the pipeline outright  — places Kinder Morgan Canada on smooth financial seas, Ottawa in the captain’s seat and Canadians on the hook for a $4.5 billion pipeline purchase that many view as a needless subsidy to the fossil fuel industry.

“This decision represents both a colossal failure of the Trudeau government to enforce the law of the land, and a massive, unnecessary financial burden on Canadian taxpayers,” Aaron Wudrick, federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, said in a statement.

Kinder Morgan, a Texas-based corporation with $80 billion in assets whose Canadian directors earned millions last year, called it a “great day” for the company and Canadians.

Canada pledged to end ‘inefficient fossil fuel subsidies’

But while the celebratory corks might be popping out of the bubbly in the prime minister’s oak-panelled office two days ahead of Kinder Morgan’s controversial deadline for resolving the pipeline impasse, Trudeau will have to answer to his global counterparts when Canada hosts the G7 summit late next week in Charlevoix, Quebec.

At a G7 gathering two years ago this month in Japan, Trudeau and leaders for the first time set a deadline for terminating most fossil fuel subsidies, saying government support for coal, oil and gas should be discontinued by 2025. Canada and other G7 nations encouraged other countries to join them in eliminating what they referred to as “inefficient fossil fuel subsidies.”

“Given the fact that energy production and use account for around two-thirds of global greenhouse gas emissions, we recognise the crucial role that the energy sector has to play in combatting climate change,” the leaders’ declaration said.

Trudeau’s Kinder Morgan announcement is an “embarrassment” for the country in light of that commitment, said Alex Doukas, a spokesperson for Oil Change International, a Washington-based organization focused on exposing the true costs of fossil fuels and facilitating a transition to clean energy.

“Other governments are going to be coming to the table expecting to see leadership from Canada on this file and just days before the summit Canada is plonking down a massive subsidy for the oil industry,” Doukas told The Narwhal.

“And that’s not acceptable. That’s not climate leadership. It would never be a good time for the Canadian government to take on massive risk on the shoulders of Canadian taxpayers, but to do so days before they’re hosting the G7 and trying to wear the mantle of climate leadership is absurd.”

Calling the Kinder Morgan purchase “the great Canadian bailout,” B.C. Green Party leader Andrew Weaver said as a climate scientist he longs for the days when federal Conservative leader Stephen Harper was in power because at least Harper — notorious for his lackadaisical efforts to address global warming — was  consistent on climate change policy.

“Today will be remembered as Trudeau’s legacy,” Weaver told reporters.

“He came into office claiming that he was there as an inspiration for the next generation, claiming he was going to deal with climate change, claiming he was going to be there for the future. He betrayed that today.”

Weaver added: “Mr. Trudeau says one thing and does another and frankly should be ashamed of himself today.”

Major banks end oilsands financing

Doukas said while the entire pipeline purchase might not be a subsidy, the fact that Ottawa felt compelled to purchase the project suggests that “they’re taking risks and liabilities that the private sector is not willing to take on” and means that there’s “some degree of subsidy.”

Federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau said Ottawa is willing to provide the same type of indemnification against political risk to a future owner of the project that the federal government offered to Kinder Morgan.

“So they’re still going to indemnify any future potential component of the project against political risk resulting from actions at the provincial level,” Doukas said. “And that’s a form of subsidy. They’ve clearly indicated interest in continuing to provide a government backstop for the project.”

Doukas also pointed out that on the very same day Trudeau announced the pipeline buyout, the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) joined other major institutions — including HSBC, ING and BNP Paribas — by announcing it would no longer directly finance oilsands projects. The bank also tightened restrictions on lending to Arctic oil projects, thermal coal mines and coal-fired power stations.

Horgan said he viewed Canada’s G7 commitment as a “difficult target to realize based on today’s decision,” noting that the B.C. government will carry on with its climate action plan currently under development.

“We’re a sub national government that feels obliged to meet the national targets set by the federal government and it’s business as usual on that front as far as I’m concerned.”

“Mr. Morneau will have to answer to taxpayers, federal taxpayers, who also happen to be British Columbians and Newfoundlanders and people from the Yukon, about how he’s disposing of their hard fought tax dollars,” Horgan said.

Ownership of Trans Mountain pipeline not traditional subsidy: expert

Werner Antweiler, an associate professor at UBC’s Sauder School of Business, told The Narwhal that subsidies to the oil and gas sector in Canada consist mainly of tax write-offs. One study by four major environmental and policy groups, including the International Institute for Sustainable Development, pegs annual Canadian subsidies to the fossil fuel industry at $3.3 billion.

“The ownership of these [Kinder Morgan] assets itself isn’t really a subsidy,” said Antweiler, chair of the school’s strategy and business economics division. “But politically maybe it’s not the right signal to send that the government is getting into that sector when our long-term trajectory is to depart from fossil fuels and move towards forms of renewable energy. So the optics are certainly less appealing.”

Antweiler said demand exists for the diluted bitumen that will be shipped through the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion, and that Canadian taxpayers are unlikely to be on the hook for a failed business model or a stranded asset.

“Honestly if these were stranded assets you would see the stock prices of these companies collapse and they’re not. The oil business is still going strong.”

“That is not what environmentalists would like to hear and I consider myself on that side of the spectrum but the reality is we all still continue to use fossil fuels. The demand is there and it won’t go away for the next decades while we are transitioning to other types of fuel,” he said, adding that he would prefer a faster transition to renewable energy.

“That process is a lot slower than we would like it to be and what we can do about it is to put a price on carbon and other emissions related to these fuels so that helps this transition. The pipeline here is a very small piece of the puzzle and it’s not what’s going to decide the outcomes in terms of climate change. That depends on many other policies, in particular whether or not we really price carbon.”

Horgan pointed out that the federal government is now fully responsible for the pipeline “from wellhead to tidewater and beyond,” saying “that’s probably a good thing.”

“That allows me to have candid discussions with the owners of the pipeline that I wouldn’t have been able to when they were shareholders in a Texas-based oil company,” Horgan said.

“So the good news is that the government of Canada needs to be accountable for a protection plan, and if there are gaps in that plan I’ll be able to speak directly to the owners of the pipeline.”

Horgan also said that the B.C. government’s court reference case against the pipeline expansion will continue, reiterating an earlier pledge to do everything possible to avoid “the catastrophic consequences” of a diluted bitumen spill.

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It all started with the Asti Trattoria Italiana restaurant in Fort McMurray, whose slogan is “Live, Love, Eat.”

But there was no love lost for restaurant owner Karen Collins two weeks ago when the B.C. government announced it will set up an independent scientific advisory panel to examine how diluted bitumen can be safely transported and cleaned up, if spilled.

Pending the review, B.C. said it would restrict increases in the transport of the substance — a mixture of thick unrefined oil from the oilsands and highly flammable gas condensate — through the province, a move widely seen as an attempt to stall the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.

Calling the review “just crazy,” Collins pulled eight B.C. wines off her menu, which includes coastal delicacies such as seafood strozzapreti and croccanti di salmone (pan seared salmon filet).

Alberta Premier Rachel Notley thought that was such a great idea that she announced a B.C. wine boycott.

This week the wine-pipeline fracas intensified, with new twists that included childcare, a natural gas pipeline from B.C. to Alberta and a “B.C. Wine Smuggling Escape for Albertans” arranged by a luxury tour company, complete with a private jet to fly people to the Okanagan and Cowichan valleys and home again with 50 hand-picked bottles of B.C.’s finest (#PinotNotPipelines).

The B.C. Liberals, with new leader Andrew Wilkinson at the helm, sallied forth with a news release and peppy speeches in the legislature, accusing the NDP of destroying thousands of jobs and demanding that Premier John Horgan “swallow his pride” and fly to Edmonton immediately to sort out the squabble.

In the midst of all the brouhaha, political spin took the front seat while some salient facts were left at the side of the inter-provincial road faster than you can say, “bring me the B.C. bubbly.”

Let’s take a look at some of the developments this week in the War of the Rosés. Spoiler: it’s not really about wine.

The wine and pipelines week in review

The week began with the NDP government taking out a full-page ad, featuring three giant corkscrews, in last Saturday’s Globe and Mail.

The ad, which also appeared in The Province, urged people to buy B.C. wine “and raise a glass to protecting B.C.’s coast” (#toastthecoast).

(Presumably, if things go sideways for the NDP, the hashtag could always be reordered to say #thecoastistoast.)

On Tuesday — the same day the B.C. government proclaimed April as B.C. Wine Month — it was revealed that the federal government had suddenly cancelled a joint announcement with B.C. about an early learning and childcare funding agreement.

Ottawa claimed a scheduling conflict, and there was much speculation that the move had far more to do with B.C.’s new tactics to stall a pipeline pushed by Ottawa than any calendar alignment.

“The media are reporting that the child care transfers from Ottawa to British Columbia are in danger of drying up,” Wilkinson told the legislature.

But the Trudeau government denied that the rescheduling had anything to do with B.C.’s plans to restrict the transport of diluted bitumen. Ottawa said a child care deal will be announced soon, adding that the amount of federal money won’t be affected by B.C.’s stand against the Kinder Morgan pipeline.

Then, on Wednesday, the B.C. Liberals issued a press release saying that “Horgan’s trade war” has “imperiled” a $2 billion private sector gas pipeline investment in British Columbia that would create 2,500 jobs.

“This trade war is about to escalate beyond a $70 million wine industry loss into a $2 billion loss, with thousands of jobs at stake,” Wilkinson told the legislature.

As proof, the Liberals circulated Alberta’s February 8 submission to the National Energy Board about the North Montney Mainline Extension, a $1.4 billion natural gas pipeline linking B.C. natural gas operations with eastern markets.

The Alberta government filed the NEB submission, in support of a tariff on the B.C. gas, after Alberta producers complained that TransCanada’s project would flood a glutted gas market and drive down prices for their own product.

“This is not a coincidence, the Alberta government has never expressed opposition to the proposed pipeline until last week,” Peace River South Liberal MLA Mike Bernier said in the news release. “The trade war is expanding and the job losses are mounting.”

Whoa Nellie.

Back in reality, the Alberta government immediately debunked the Liberals’ press release. Mike McKinnon, press secretary for Alberta energy minister Margaret McCuaig-Boyd, told DeSmog Canada that “our filing has nothing to do with the recent dispute with the government of B.C.”

“This is about standing up for Albertans and our energy industry,” McKinnon said in an emailed statement. “The filing is consistent with Alberta’s past positions relating to fair and just toll principles as well as consistent, well-established and accepted pipeline tolling principles.”

In the midst of all the brouhaha, political spin took the front seat while some salient facts were left at the side of the inter-provincial road faster than you can say, “bring me the B.C. bubbly.” https://t.co/aeXbKWxDGJ @sarahcox_bc #oilsands #toastthecoast #bcpoli #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/9XTirAheEe

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) February 17, 2018

What about those “mounting” job losses?

We asked Unifor, the union that represents about 12,000 workers in Canada’s energy sector, about the Trans Mountain pipeline and jobs.

And whaddya know? Unifor told us that if the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion goes ahead, up to 600 workers in Burnaby stand to lose their long-term jobs —- “good, family supporting jobs, the kind of jobs that help build our economy,” according to Joie Warnock, Unifor’s western regional director.

The jobs are at the Burnaby refinery on the Burrard Inlet, formerly owned by Chevron and purchased in April by Alberta’s Parkland Fuel Corp. The facility, which refines crude and synthetic oil into products such as jet fuel, gasoline, diesel and heating fuels, relies on the existing Kinder Morgan pipeline for its raw product.

But the pipeline expansion is targeted at the lucrative Asian export market, and Warnock said that likely means there will no longer be sufficient supply for the refinery — one of only two oil refineries left in B.C. — to bid on.

“That’s what makes us very concerned.”

Unifor is opposed to the export of raw bitumen, Warnock said, and wants to see raw bitumen exports prohibited because they are “not a good jobs strategy.”

“It doesn’t create jobs in Canada. We want to see more Canadian content, more Canadian value, added at every stage in the energy sector.”

The union also pointed to a piece published in The Province last August by B.C. economist Robyn Allan, titled “The search for Trans Mountain’s mythical 15,000 construction jobs.”

Allan took aim at statements by former B.C. Premier Christy Clark, Notley and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau who all asserted the pipeline expansion would create 15,000 new construction jobs.

Kinder Morgan itself told the National Energy Board that the project would employ about 2,500 construction workers, for two years, Allan pointed out.

“Trans Mountain’s 15,000 construction workforce jobs are a scam,” wrote Allan. “The more realistic figure is less than 20 per cent that size.”

So what’s really going on here?

Any delay in expanding the Trans Mountain pipeline “puts a lot on the line” for Notley, according to UBC political science professor Kathryn Harrison, whose research focuses primarily on environmental policy.

Notley, who is facing a re-election campaign next year and formidable opposition from the new United Conservative Party, has tried to strike a careful balance between continued support of Alberta’s oil industry and taking action to reduce the province’s sizeable carbon footprint.

“She really needs to show Alberta voters that she is strongly committed to doing everything in her power to get pipelines through,” Harrison said in an interview. “At the same time she is making a commitment to address climate change through phasing out coal-fired power plants and introducing a carbon tax.”

“Those are two things that are very hard to reconcile,” Harrison said, especially given that the problematic growth in Canada’s carbon emissions comes from increased production in Alberta’s oilsands.

Trudeau, for his part, has been “much more candid” in pointing out that support for the Kinder Morgan pipeline is pretty much a quid pro quo for Alberta backing a national carbon pricing plan, said Harrison.

“It’s quite an extraordinary compromise to say we need to expand the production of fossil fuels and build national infrastructure [for their export] — and that is the condition of a national climate action plan.”

Time for a pairing?

Perhaps the calmest head in the wine-and-pipelines mêlée goes to the B.C. Wine Institute, which issued a press release last week saying “oil and wine don’t mix,” and expressing disappointment that Alberta is “aggressively boycotting B.C. wineries over a yet-to-be-determined British Columbia government policy in a different sector.”

The wine institute is now promoting a “grazing” event in Vancouver that will pair B.C. wine with Alberta beef.

The motto for the evening?

The Only Beef is on the Table.

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No, it wasn’t a weird dream, Alberta actually announced a boycott of B.C. wine on Tuesday.

The announcement by Premier Rachel Notley is just the latest move in an inter-provincial spat over the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline, which would carry oil from Alberta to B.C.

It started with last week’s proposal by the B.C. government to guard against a potential oil spill. The province announced it will set up an independent scientific advisory panel to look at how diluted bitumen can be safely transported and cleaned up, if spilled.

Until the “behaviour of spilled bitumen can be better understood” B.C. will restrict increases in transportation of the substance through the province. Diluted bitumen is a mixture of thick unrefined oil from the oilsands and natural gas condensate, which acts as a thinner (and is also extremely explosive as recently witnessed in the Sanchi tanker explosion.)

Notley retaliated almost immediately, saying she was ending electricity trade negotiations with British Columbia. But yesterday the Globe and Mail revealed electricity talks had actually broken down last year.

What happened next is one of the more bizarre twists in Canadian politics in recent memory. Instead of reaching for a glass of wine, Notley came up with a real threat this time and announced the Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission will immediately halt the import of all wines from its western neighbour. Apparently Albertans drank more than 17 million bottles of B.C. wine last year (for those who are counting, that’s nearly four bottles of wine for every man, woman and child in Alberta).

You could be excused for being a bit confused by how we got to this point. How did a discussion about oil spill risk and pipelines so quickly degenerate into one about non-existent electricity negotiations and alcohol? What is this really about? What’s fact and what’s fiction?

Let’s start with the oil spill risk, since that’s where all this fun began.

In 2015 the Royal Society of Canada identified seven major knowledge gaps when it comes to the risk of a diluted bitumen spill in water.

As of right now, it’s not clear whether the substance will sink or be suspended in water if spilled.

In 2010, an Enbridge pipeline ruptured, spilling nearly three million litres of dilbit into a tributary of the Kalamazoo river where it mixed with sediment on the river’s bottom, triggering one of the most expensive onshore oil spill cleanup efforts in U.S. history.

Despite that, a 2012 Enbridge study found dilbit did not sink in a laboratory environment. Then in 2014, a report released by the federal government found dilbit sinks when mixed with sediment.

Didn’t someone already consider all this before approving the pipeline?

Kinda. The National Energy Board (NEB) review of the Trans Mountain project discussed the possibility of a marine oil spill and determined that the risks “are acceptable.”

But it also clearly signalled that it was making no recommendations about anything relating to shipping. Take this statement from page 18 of its recommendation report: “The Board conducted an environmental assessment of the Project (as stated above, the Board does not regulate marine shipping and the increased Project-related marine shipping is not part of the Project).”

This is how the board got around considering impacts on endangered marine species, such as the southern resident orcas.

The National Energy Board also didn’t consider the upstream greenhouse gas emissions related to producing the oil to fill the pipeline. A ministerial panel set up after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took office attempted to address gaps in the original review and issued a report that posed six key questions, including: “Can construction of a new Trans Mountain Pipeline be reconciled with Canada’s climate change commitments?”

There is no clear understanding of how that report factored into cabinet’s decision to approve the pipeline.

All of which is to say: when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says his government made a “science based” decision, you’ve got to take it with a grain of salt.

But isn’t B.C. already transporting diluted bitumen?

Yes, it is, but to understand the current controversy, you need to rewind to 1953, when the original Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline started operation.

There was no oilsands development at that time, so the pipeline was transporting conventional oil. Decades later, when the pipeline began transporting diluted bitumen, there was no formal consideration given to the fact a new substance was being shipped through the pipe — hence the current controversy.

The new Trans Mountain pipeline would increase the system’s capacity from 300,000 barrels a day to 890,000 barrels a day.

Notley doesn’t think B.C. should have a say over what goes in the pipeline.

“They have every right to talk about protecting their environment and to work on protecting their environment and come up with best practices for marine safety and otherwise, but they don’t have the right to tell Alberta what does or does not go into that pipeline,” she told CBC.

The pipeline, Notley argues, is key to protecting Alberta’s economy from the stifling effects of a lack of export options. But while Alberta is worried about its economy, B.C. is worried about its own.

“The potential for a diluted bitumen spill already poses significant risk to our inland and coastal environment and the thousands of existing tourism and marine harvesting jobs,” B.C.’s Minister of Environment George Heyman said last week. “British Columbians rightfully expect their government to defend B.C.’s coastline and our inland waterways, and the economic and environmental interests that are so important to the people in our province.”

Here’s What Alberta’s Wine Boycott is Really About https://t.co/TlBrVp4tD6 #oilsands #bcpoli #ableg #wineboycott #climate pic.twitter.com/T1NT83urTI

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) February 7, 2018

But, here’s the thing: the pipeline has become about much more than the oil that runs through it.

Let’s start with Indigenous rights.

Several B.C. First Nations have been steadfastly opposed to the construction of another oil pipeline through their territory. While Notley was dominating the headlines on Tuesday, the Tsleil-Waututh First Nation — which is also challenging Trans Mountain in court — was launching a call for mass demonstration to protest the pipeline.

The federal and provincial governments has committed to respecting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which includes the principle that First Nations be afforded the right to free, prior and informed consent over projects that impact their traditional territory.

At a town hall event in Nanaimo last week, Trudeau said: “It is in the national interest to move forward with the Kinder Morgan pipeline and we will be moving forward with the Kinder Morgan pipeline.”

Pipeline battles have become a proxy for the larger climate change debate.

Repeat after me: It’s an export pipeline. It’s an export pipeline. It’s an export pipeline.

Any argument that starts with “that B.C. wine was shipped in a truck using Alberta oil” or “how do you think all you West Coast hippies are going to get to work?” is fundamentally flawed.

Things Canada has control over: its own demand for oil. Its supply of oil to the world.

On the demand side, Canada’s consumption of heavy crude oil is pretty steady, according to the National Energy Board’s energy supply and demand projections to 2040.

NEB Supply and Demand Balance to 2040. The green line is exports, the red line is domestic use.

The crux of the climate debate over Trans Mountain is about the supply side: at a time in history when we know we need to leave 80 per cent of known fossil fuels in the ground to stand a chance of limiting catastrophic climate change, should we be expanding extraction and building new infrastructure to export that oil?

How you answer that question likely factors into how you feel about this pipeline brouhaha — especially if you don’t live on the coast, where an oil spill is the primary concern.

But if we don’t provide the world the oil, won’t someone else?

Some people argue this type of “supply side environmentalism” (fighting fossil fuels at their source) is flawed and that if Canada doesn’t provide the world with oil, someone else will.

Other people say this type of strategy is the only thing that created the space for any meaningful conversation to happen around oilsands and climate policy.

“Climate change is inherently difficult to organize around; it’s big, abstract, and incremental. By the same token, broad, economy-wide policies to address it are also big, abstract, and incremental,” David Roberts wrote for Vox in an excellent piece about backlash to Keystone XL climate activism.

Indeed, if you rewind just a few years, the Alberta government had very little interest in reducing the environmental impacts of the oilsands — from the liability of the toxic tailings lakes to the carbon emissions.

But now that Notley’s NDP government has made some progress on the climate file — implementing a carbon tax, putting a cap on oilsands emissions — some people think the opposition to pipelines should stop and environmentalists should move on to other strategies. That overlooks the inherent challenges of campaigning on climate change.

“If …  they can get hundreds of thousands of people in the street for a revenue-neutral carbon tax, they are welcome to try,” Roberts wrote.

Given what we know about fossil fuels and climate change “there have got to be some decisions made somewhere not to dig it up, not to build distribution infrastructure for it — to leave it in the ground,” Roberts writes.

Should that place be Alberta? Well, that depends on whether you’re an Alberta premier up for re-election in a year or if you’re a B.C. premier with a coastal economy at risk.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

The stand-off between Alberta and British Columbia over the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline seems to grow in intensity by the minute.

On Tuesday the B.C. NDP announced a proposal to restrict the flow of diluted bitumen from the oilsands through the province until further scientific study is conducted on its behaviour in water.

Alberta Premier Rachel Notley fired back on Twitter, arguing B.C. “does not have the right to re-write our constitution & assume powers for itself that it does not have.”

Since then, Alberta has suspended talks over $500 million in annual electricity imports from B.C. and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has hopped into the ring suggesting that national carbon pricing and ocean protection plan may not go ahead without the pipeline getting built.

Oh, and let’s not forget an Italian restaurant in Fort McMurray is no longer serving wine from B.C. in retaliation. It looks like a trade war is brewing between the provinces.

Amongst all of the politicking, it’s easy for the substance of the debate to be lost. The B.C. government is responding to a very real concern about the risk of a spill of diluted bitumen in water. In 2015 the Royal Society of Canada identified seven major knowledge gaps when it comes to the risk of a diluted bitumen spill in water. And B.C. has the responsibility to regulate hazardous substances under the B.C. Environmental Management Act.

It’s worth recalling that the National Energy Board review of the Trans Mountain project never even considered the impacts of oil tankers on the marine environment, so when Trudeau says his government made a “science based” decision, you’ve got to take it with a mega grain of salt.

At the same time, Notley also has very real concerns about the pipeline not going ahead, with the cost differential for Alberta’s oil widening, an industry that’s been hurting from the crash in the price of oil and an election around the corner.

DeSmog Canada chatted with David Moscrop — a political theorist, postdoctoral fellow at Simon Fraser University and regular contributor to Maclean’s magazine — about the unfolding situation.

“It’s really hard to say. Nobody wins from a trade war. Somebody might lose more than someone else. But nobody wins.” https://t.co/sAsdn5HzfL

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) February 2, 2018

The B.C. government seems to have been framed as being somewhat unreasonable in their approach to Trans Mountain. What do you make of that?

It depends on which lens you use.

If your lens is that John Horgan needs this in order to win the next election, or to continue to be propped up by Andrew Weaver because the Green Party’s demanding that he opposes the pipeline, then I think it’s fair enough to say that he’s playing chicken with the federation because you want to win — although any of them would do the same damn thing.

Everyone’s a hypocrite, everyone’s full of shit. Everyone’s playing politics.

But on the actual substantive side of it, there are a number of people in the province and party who see pipelines as an existential threat insofar as they contribute to climate change. They look and say “we want an aggressive, radical agenda for addressing the greatest threat to humankind in at least the last 10,000 years.” Is that being unreasonable? They’re interested in the survival of the species. I would say in some sense, in the long run the folks who are being unreasonable are those who refuse to commit to an aggressive climate change agenda.

What do you make of Premier Rachel Notley’s response, bringing up how this is an attack on Confederation and all the rest?

Oh my god, are you kidding me? It’s all so stupid. Crack open any Canadian politics textbook, even the bad ones, and it’s a history of the federation fighting from even before day one. This is what we do.

I wrote about this a little while ago for Maclean’s. We’re always smacking each other and always fighting with each other and with the federal government. We’re always playing one another off this province or that province or the feds. It’s hyperbole.

She’s in a tough spot. I don’t begrudge her the politics of it. She’s in the same spot in some ways that Horgan is in British Columbia. They want to win the next election. That’s politically reasonable, it’s just the nature of having a federation. But that doesn’t mean that the New Democrats in British Columbia shouldn’t be fighting this tooth and nail for both political and substantive reasons.

Were you surprised to see Alberta announce that it’s suspending discussions about electricity purchases over this?

No. The only thing that would have surprised me is if they got a posse together and marched across the border. That would a little bit surprising. I think we could take them. Anything short of that isn’t surprising to me because Premier Notley has to be seen as being tough on British Columbians by standing up for Alberta in the same way that Horgan has to be seen as being tough on Albertans and standing up for B.C. To give the Prime Minister some credit, he has to be seen as standing up for the federation. And he thinks that means he has to support the pipeline.

It’s one of those cases where it’s short-term gain, long-term pain. To oversimplify it, but here’s the essence of the problem: our political and economic cycles are too short. They’re thinking the next election, or the next 10 years — not the next 100 years.

How do you think Trudeau has responded?

He’s hitched to the Alberta wagon now, I think, like it or not … He can’t go back on it now. The political hit on going back on that would be devastating, especially given that people are still talking about electoral reform and he seems a bit of a duplicitous hypocrite.

He’s stuck with it. Alberta’s stuck with it. B.C.’s stuck with it. It’s a standoff, and I don’t think anybody knows how it’s going to end.

If I had to guess, I’d say it might end with Kinder Morgan saying “oh boy, this project isn’t viable anymore, we’re out.” I would imagine that’s the strategy of those who want to stop the pipeline: wait them out, make it become financially unviable or scare off investors. That would certainly be my strategy.

In some ways, all three political groups — the federal government, Alberta and B.C. — would politically win. That might be the political theodicy outcome, the best of all political worlds. If the construction pushes ahead and British Columbians are opposed to this — and boy, the ones who are opposed are really opposed — think they’re not being taken seriously or listened to, it’s going to get nasty very, very quickly.

I would imagine to the point where we’re going to see a kind of reaction that we haven’t seen seen since Montebello or Oka. We’ve already seen some of it on Burnaby Mountain.

Just a reminder that there’s two dimensions that I think people argue across without ever making explicit.

There’s a political dimension — which is to say an electoral dimension, who wins and who loses based on party support — and there’s the substantive policy dimension of it, like what’s good for the economy and what do you trade off against addressing climate change. There’s a legitimate debate to be had on both. But there’s a lot of bad faith activity on both sides, with people conflating those two things and the population is caught in the middle. That’s politics. That said, it’s the future of the country.

Politics is stupid.

You tweeted recently that politicians have done a bad job at addressing a lot of these causes of anger. What would it look like in your mind if politicians were actually addressing them?

These things need to be addressed structurally, and when I say that I mean that we need to find a way to make sure that cycles of boom and bust, continued environmental degradation, continuous growing unaffordability — features that are often common with liberal democracies and capitalist systems — are addressed in a way that’s at least semi-permanent if not permanent.

Part of that has to rely on bringing citizens into the decision-making process, making sure that not only are they listened to but they’re engaged in ways that are more meaningful than a town hall. You have citizen juries or citizen assemblies. You have regular meetings where people are given time and resources to sit down and take part in decision-making and be listened to. And then — and this is critical — you listen to them, follow-up and you do what they think you should do. There’s a lot of well-meaning chatter that never translates into action. We call it “democracy-washing.” You get cover because you went and did a town hall but then you go back and it’s life as usual.

What does that mean? It probably means we need to dedicate state funds to making sure that people can afford to live. We probably need to decriminalize drugs, especially in the case of the opioid epidemic. We need to end housing speculation. We need to decide whether we’re all in on climate change or not. A pipeline agenda is inconsistent with that. These are big things, and it takes a lot of political capital and a lot of guts to get it done. But we’re not doing any of them, really.

When do you guess this might be resolved?

It’s really hard to say. Nobody wins from a trade war. Somebody might lose more than someone else. But nobody wins.

I would imagine all the politicians involved will probably take a bit of punishment because people will get frustrated. If it does stretch out for too long, whomever is up for re-election will bear the brunt of it the most.

One hopes that at some point, everyone realizes that by escalating everyone loses. But I’m not convinced anymore that’s going to happen. This might actually get quite nasty. If they push on and continue to develop the project, at some point the government of British Columbia is going to run out of options. I’m sure the courts will be vigorously involved. At some point, it’s going to hit the ground.

And then it’ll be up to the citizens of British Columbia to react however they think is appropriate. That’s where I think it’ll get particularly nasty, because it will no longer become political in the sense of relations between the provinces and the federal government. It’ll be political in the streets. It will stretch on ’til it’s over, one way or the other — whether it gets built or not. It will never not be a political battle. The question is whether it’s a battle in the courts, in the legislatures, in the press or in the streets? We’ll just have to wait and see.

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The cancellation of TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline in early October had major consequences for a rather unexpected player: Manitoba Hydro.

The company had been counting on the energy demand from the pipeline, and now the cancellation is putting extra strain on a company already plagued by debt and in the middle of building an $8.7 billion dam.

Back in 2014, the provincial utility company anticipated that almost 40 per cent of electricity generated by its proposed 695-megawatt Keeyask dam in northern Manitoba would be allocated to “pipeline load” for the Alberta Clipper, Line 3 and Energy East pipelines.

Specifically, the electricity would be used to run pumping stations, which force crude oil through pipelines via a series of pumps and motors. Among those pumping stations were those that would move bitumen from the oilsands to New Brunswick through the Energy East pipeline.

But Energy East is now officially dead.

A recent document filed by Manitoba Hydro to the province’s public utilities board estimated that will result in a loss of 534 gigawatt-hours in annual demand, equivalent to 12 per cent of the dam’s production — which comes at an awfully bad time given the utility’s ongoing debt issues, proposed rate hikes and cost overruns, which have resulted in the utility laying off  900 staff.

Building Renewables for the Fossil Fuel Industry

The connection between the Keeyask Dam and the Energy East pipeline raises important questions about renewable energy projects that are built, at least in part, to meet the demands of the fossil fuel industry.

On the one hand, powering the industry with cleaner electricity is a step in the right direction. But on the other hand, building new electricity, even when it is renewable, has serious impacts, and hydro is no exception.

It’s not the first time a hydro dam has been proposed to meet the electricity demands of the fossil fuel industry. In British Columbia, the rationale given for the controversial $10.7 billion Site C dam has at times included powering the liquefied natural gas export industry and Alberta’s oilsands.

What has been talked about a lot less in B.C. is that the new Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline would use 1,046 gigawatt-hours of electricity per year (PDF, page 64), or the equivalent of about 20 per cent of the production of the Site C dam (about half of that power will be consumed in B.C. with the other half being consumed in Alberta).

In B.C. that power will be sold at a subsidized rate and is expected to result in a cost to BC Hydro of $27 million a year. In Alberta, the Trans Mountain pipeline will use nearly a quarter of the new generating capacity created by the newly announced wind contracts.

Shifting Justifications for New Dams

Manitoba Hydro’s game plan for the Keeyask dam became clear during two sets of hearings during late 2013 and early 2014.

Peter Kulchyski, professor of Native studies at the University of Manitoba and long-time critic of impacts of hydroelectric projects on northern Indigenous communities, said in an interview with DeSmog Canada that Manitoba Hydro presented two very different narratives.

The first presentations — made to the Clean Environment Commission, which explores social and environmental impacts — saw the energy utility boast about the potential for new hydro projects to help fight climate change by exporting electricity to other jurisdictions and displacing the use of coal and natural gas.

In 2016-17, Manitoba Hydro exported $460 million of electricity to other jurisdictions. But that number has effectively flatlined due to the shale gas boom in the United States. In its most recent annual report, Manitoba Hydro listed “loss of export market access” as one of its most significant risks, alongside “catastrophic infrastructure failure” and “extreme drought.”

Kulchyski said the review of the project then moved on to the Public Utilities Board, which looks at economic modelling. At that point, some of the early financials from the newly built and way over budget 211-megawatt Wuskwatim Dam were emerging. They weren’t good.

At the time, Kulchyski said the Wuskwatim Dam was selling power at four cents per kilowatt-hour while it was costing seven cents per kilowatt-hour to actually produce power. The dam hadn’t ever been profitable (and still hasn’t been to this day, resulting in a restructuring of the agreement with local First Nations).

That’s when the “pipeline load” first entered the picture, Kulchyski said.

“As they were scrambling for where they would sell the power, they publicly came out saying they could sell power to the pipelines that are being built,” he said. “On one hand they’re fighting climate change, on the other hand they’re quite willing to sell to the pipelines.”

The connection between the Keeyask Dam and the Energy East pipeline raises important questions about renewable energy projects that are built, at least in part, to meet the demands of the fossil fuel industry. https://t.co/zn9yyRNL9w

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) January 10, 2018

Manitoba Could Sell Excess Power to Saskatchewan

Despite these concerns, Keeyask is still being constructed, anticipated to be in operation by late 2021. A $5 billion transmission line, Bipole III, is also being built to transport electricity from the dam to the south of the province.

Enbridge — which owns both the Alberta Clipper and Line 3 pipelines — didn’t respond to a request for comment by DeSmog Canada.

Manitoba Hydro still expects Keeyask to have a “pipeline load” of more than 1,000 gigawatt-hours, meaning that one-quarter of the dam’s capacity (4,400 gigawatt-hours) will go to helping pump Alberta bitumen through Line 3 and Alberta Clipper.

That leaves a lot of excess electricity without a clear market though, which could require future ratepayers to cover the difference. Manitoba Hydro is already requesting significant hikes in rates — currently pushing for 7.9 per cent increases per year until 2023-24.

Electrification Will Bring New Demand: Clean Energy Analyst

But there are plenty of opportunities for Manitoba to use the excess electricity from Keeyask in positive ways, Dan Woynillowicz, policy director at Clean Energy Canada, said in an interview with DeSmog Canada. That includes moving to electric vehicles (including freight trucks and buses) and heating buildings with electricity instead of with natural gas.

“In a hydro-dominated system like Manitoba where you’ve got plentiful, affordable, clean power, the emissions benefit of applying that to transportation is particularly significant,” Woynillowicz said. “We certainly need to be capitalizing on that from a climate change perspective.”

He added there’s also the potential for increased exports to the U.S. and other Canadian provinces —especially Saskatchewan, given that it’s right next door and “still has one of the dirtiest electricity grids in Canada.”

“There’s still a lot of low-hanging fruit in terms of cleaning up Saskatchewan’s system,” he said. “Definitely one element of that could be increased imports of hydro from Manitoba.”

Canada May Need 150 More Keeyasks to Meet 2050 Climate Targets

Canada’s mid-century long-term low-greenhouse gas development strategy reported that over 100,000 megawatts of additional hydro capacity will be required by 2050 to reach greenhouse gas reduction targets.

That’s equivalent to almost 150 Keeyask dams in capacity.

Canada is the third-largest hydro producer in the world, with over 80,000 megawatts of capacity already in place. One of the benefits of large quantities of hydropower is its ‘dispatchable’ nature, meaning reservoirs essentially act as giant batteries that can be drawn from when needed.

ICYMI: What’s the Future of Hydroelectric Power in Canada?

Yet often left unaddressed by proponents of additional hydroelectric power are the devastating impacts that dams can have on local and Indigenous communities, especially the ability to hunt, fish, trap and gather on traditional lands and waters.

Opponents of hydro dams also point out the high costs of building large dams crowd out small-scale and more localized sources of energy like wind, solar and geothermal.

And Manitoba, a hydro-heavy province, hasn’t seriously explored renewable electricity sources other than hydro. In 2014, a former NDP energy minister accused the utility of making it “virtually impossible to build wind [power] here.” The province has just 260 MW of installed wind energy capacity, less than New Brunswick.

But outside of rapid innovations in battery storage, transmission lines and the emergence  of alternative low-carbon baseload power (such as geothermal), it’s unclear how Canada will dodge the conflict over hydro.

There are some obvious options to help reduce demand, such as energy efficiency retrofits for existing buildings and reducing industrial load.

Woynillowicz noted that the biggest chunks of new demand come from large industrial projects. For instance, in B.C., a single large LNG plant could consume the equivalent of all of the power created by the Site C dam.

Ultimately, the public needs to know the planned end use of new electricity projects before being able to form an educated opinion on them.

With files from Emma Gilchrist.

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With federal decisions on major oil pipeline and tanker projects in the headlines, many suggest our elected officials should lean more on science to make these kinds of decisions.

Those exhortations sound very reasonable. But they reveal an enormously important misunderstanding about the role of science in making decisions on major resource projects.

Take the case of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline and tanker project on the West Coast.

On one side, you have staunch opposition from the Tsleil-Waututh Nation and other coastal and Fraser River First Nations, West Coast municipalities like Vancouver, Burnaby and Victoria, and a sizable percentage of B.C.’s voting public.

On the other side, you have staunch support from Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, the mayors of Calgary and Edmonton, and a sizable percentage of Alberta’s voting public.

Is one side simply too dumb to understand the science — or simply willing to flatly ignore it?

Of course not.

But suggestions like Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi’s that “science should have the trump” unhelpfully imply just that.

This wrenching debate has never been about who understands the science better.

Rather, it’s about what happens when you take two people or communities and present them with the exact same scientific information, and they come to equally legitimate but opposite conclusions.

What’s going on here?

A difference in values.

It’s not a question of science versus values, or facts versus emotion, it’s about what happens when the best available science has told you all it can.

This is where our traditional environmental review processes begin to unravel; an unraveling that was on full display during the Kinder Morgan review process and that has now tainted the federal cabinet’s approval of the project.

As long as our current review processes and some of our political leaders assume that decisions must solely be “evidence-based” (meaning scientific evidence only), we’ll continue to waste years in angry hearings, expensive court battles, and polarized, disrespectful debate.

When one person’s “significant risk” is another person’s “infinitesimal risk,” you know you’ve arrived in the realm of a wicked problem.

We Need to Admit the Limitations of Science When it Comes to Pipeline Decisions https://t.co/dtYn68kFIG #bcpoli #cdnpoli #KinderMorgan pic.twitter.com/Iyc4u0lKXi

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) February 23, 2017

At this crucial moment in the pipeline debate, our leaders must understand and acknowledge the nature of the wicked problem, which involves what some refer to as “systemic risk.”

Oil pipeline proposals are textbook examples of wicked problems and systemic risk.

• First, oil pipeline and taker operations are serious — if something goes badly wrong, there will be certain harm to the environment or people. Every new major oil spill reminds us of that.
• Second, they’re extremely complex, involving a staggering number of interactions between ecological, social and economic factors. In the case of West Coast pipelines, this complexity runs from prairies to coastal rainforests, and from remote First Nations communities to major cities.
• Third, they’re subject to a high degree of uncertainty arising from our limited understanding of, and the variability in, natural and human systems. No one can reliably predict when or where the next oil spill will happen, or how damaging it will be.
• Fourth, they’re subject to a great deal of ambiguity, which arises from different legitimate viewpoints regarding whether risks are acceptable or not.

The seriousness, complexity, uncertainty and ambiguity wrapped up in oil pipeline and tanker proposals put the lie to claims of purely science-based decision-making.

Guaranteeing that projects will only go ahead if science deems them safe is disingenuous. There’s no way to guarantee safety and the public get that.

Promises to only proceed if safety measures are “world-class” are similarly disingenuous, because they hide the very real and painful limits to what is actually possible.

If a tanker were to run aground on the West Coast during a storm, a world-class response could mean watching helplessly as the oil spill spreads (strong winds and waves often prevent response equipment from being deployed).

With further federal pipeline decisions pending for major pipelines like TransCanada’s Energy East, we need our political leaders to abandon rhetoric that invokes science and world-class measures, and instead speak honestly about the limitations of science and the role of values.

Doing so may not do much to lessen the sense of betrayal — either way — this time around but it would signal a more honest process going forward.

Image: Coastal First Salish paddle in the snow. Photo: Zack Embree

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Either support new pipelines or your community will be incinerated by an oil-carrying train.

It sounds outrageous, but it’s been a foundational argument made by the pro-pipeline lobby ever since the horrific Lac-Mégantic disaster in 2013.

“This is almost like putting a gun to the head of communities, saying ‘well, if we don’t build our pipeline then we’re going to put more oil-by-rail traffic through your community,’ ” says Patrick DeRochie, program manager of Environmental Defence’s climate and energy program.

“I think that’s dishonest and the oil industry’s really manipulating legitimate public concerns about rail safety to push pipelines.”

On Dec. 20, 2016 — less than a month after the federal approvals of the Kinder Morgan TransMountain and Enbridge Line 3 pipelines — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau clearly stated that “putting in a pipeline is a way of preventing oil by rail, which is more dangerous and more expensive.”

The fact that it’s an oft-repeated sentiment shouldn’t overshadow the fact that this is a completely false binary.

Canada is hardly shipping any oil by rail. It never has.

And the only way that oil-by-rail shipments will seriously increase as predicted by the Canadian Energy Research Institute and National Energy Board is if Canada continues with its plan to allow for the massive expansion of Alberta’s oilsands in the coming decades, a move that will undermine calls for a moratorium on all new fossil fuel infrastructure in order to avoid the effects of catastrophic climate change.

Highest Amount Ever Exported by Rail Was Mere 178,000 Barrels Per Day

Here are the numbers on oil-by-rail.

In September 2016 — the most recent month reported by the National Energy Board on the subject — oil-by-rail exports to the United States were 69,292 barrels per day (bpd).

They had dipped as low as 43,205 bpd in June 2016.

This obviously reflects the extremely low per-barrel price that bitumen is fetching from American refineries, which is also why there’s currently around 400,000 bpd of spare capacity in the pipeline network.

Plus, oil-by-rail generally costs more than shipping oil by pipeline, making it an even less viable option in such economic times.

But rail shipments have never been particularly notable relative to total crude oil production.

In fact, oil-by-rail’s high point in recent years was in September 2014, when 178,989 bpd were transported to the U.S.

The same year, Canada was exporting a total of 2.85 million bpd. In other words, at its very peak, oil-by-rail accounted for a mere 6.28 per cent of total exports.

Newly Approved Pipelines Quadruple Capacity Historically Shipped by Rail

It should also be noted that not all oil transported by rail is exported to the States, with some simply transported to other parts of the country for storage or usage for purposes such as asphalt.

For instance, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers reports the oil-by-rail hit “almost 200,000 bpd by the end of 2013,” despite the NEB only reporting 166,570 bpd in rail exports during December 2013.

Domestic transport also helps explain why the Canadian Energy Research Institute reported in 2014 that about 35,000 bpd of oil-by-rail from Western Canada wasn’t exported to the United States (and thus not counted by the NEB).

Incredibly, nobody is keeping detailed, accurate numbers on oil-by-rail.

But we can assume — generously — that the highest oil-by-rail shipments have ever hit in Canada is 225,000 bpd (180,000 bpd in exports and another 45,000 bpd in cross-country transport).

The recent approvals of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain and Enbridge Line 3 pipelines will allow for the addition of 900,000 bpd in pipeline capacity from the oilsands, assuming a 15 per cent surplus for outages and maintenance.

That’s four times the amount of oil that has ever been shipped by rail, either for exports or domestic transport.

New pipelines are not about “displacing” oil currently being shipped by rail — there’s simply no evidence for that.

Instead, new pipelines are about preparing for a massive expansion of the oilsands by almost two million bpd between 2015 and 2040, and weaponizing people’s fears of oil-by-rail to do so.

How the Spectre of Oil Trains is Deceptively Used to Push Pipelines https://t.co/mWbMw5F4SK @james_m_wilt #cdnpoli #oilbyrail #propaganda

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) January 6, 2017

Oil-By-Rail Unsafe Because of Regulatory Lack

But there’s a second and related key problem with the pipeline versus rail debate, further undermining the argument for new pipelines.

Specifically, that there are technologies and regulations available to ensure that oil being shipped by rail is far safer than what the current rules mandate.

As a result, combined exports and domestic transport via rail could even rebound to 200,000 or 250,000 bpd and we’d never have to seriously worry about a Lac-Mégantic-like disaster again.

How?

Transport Canada could require rail companies to increase the number of inspectors and crew members on trains, reduce speed limits and require certain braking system protocols and better public disclosure.

The phase-out of the old CPC-1232 tank railcars and transition to new and safer TC-117 tank railcars could be accelerated. The federal environment minister could be required to order an environmental assessment of oil-by-rail projects, as recommended in September 2016 by NDP MP Linda Duncan.

‘Neatbit’ Would Reduce Risk of Explosions and Spills, But Initially Increase Costs

And then there’s the increasingly popular idea of “neatbit.”

Bitumen from the oilsands is current shipped in both pipeline and train in a form called “dilbit,” which requires about 30 per cent of diluent to allow it move. The diluent, usually made of a natural gas-based condensate, makes the mixture highly flammable, explosive and difficult to contain in spills.

These characteristics are dangerously compounded in the case of train accidents.

Conversely, “neatbit” only requires one to two per cent of diluent.

The product thus has the consistency of peanut butter, meaning it won’t flow in the event of a spill. It also doesn’t catch fire or explode.

David Hughes, expert on unconventional fuels and author of multiple reports for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), says: “In effect, shipping raw bitumen by rail is likely a safer alternative than pipelines.”

Shipping bitumen as neatbit would arguably save companies money in the long term. But it would also require a bit of upfront capital, and policy direction from governments.

Heavy oil refineries don’t have the infrastructure to receive it. It would take longer to unload. Upstream companies would have to build diluent recovery units and invest in insulated tank railcars with heated coils to keep the bitumen somewhat soft during transport.

And unlike pipelines, oil-by-rail doesn’t result in a “carbon lock-in” given that many other commodities can be transported by rail.

Bruce Campbell of the CCPA has concluded the oil industry “is not in any hurry to make the transition because of the (relatively modest) upfront investment.”

Kai Nagata of the Dogwood Initiative agrees: “The oil companies don’t want to do anything that is inconvenient or that would require them to build new facilities or spend more money. So far, I don’t think there’s much interest in moving that inert form of bitumen in regular rail cars.”

‘It’s Purely Out of a Profit Motive That They Invoke the Comparison’

Not only is it deceptive to claim that new pipelines are needed to replace oil-by-rail, but it also ignores the fact that oil-by-rail can be made much safer than it is at the moment (although it will continue to be more carbon-intensive due to its current reliance on diesel as fuel).

Yet Lac-Mégantic continues to be subtly weaponized by corporate execs and politicians as if these two facts aren’t true, or even worthy of acknowledgement.

Oil-by-rail has never been a major player in Canada. It never will be if international climate commitments are honoured. And even if it is used as a way to offer some flexibility to producers, it can be done in a way that’s safer than current practices require.

Nagata suggests that such players are relying on people’s fears about a non-issue in order to force them to a point of compromise that would allow them to build pipeline expansion infrastructure.

“It’s purely out of a profit motive that they invoke the comparison,” he says. “Not out of any sense of concern for the safety of communities along the route.”

DeRochie agrees: “It’s a legitimate concern. And I think the oil industry grasped onto that and used it as a scare tactic to push pipelines.”

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Knowledge gaps about the behaviour of diluted bitumen when it is spilled into saltwater and lack of information about how to deal with multiple problems that can result from extracting and transporting bitumen from the Alberta oilsands, make it impossible for government or industry to come up with effective policies to deal with a disaster, says a newly published research paper, Oilsands and the Marine Environment.

The study by ecologists from Simon Fraser, Stanford, Oregon State and Northern Arizona universities, who scrutinized more than 9,000 research papers, concludes that officials should collect more information about the environmental effects of bitumen before setting regulations.

“There just isn’t enough science in the public eye to answer questions about the risk bitumen poses to the ocean,” said lead author Stephanie Green, a Banting postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Ocean Solutions at Stanford University.

“We found almost no research about bitumen’s effects on marine species,” she said.

As controversy continues to swirl around the federal government’s approval of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion and as president-elect Donald Trump prepares to overhaul energy and environmental regulations and reopen the Keystone XL pipeline application, the lack of credible information highlights policy flaws, the researchers said.

“In this context, policymakers risk confusing the lack of evidence for particular environmental effects with evidence that there is no risk,” Green said.

Out of all the studies examined, only two addressed the toxicity of bitumen in the ocean, said coauthor Thomas Sisk of Northern Arizona University.

“We don’t even know for certain whether this form of petroleum will float or sink during an ocean spill,” he said.

Bitumen is the consistency of peanut butter when extracted from the oilsands and, as it is too thick to flow through a pipe, it is diluted with chemicals or lighter petroleum products such as natural gas concentrate, refined naptha or synthetic crude oil to make it flow. The diluted product is commonly known as dilbit.

However, a major block to coming up with spill responses or figuring out the exact behaviour of dilbit in the ocean is that there are dozens of different formulas and the chemical diluent mix is treated as a trade secret by oil companies.

“A crucial first step in filling this gap is a requirement that the chemical composition of oilsands products be made available for scientific study and impact assessment,” the study recommends.

Secrecy Around Composition of Oilsands Dilbit Makes Effective Spill Response, Research Impossible: New Study https://t.co/8p5OUwjDLe #bcpoli

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) December 24, 2016

The paper, which was published this week in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, found that policy flaws include a failure to adequately address carbon emissions or the cumulative effects of multiple projects.

The scientist found there are 15 “pathways” through which the extraction and transportation of oilsands bitumen can negatively affect oceans.

Impacts include problems resulting from a spill, the effect of increased tanker traffic on marine animals and climate change effects such as increasing ocean acidity and temperature and rapid sea-level rise, says the study.

However, there are few scientific studies looking at the effect of two or more of the impacts arising simultaneously.

“Projects should not be considered in isolation and multiple types of impacts need to be considered simultaneously. Everything is connected,” said co-author Wendy Palen of Simon Fraser University.

The gaps in information on multiple stressors are particularly evident on a regional basis for eelgrass and kelp forest systems, the study says.

“Accounting for the effects of multiple projects, concurrently, in scientific assessments and planning processes will lead to more accurate assessments of oil sands contributions to cumulative effects on resources that are in the footprint of multiple industries,” it recommends.

Expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline from the Alberta oilsands to Burnaby will see the capacity of the pipeline triple to 890,000 barrels a day, compared to the current capacity of 300,000 barrels a day. The expansion will also mean the number of tankers, travelling through the Strait of Georgia and Juan de Fuca Strait, will increase to 34 a month from five a month.

The BC Liberal government has set five conditions for approving the pipeline expansion, but is showing every sign that it will get a green light, while the NDP and Green Party oppose it.

Green Party leader Andrew Weaver claims his party is the only one to consistently oppose the pipeline.

“You can’t clean up dilbit, so we should ban heavy oil tankers on the coast,” he said categorically.

Image credit: TransCanada

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau campaigned aggressively on the issue of science in the lead up to the last federal election. And it makes sense that he did: for the first time ever in Canadian history the issue of scientific integrity was a major election issue for voters across the nation.

Images of shuttered libraries, gagged scientists and dumpsters full of books haunted the Canadian imagination under the Harper government.

Trudeau promised to change all of that. Brandishing the language of the scientific community itself Trudeau painted a vision of a Canadian scientific renaissance, with the restoration of scientific integrity and the veritable holy grail of political vows: evidence-based decision-making.

“As a scientist, I was personally thrilled with the Liberal government’s vocal support for science, especially regarding the critical role that scientific evidence should play in informed decision-making,” Wendy Palen, associate professor and biologist at Simon Fraser University, told DeSmog Canada.

In the early days of the federal government under Trudeau, there were several events that shored up that sense of optimism including the anchoring of ministerial duties in science in open mandate letters and restored funding for research in the first Liberal budget.

Trudeau also promised to bring social and scientific credibility back to the environmental assessments of major resource projects.

“I think I can say the scientific community breathed a sigh of relief over the change in attitude around science and the role of scientific decision-making,” Palen said.

But, she added, that sentiment has stopped short in recent months.

In September the federal government approved the controversial Pacific Northwest LNG export terminal near Prince Rupert, B.C. The terminal is expected to become Canada’s single largest point source of greenhouse gas emissions.

Although opposed by all major environmental organizations in B.C., the project and its treatment under the federal review system raised a number of red flags for the scientific community in particular.

Flora Bank juts out towards Lelu Island, where the Pacific Northwest LNG terminal is to be located. Photo: Ocean Ecology

Proposed for the Flora Bank estuary, a unique eelgrass bed that provides resting grounds for hundreds of thousands of juvenile salmon from the Skeena watershed, the LNG terminal’s proposed site clashed hard with biologists and members of the conservation community who say, when it comes to salmon, a worse location simply couldn’t have been selected.

The federal environmental assessment of the LNG terminal — which concluded destroyed salmon habitat could simply be rebuilt elsewhere — was so fraught with problems members of the scientific community penned an open letter to Trudeau and his cabinet, pleading with them to reject the project’s review.

In that letter, scientists detailed a fundamentally flawed assessment process in which peer-reviewed science was ignored, basic principles of scientific investigation were violated and research paid for by the project’s proponent, Malaysian-owned Petronas, was given primacy.

The federal government ignored those pleas from the scientific community and on a September evening environment and climate minister Catherine McKenna announced the project’s approval.

“This project was subject to a rigorous environmental assessment and today’s announcement reflects this commitment,” she said.

Hearing those words, many scientists in B.C. were simply perplexed.

More recently Trudeau along with members of his cabinet approved the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline under a review process so thoroughly broken, Trudeau campaigned on the explicit promise to scrap it entirely.

But that’s not what happened and last month scientists were again baffled at the cooptation of the language of science in the pipeline’s approval.

“This is a decision based on rigorous debate, on science and on evidence. We will not be swayed by political arguments," Trudeau said.

"If I thought this project was unsafe for the B.C. coast, I would reject it."

For Palen, the announcement was particularly confounding.

Along with two co-authors, Palen wrote to Trudeau in the weeks prior to the pipeline announcement informing him of a new analysis that identified significant gaps in knowledge and research specifically on the impacts of Alberta oilsands crude, known as bitumen, on marine organisms.

A review of over 9,000 studies found not enough is known about the potential effects of an oil spill from the tankers that will be fed by the Trans Mountain pipeline to say with certainty the project is safe.

“The government’s words and use of the words ‘evidence-based decision-making’ are starting to be questioned by myself and others in the scientific community,” Palen said.

“I heard many of my colleagues wonder what the government really means by ‘evidence-based decision-making’ because those aren’t just empty words — they have a really specific meaning to those of us in science policy and in scientific fields.”

Palen said two important components of the scientific use of evidence are one, that the information is publicly available and preferably independently verified and two, that subsequent decisions are made on the basis of that evidence.

“That’s in contrast to making decisions and then subsequently backing up that decision by the selective use of science or evidence,” she said.

“That’s a big philosophical difference.”

Canadian Scientists Say They’re Unsure What @JustinTrudeau Means When He Says ‘Science’ https://t.co/nY9aCktGiB #cdnsci #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/MPEyzW1Bad

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) December 16, 2016

Palen said the federal government does not make publicly available the information it bases its decisions on so there is no way to independently verify the data or research undergirding these major project approvals.

Kathleen Walsh, executive director for the science-advocacy group Evidence for Democracy, said that’s a big problem for a government that wants to present itself as evidence-based.

“If government is serious about these decisions being based on science, they need to make that kind of information open and available and they need to be transparent about it,” Walsh told DeSmog Canada.

When it comes to gaps in knowledge, like on the effects of bitumen in marine environments, making evidence-based decisions becomes even more problematic.

“It’s one thing to ignore the evidence that exists but it's another to completely ignore gaps in evidence and pretend they’re not there,” she said.

“So for the federal government to say these decisions are based on evidence or science is not necessarily truthful.”

Walsh said she doesn’t want to elide the progress this government has made on the science file, more generally.

“Certainly there have been some big wins for them in the last weeks on science,” Walsh said, referring to the announcement of a Chief Science Advisor position as well as new rules to prevent the muzzling of federal scientists.

“But we can’t get that confused with their record and say it’s perfect.”

And making those grand claims about science will become more difficult going forward when the Chief Science Advisor position is filled, Walsh said.

“That person is going to have to answer these really hard questions about evidence and government decisions. I’m really looking forward to seeing how that plays out.”

In addition to the introduction of a scientific advisor, Walsh said the federal government’s current review of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act is also a huge opportunity to start getting science right in the country, especially as it relates to major project approvals.

Aerin Jacob, a Liber Ero postdoctoral fellow in environmental studies at the University of Victoria, couldn’t agree more.

“One of my motivations for being involved in the environmental assessment review is it’s not a very sexy topic,” Jacob told DeSmog Canada. “A lot of people think it’s boring.”

The Act went underwent significant changes in 2012 under the Harper government that many say has left some of the nation’s most important environmental legislation toothless.

“This is an opportunity to take a look at the changes to the Act in 2012 and the ramifications those changes have had. And not just to repeal those changes, but to take a good look at what good environmental assessments can be and to make sure Canada is a leader in that regard.”

Jacob recently organized the creation and release of an open letter from nearly 2,000 young scientists and researchers to the federal government as part of the review, calling on the government to return scientific integrity to the environmental assessment process.

The letter, which Jacob presented to the expert review panel in Nanaimo this week, outlines five ways the federal government could improve scientific rigour in the assessment process, including the use of best available evidence, making information and data available to the public, evaluating cumulative impacts of projects and eliminating conflicts of interest.

Dr. Aerin Jacob speaks at a Before the Abstract event about her research in the Serengeti. Photo: Before the Abstract

“We see what happens when science takes a back seat in this process,” Jacob said, pointing to the “entirely preventable” tailings pond collapse at the Mount Polley mine in B.C. and the recent approval of the Kinder Morgan pipeline.

“With something like the Kinder Morgan decision, there was a lot of concern that has been raised over the last couple of years about that process. Scientists and independent experts have said again and again the evidence being present there isn’t the best evidence, it doesn’t paint the whole picture.”

Jacob said the lack of transparency around the evidence the government used to makes it decision about the pipeline is “deeply concerning.”

“Although it’s possible there is other evidence the government is considering, it’s not evident because we can’t see it.”

“It’s like a black box of decision-making. That’s not scientifically rigorous.”

Jacob said what her and other young scientists and researchers are proposing isn’t radical.

“These aren’t crazy new ideas, to share that information and share how you arrive at a conclusion. This is what we’re taught since elementary school: show your work.”

Jacob said she feels when it comes to science, there is a culture change underway in Canada.

Scientists were eager to get involved in the environmental assessment review, she said.

In Nanaimo, Jacob told the panel young scientists like herself have had a “coming of age.”

“Muzzling of scientists, putting data in dumpsters — that was the norm” for her and other young scientists under the former government. 

“It was not a good time to be looking at a scientific career in Canada and we do not want that ever to be the case professionally or personally.”

“I really can’t underscore how big an opportunity this review is,” Jacob told DeSmog Canada. “It could influence everything about how we make decisions about the environment.”

Jacob said so many of the social concerns that have arisen around major projects like pipelines and LNG terminals could be resolved through a more robust assessment process, starting with greater transparency and rigour from the outset.

The federal expert panel will conclude its review of the environmental assessment act this week and will make recommendations to the federal government by the end of January 2017. A secondary process, which will include the input of a multi-interest advisory committee, will follow on the heels of the panel’s report.

“I really hope the panel will take a bold approach. We’re talking a major overhaul here. And I hope our elected officials have the courage to implement it.”

Image: Justin Trudeau at a Science North event in Sudbury, Ontario. Photo: Prime Minister's Photo Gallery

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Nobody knows how a spill of diluted bitumen would affect marine life or whether a bitumen spill in salt water could be adequately cleaned up, because basic research is lacking, says a new study.

The peer-reviewed paper, which will be published later this month in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, looked at more than 9,000 studies of the effect of oilsands products on the marine environment.

The paper is under embargo until Dec. 20, but the authors, from universities in Canada and the U.S., shared their findings with the federal government in hopes that the conclusions would be considered prior to pipeline decisions, said Wendy Palen, associate professor in the department of biological sciences at Simon Fraser University and one of the authors.

“As scientists, we feel a responsibility to speak out about the state of the science, especially with a government that has pledged to be evidence-based,” said Palen, who agreed to discuss general conclusions of the study with DeSmog Canada in advance of the embargo being lifted because of the government’s approval of Kinder Morgan’s $6.8-billion pipeline expansion.

The project will see capacity of the Trans Mountain pipeline, from the Alberta oilsands to Burnaby, triple to 890,000 barrels of diluted bitumen a day from 300,000 barrels daily. It will also mean tanker traffic from the Burnaby terminal will increase to 34 tankers a month from about five a month.

Those super-tankers, carrying diluted bitumen, will travel through the Strait of Georgia, around the Gulf Islands and southern Vancouver Island then through Juan de Fuca Strait on their way to foreign markets.

Pipeline opponents fear that a catastrophic oil spill is inevitable, but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau insists the government’s decision was based on science and that the project would have been rejected if he believed there was any threat to the B.C. coast.

However, the study found that there are large unexamined risks to the marine environment from bitumen and claims that a spill can be effectively mitigated are unfounded because there have been no ocean-based studies of how bitumen behaves in the marine environment with rough seas and changing temperatures, Palen said.

“That means that the approval of new projects is problematic, maybe even bordering on irresponsible,” she said.

“Any new approvals of pipelines or transportation proposals are assuming a large amount of risk…The decision last week was troubling because of this knowledge gap.”

Transportation of heavy oil from Alberta’s oilsands has outpaced the science that can ensure projects are safe and although thousands of peer-reviewed studies are available on the behaviour of conventional oil and spills in fresh water, there is almost nothing on the behaviour of bitumen in the ocean, Palen said.

Review of 9000 Studies Finds We Know Squat About Bitumen Spills in Ocean Environments https://t.co/S2Zpkb8WCD #bcpoli #cdnpoli @LavoieJudith

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) December 9, 2016

One of the few studies looking at bitumen in the marine environment found it tends to float until it weathers and then sinks, but that study was conducted in the laboratory, not in the ocean.

One reason that the science is so sparse is that companies will not disclose what chemical mix is going into the pipe.

“The composition is protected as a corporate trade secret and the companies don’t have to disclose it. That’s something we called for in our letter to the Prime Minister and cabinet. We, in the scientific community, urgently need that information in order to allow science to catch up,” Palen said.

“We were quite surprised about it and concluded that some of the most basic questions remain unanswered.”

Bitumen is a very heavy oil that will not flow through a pipe without being diluted. Usually lighter petroleum products such as natural gas concentrate, refined naptha or synthetic crude oil are used to make it flow.

A previous study on diluted bitumen, by the U.S.-based National Academy of Sciences, found that, unlike lighter compounds that begin to evaporate when spilled, heavy oil weathers into an adhesive, dense viscous material when exposed to the elements.

“For this reason, spills of diluted bitumen pose particular challenges when they reach water bodies. In some cases, the residues can submerge or sink to the bottom of the water body,“ it says.

The study found that a pipeline failure that releases diluted bitumen poses danger to responders and the public, as well as to the environment.

“When all risks are considered systematically, there must be a greater level of concern associated with spills of diluted bitumen compared to spills of commonly transported crude oils,” it says

Six years ago a diluted bitumen pipeline operated by Enbridge burst, spilling bitumen into a tributary of the Kalamazoo River. The spill cost more than $1-billion to clean up and put the spotlight on the hazards of pumping bitumen through pipelines.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

This article originally appeared on The Tyee.

Politicians who advocate for more bitumen pipelines and LNG exports are making a "have your cake and eat it too argument" because there is no way Canada can meet its climate change commitments under such a scenario says David Hughes, one of the nation's top energy experts.

Even building just one LNG terminal coupled with modest oilsands growth would increase oil and gas emissions from 26 per cent of Canada's total greenhouse gas emissions in 2014 to 45 per cent by 2030.

Under such a scenario, as forecasted by the National Energy Board, the rest of the economy would be forced to contract its emissions by 47 per cent in order to meet promised greenhouse gas reduction targets set by the Paris talks.

"This level of reduction is near-impossible without severe economic consequences," concluded Hughes in a new report for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).

In other words the cheapest and most sensible approach to reducing greenhouse gases from current 732 megatonnes to a 2020 target of 620 megatonnes involves shrinking the oil and gas industry by limiting bitumen extraction, and not building more pipelines.

Canada's politicians need to "rethink the expansion of oil and gas production if we are going to be serious about meeting our Paris commitments," Hughes told The Tyee.

"Canada still needs oil and gas and it is more than self-sufficient in satisfying its own requirements. But ramping up exports is not an economic winner when you consider climate change and oil revenue in general. We need a long-term plan as opposed to short term hell-bent growth that damns the consequences."

Author's Decades of Expertise

Hughes, an energy analyst and earth scientist with a public record of high reliability, worked for 32 years for the federal government and headed research on unconventional gas and coal for the Natural Resources Canada until he retired in 2008.

Since then his independent reports, which have challenged industry and government hubris on a number of energy matters, are often quoted in publications as varied as Nature, The Economist, the Los Angeles Times, Bloomberg, USA Today and The Tyee.

His latest number crunching report not only answers the question "Can Canada Expand Oil and Gas Production, Build Pipelines and Keep Its Climate Change Commitments?" with a clear no but does so with public data available from the National Energy Board and Environment Canada.

Independent energy analyst with 32 years experience working for the fed gov has wake up call for #Canada https://t.co/jkYtXC2wns #cdnpoli

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) June 7, 2016

In recent months Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley and former federal natural resources minister Joe Oliver have all advocated for more bitumen export pipelines, while British Columbia premier Christy Clark has lauded the benefits of B.C.'s LNG projects and natural gas pipelines from fracking operations in northern B.C.

But based on data provided by the National Energy Board and Environment Canada Hughes found that there was no way that Canada could build more pipelines and meet promised global reductions in greenhouse gases.

"Nobody seems to be doing the math and that's why I did the report to put the numbers together."

Need for Pipelines Challenged

Hughes also found that no new pipelines are actually needed if Alberta keeps its promise to cap oilsand growth and emissions at 100 megatons a year. The energy-intensive mining project, Canada's largest single source of emissions, now emits 68 million tons a year.

Source: CCPA

Hughes argues that there is enough existing pipeline and rail capacity to handle a 45 per cent ramp up in the oilsands production. "The additional pipelines being lobbied for by industry and governments are therefore not necessary."

Hughes also debunks the myth that getting bitumen to tidewater ports will somehow increase the global price that Canada's gets for its low-grade bitumen.

For years now pipeline advocates have argued that getting cheap bitumen or heavy oil to eastern refineries would be highly profitable due to the price difference between West Texas Intermediate, the North American benchmark and North Sea Brent, the global benchmark for oil.

But in the last two years that difference has largely disappeared with the completion of U.S. pipelines to Gulf Coast refineries combined with the removal of a ban on U.S. raw oil exports. That long-term ban often kept crude oil bottled up on the continent.  

Even the federal government admits that the money rational for an Energy East pipeline, for example, has vastly changed in secret memos obtained by Bloomberg last month:

"The benefits of building the pipeline would be greater if the price between WTI and Brent would be as large as that observed in 2011 and 2012," said a December 10, 2015 document marked secret, reported Bloomberg.

"Bitumen sells at a substantial discount because its heavy, highly viscous nature, and high sulphur content make it more costly to refine," explained Hughes in the report.

"This reality will not change even if large volumes reach tidewater for export, as the difference in price that existed over the past few years between the inter-national benchmark — Brent Crude — and North America's benchmark — West Texas Intermediate (WTI) — which did provide a premium for tidewater access over the past few years, has now been reduced to almost nothing."

"The assertion by politicians that tidewater access enabling overseas exports will somehow confer a significant price premium for Canadian oil is therefore not supported by the facts," noted the report.

Slowing Down Production Advised

Canada currently produces about four million barrels of oil a day but 61 per cent of that volume comes from high cost and carbon intensive mining in the tar sands.

The country exports about nearly three quarters of what it produces to the United States, and primarily as a raw feedstock for U.S. refineries.

Flint Hills Resources, a company owned by the U.S. billionaire Koch brothers, remains one of the largest refiners of raw Canadian bitumen at 320,000 barrels a day.

As Canada exports more raw bitumen south of the border to U.S. refineries, the U.S. has increasingly exported more refined petroleum products to Canada. Annual U.S. exports to Canada have increased from 50,000 barrels a year in 2004 to 200,000 barrels in 2015.

"The widely recited rhetoric that Canada must continue its de facto energy strategy of liquidating its remaining nonrenewable resources as fast as possible to maintain the economy has no credibility," concluded Hughes in his report.

"Canada has never produced more oil, yet government revenues from the industry have collapsed. Yes, prices are low and that is affecting the industry, but nothing can be done about that given that prices are set globally. Maintaining the notion that only ever-expanded exports can rescue the Canadian economy ignores fundamental price realities as well as eliminates any chance that Canada will meet its emission-reduction targets under COP21."

The report echoes many of the conclusions reached by former CIBC economist Jeff Rubin in his recent report on the future of the tar sands. It called pipeline expansion an economic folly.

"As one of the most costly oil sources in the world, the resource is also one of the most vulnerable to plunging oil prices," wrote Rubin.

"Improvement, no matter how impressive, in either its own carbon emissions or in Canada's overall emissions performance, will not remedy that vulnerability in any meaningful sense."

To produce a viable return on investment new bitumen projects require oil prices between $68 and $100 per barrel.

You can click here and read more about B.C. LNG and fracking.

Image: jasonwoodhead23/Flickr

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