The federal government announced on Wednesday the upstream greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with pipeline projects will be taken into consideration when federal cabinet makes its decisions on pipeline projects.

“We are considering direct and upstream greenhouse gas emissions,” Catherine McKenna, Minister of Environment and Climate Change, said. McKenna along with Minister of Natural Resources Jim Carr made the announcement.

“Today’s announcement is a great step forward and shows the federal government is listening to Canadians,” Kai Nagata, Dogwood Initiative’s energy and democracy director, told DeSmog Canada. “The dark days of the National Energy Board are coming to an end.”

The new measures will apply to pipeline projects currently under regulatory review, such as Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain and TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline projects, according to Carr. Five principles that proposed pipelines will be measured against were unveiled. One of those includes "meaningful consultation" for Indigenous peoples.

“This is a real test of this government’s commitments to uphold the rights of Indigenous Peoples," said Clayton Thomas-Muller, 350.org’s Stop it at the Source Campaigner. "At the heart of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is the right to free, prior and informed consent. That means Indigenous Peoples have the right to say ‘No’ when it comes to projects like pipelines and its responsibility of the government to listen.”

The changes are too little, too late, according to Ecojustice lawyer Karen Campbell.

“These interim measures are a welcome band-aid, but they are not enough to inject science and evidence-based decision-making into the Kinder Morgan review process," Campbell said. "The outcome of the National Energy Board review must still be to reject this project, until the flaws in the application are remedied, and the full regional impacts of the project are fully considered.”

Both ministers were clear upstream and direct GHG emissions will be “a factor in the decision making process." How much weight a project’s GHG emissions will be given compared to its economic benefits is unclear.

“Climate plays into the economic viability of these projects,” Adam Scott, climate and energy program manager with Environmental Defence Canada, said. “How do these projects fit into a world of high carbon taxes and shifting away from oil?”

Like Nagata, Scott says he is “very encouraged” the federal government is listening to Canadians. However, he is concerned Carr, although acknowledging the problems with the current National Energy Board, is still allowing the review of Energy East to go ahead without reforming the board first. The National Energy Board is Canada’s federal pipeline regulator.

“There’s no legal reason for Energy East to go through the old broken process,” Scott told DeSmog Canada. “The review hasn’t even started yet and the board has not determined if TransCanada’s application is complete.”

Wednesday’s announcement has little effect on the workings of the National Energy Board itself. The Environment Ministry, not the Board, will conduct the assessments of a project’s greenhouse gas emissions. The five principles are transition measures to be kept in place until an overhaul of the NEB can take place.

McKenna said revamping the board could take “a number of years.”

The federal government will also extend the timeframes in which decisions on Energy East and Trans Mountain must be made. Legislative changes under the previous Conservative government mandated that proposed pipelines made it through the regulatory process within 15 months.

An extra six months will now be tacked on to the review of the Energy East pipeline. For the Trans Mountain pipeline, which is in its final round of hearings, no federal decision will be made until December of this year.

“The fact there’ll be no construction on Trans Mountain this summer is good news for people of B.C.’s Lower Mainland,” Nagata said.

The extra time is meant to give the federal government more time to assess emissions, consult with Indigenous peoples and the general public in what Carr describes as “setting up a process beyond the NEB’s mandate and timelines.”

Nagata welcomes this decision as well, but questions still remain.

“How do you put a timeline on meaningful consultations with First Nations?” Nagata asked.

Another unanswered question and an issue most Canadian politicians tend to dance around is how does an oil pipeline pass a climate test?

“A climate test on pipelines is only meaningful if it respects the commitment to 1.5ºC that Prime Minister Trudeau made in Paris, and that would mean taking pipelines and tar sands expansion off the table,” Cameron Fenton, 350.org’s tarsands organizer stated in a media release.

“There’s no such thing as a climate-friendly pipeline. The science is crystal clear: in order to prevent catastrophic climate change, fossil fuels, and especially tar sands, need to stay in the ground,” Fenton said.

Alberta-based energy think tank Pembina Institute estimates the annual greenhouse gas emissions from the Energy East pipeline (1.1 million barrels per day capacity) are the equivalent of putting an additional seven million cars on the road.

Twenty-seven climate experts in a 2014 open letter projected Trans Mountain “alone is expected to lead to 50 per cent more carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions each year than all of British Columbia currently produces.”

Wednesday’s announcement comes on the heels of a recent backlash by pro-pipeline politicians against Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre, who announced last week that 82 Montreal-area municipalities oppose the Energy East pipeline.

For the last month, First Nations, environmental organizations and politicians such as Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan have called on the federal government to suspend the current regulatory reviews of existing pipeline projects until after the promised overhaul of the National Energy Board.

Image Credit: Screenshot CBC News

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A panel of leading environmental groups expressed concern last week over findings in an Ontario Energy Board commissioned report that suggest oil tanker trains could replace TransCanada's proposed Energy East pipeline if the project isn't approved. 

“We believe the report makes a number of flawed assumptions on rail capacity, and actually goes beyond the oil industry’s own projections,” Ben Powless, a panel presenter at the province's Energy East stakeholder meeting and pipeline community organizer for Ecology Ottawa, said.

The energy board's report, written by Navius Research, estimates the greenhouse gas (GHG) impact of the pipeline — which is project to carry 1.1 million barrels of oil per day — will be "modest" since the oil could could just as easily be brought to market by rail.

“It is highly unlikely that 1.1 million barrels of oil or even half of that could be shipped by rail,” Adam Scott, climate and energy program manager at Environmental Defence Canada, countered. Scott and Powless joined panel members from the Council of Canadians and the Ottawa chapter of 350.org to argue against the report's findings at a stakeholders meeting on Energy East in Ottawa last week.

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) projects oil-by-rail in Canada will only hit 700,000 barrels per day by 2016. Even if sufficient additional rail capacity were proposed, the panel found it “overly optimistic” to assume public support in light of recent oil tank car explosions, such as the tragedy in Lac-Mégantic.

“We have trouble believing more oil-by-rail won’t cause public opposition,” Powless said.  

Climate impacts of Energy East debated

Navius’ report is one of only two studies assessing the GHG emissions from a fully operational Energy East pipeline. By assuming Energy East’s 1.1 million barrels will be extracted regardless of the pipeline's approval, the report sees only a 1.2 and 10.2 megatonnes-of-carbon increase in Canada’s carbon footprint due to Energy East. 

“Energy East will likely increase emissions from 'well-to-tank' (extraction to refineries) in the rest of Canada, but the impact is likely to be relatively modest,” the report concludes.

Navius’s findings differ greatly from the first study on Energy East’s potential GHG emissions by the Pembina Institute, an Alberta-based energy think tank:

“The crude production needed to fill the Energy East pipeline would generate an additional 30 to 32 million tonnes of carbon emissions each year — the equivalent of adding more than seven million cars to Canada’s roads.” 

The Pembina study does not assume oil-by-rail will replace Energy East if the pipeline is not constructed, leading to constraints on production in the oil patch.

Ontario’s environmental leadership on the line with Energy East

“Energy East is Premier Kathleen Wynne’s Keystone," Muthanna Subbaiah of the Ottawa chapter of 350.org said at the meeting. 

"President Obama said he will veto Keystone XL. Wynne needs to reject Energy East.” 

The province has talked much about being a climate leader and is hosting an international climate summit this summer, but attracted criticism over its position on Energy East. Ontario Premier Wynne recently stated her government will only consider the GHG emissions from Energy East that occur within Ontario, meaning the climate impacts from developing oil in the Alberta oilsands will be excluded from consideration.

Navius’ report for the Ontario Energy Board finds the pipeline will cause an 0.4 per cent increase in GHG emissions in Ontario. These emissions will be almost exclusively from pipeline pumping stations running on either natural gas or Ontario's relatively clean electricity.

“The Ontario government needs to step up and protect us,” Andrea Harden-Donahue, energy and climate justice campaigner with the Council of Canadians, told the audience attending the public meeting.

The panel also voiced concerns about TransCanada’s safety record, the effects of a oil spill on the province’s natural environment and the fact TransCanada’s application for the pipeline is incomplete.

“I don’t know of a clearer warning than the Kalamazoo spill,” Harden-Donahue stated.

The Kalamazoo spill in Michigan in 2010 remains the largest inland pipeline oil spill in U.S. history, and cost well over one billion dollars in cleanup costs. The Enbridge pipeline ruptured when the pipeline's external polyethylene tape coating became unglued, allowing moisture to corrode the pipe.

Ninety-nine kilometers of the existing natural gas pipeline TransCanada plans on converting for the Energy East project in Ontario is coated with polyethylene tape.

Image Credit: Ecology Ottawa

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Alberta Premier Jim Prentice begins an Energy East lobby tour today in Quebec City to try to woo the premiers of Quebec and Ontario into supporting TransCanada's 1.1 million barrel-per-day oil pipeline proposal.

“It is a sign the project is in danger,” Patrick Bonin, a Greenpeace Canada climate and energy campaigner based in Montreal, told DeSmog Canada. “Over 70 per cent of Quebecers don’t want Energy East to be built.”

Ontario and Quebec announced last month that Energy East would have to meet seven conditions to gain the provinces' approval of the 4,600-kilometer pipeline from Alberta to New Brunswick. Included in these conditions is a demand for a full environmental assessment of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the pipeline.

An analysis conducted earlier this year by the Pembina Institute, an energy think tank, found the greenhouse gas emissions from extracting the oilsands bitumen to fill the Energy East pipeline would erase all reductions in greenhouse gas emissions achieved by Ontario’s phase out of coal-fired power plants. The analysis did not include emissions from combustion, which would make Energy East’s carbon footprint even higher.

“If Ontario and Quebec are concerned about greenhouse gas emissions and climate change then the Energy East tar sands pipeline project is dead already,” Adam Scott, climate and energy program manager with Environmental Defence, told DeSmog Canada.

Prentice meets with Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard Tuesday and Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne in Toronto on Wednesday.

Ontario and Quebec's conditions exceed B.C.’s heavy oil conditions

This is not the first time an Alberta premier has travelled to another province on behalf of a pipeline project. British Columbia Premier Christy Clark famously inflamed relations with Alberta with her five conditions for the Northern Gateway pipeline, which resulted in some icy meetings with then Alberta premier Alison Redford.

Clark's demand to receive a greater share of the fiscal benefits from Northern Gateway was a contentious issue between the two western provinces, but she did not go as far as Wynne and Couillard in insisting the pipeline's greenhouse gas emissions be properly assessed.

The National Energy Board's reviews of pipeline projects aren't taking climate change into account, which has left a leadership vacuum that the provinces are stepping in to fill. New pipelines facilitate expansion of oilsands production, leading to higher greenhouse gas emissions.

The seven conditions on the Government of Ontario's website.

Bad news for Energy East continues

Prentice’s visit comes during a turbulent public relations spell for Energy East.

Documents leaked to Greenpeace last month revealed TransCanada had hired global PR firm Edelman to work on an aggressive strategy of undermining Energy East opponents through tactics that included creating phony grassroots groups to give the impression of genuine support of the pipeline. The revelations caused TransCanada and Edelman to publicly part ways.

Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, former Maple Spring student activist and author, announced on Radio-Canada just days after the leak that he was donating his $25,000 Governor General’s Literary Award to an anti-pipeline coalition and encouraged the public to do match it. Donations have reached $400,000 now. 

Yesterday the Committee on the Status of Wildlife in Canada announced the belugas whales of the St. Lawrence Estuary — where TransCanada has plans for an Energy East marine oil tanker terminal — are at greater risk of extinction than a decade ago, forcing TransCanada to halt work on the terminal.   

“It’s good news and bad news,” Bonin says. “TransCanada’s marine terminal at Cacouna probably won’t be built now, but it is sad to find out the beluga population is not recovering."

Image Credit: Jim Prentice via Twitter, WWF Canada

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A small town is northeastern Ontario has become the centre of attention in the Energy East pipeline debate for accepting a $30,000 donation from TransCanada while agreeing not to publicly comment on the pipeline company’s operations for the next five years.

“The Town of Mattawa will not comment publicly on TransCanada’s operations or business projects,” states the agreement between TransCanada, Canada’s second largest pipeline company, and the Town of Mattawa. The agreement is valid for five years. 

“The clause reads like a gag order,” Sabrina Bowman, climate campaigner for Environmental Defence Canada, says.

“It makes me wonder how many donations by pipeline companies to other municipalities across Canada have been given on condition of silence,” Bowman told DeSmog Canada.

TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline, the largest oil pipeline project in North America, will pass near the town of 2,000 people. If approved by the federal government, the 4,600 kilometre pipeline will ship 1.1 million barrels of oil and oilsands products from Alberta to Saint John, N.B.

This is not the first time a pipeline company has made a cash donation to a Canadian municipality on a proposed pipeline route. Enbridge, Canada’s largest pipeline company, was criticized last year by pipeline opponents for making donations ranging from $6,000 to $44,000 to over a dozen municipalities along the Line 9 pipeline’s route in Ontario and Quebec.

But the Mattawa-TransCanada agreement appears to be the first known case to include an explicit condition that the municipality receiving the donation will not publicly speak out the operations of a pipeline company.

“While there are many examples of pipeline companies making donations, this is the first time I’ve seen a no-comment clause attached to the donation,” Bowman says. She played a major role in the campaign against Enbridge’s Line 9 pipeline last year.

Mattawa mayor Dean Becker and TransCanada last week defended the donation, which will be put toward the purchase of a new rescue vehicle for the town. Becker insists he “didn’t sell out the community for $30,000” and TransCanada claims the no-comment provision is only in the agreement so communities do not feel “obligated to make public comments on our behalf about projects.”

Critics of the Energy East pipeline project remain concerned donation agreements like this will stifle public participation in the public hearings on the pipeline expected to take place in 2015.

“I think this case is a clear indication that pipeline companies are not interested in genuine open dialogue and discussing local concerns. It absolutely puts yet another boundary in front of democratic participation in the already public participation-discouraging National Energy Board process,” Bowman says.

The National Energy Board, Canada’s energy regulator, has already come under fire for its list of issues it will consider when deciding on the Energy East project. The list indicates the Board will not hear public comments on the project’s impacts on climate change, the expansion of the oilsands or the impact on First Nations communities living downstream from the oilsands when making its decision on the pipeline. All comments from the public in regards to the upstream and downstream economic benefits of Energy East will be heard though.

“It is inconsistent, improper, and to a certain extent, hypocritical to consider the upstream and downstream economic and commercial impacts of a pipeline — which should definitely be considered — and then ignore the upstream and downstream environmental impacts,” Jason MacLean, an assistant professor of law, and specialist in environmental law, at Lakehead University, told DeSmog Canada in a interview last May.

The National Energy Board has also been accused of “acting impermissibly in favour” of Energy East by releasing the list of issues before TransCanada has actually applied for the project. The pipeline company is expected to submit its application with the Board next month. The list of issues was made public last May.  

Image Credit: TransCanada, Wikipedia

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Last week’s approval of the Line 9 pipeline project by the National Energy Board (NEB) hinges on thirty conditions being met by the pipeline’s operator, Enbridge. The conditions are meant to enhance the safety of the project that involves shipping 300,000 barrels of crude oil and oilsands bitumen everyday from Sarnia to Montreal. Critics of the project say the requirements are not “meaningful conditions” and do not protect communities living along the 38-year old pipeline.

"By giving the green light without actually imposing conditions, the NEB is complacent towards the oilsands industry and demonstrates its inability to protect [our] health, public safety and our environment," Sidney Ribaux, executive director of Équiterre, says of Line 9’s approval in a statement from Montreal.

“The NEB may pretend to have put adequate safeguards in place but it has only safeguarded the profits of pipeline companies and externalized the risks associated with pipelines onto landowners as the Board always does,” says Dave Core, president of the Canadian Association of Energy Pipeline Landowners Associations (CAEPLA).

The conditions largely require Enbridge to provide the NEB – Canada’s independent energy regulator – with the most recent information about the Line 9 project. This includes information regarding the current state of the pipeline, revised emergency response plans and the pipeline company’s updated pipeline leak detection system manual.

Why this information was not required before the NEB decided the Line 9 project was in “the public’s interest” has baffled critics. The difficulties of participating in the eighteen-month decision-making process frustrated participants who were unable to review and comment on the most recent and relevant information about the project.

“The decision and its conditions do not reflect the concerns raised by the public about Line 9 and shipping tar sands bitumen through their communities,” Adam Scott, climate and energy program manager for Environmental Defence Canada told DeSmog.

Public’s Concerns Absent from Decision

Scott points to a hydrostatic test of Line 9 as the one condition the governments of Ontario and Quebec, environmental groups, and landowners asked for, but the Board chose not to impose:

“The Board elects to make no order at this time regarding hydrotesting of the pre-existing portions of Line 9,” reads page 49 of the NEB’s 140-page document on the Line 9 decision.

A hydrostatic test or hydrotest involves flushing a pipeline with high-pressure water to determine if it can safely operate at maximum pressure.

Line 9 has not operated at its maximum pressure in recent years. Evidence submitted to the NEB by an international pipeline safety expert indicated the best way to ensure the existing cracks on Line 9 do not turn into a rupture is to conduct a hydrotest.

Protests London, Ontario against Line 9's approval 

“Enbridge needs to conduct a hydrostatic test on Line 9. It is the gold standard for pipeline integrity and safety. Canada has a well-established history of hydrotesting its pipelines,” Richard Kuprewicz, pipeline safety expert told DeSmog Canada in an interview last October.

The Board did not disagree with the argument for a hydrotest, but appears to have sided with Enbridge’s view the test could have “detrimental effects” or damage the pipeline. The decision to order a hydrotest was punted to a later time and date. 

Safety Tests to be 'Revisited'

“The Board has imposed Condition 11…[and]… may revisit the issue of requiring hydrotesting prior to granting LTO (leave-to-operate),” concludes the Board.

Before ordering a hydrotest the Board wants to review Enbridge’s approach to hydrotesting (Condition 11) and the company’s updated engineering assessment of Line 9’s state (Condition 9). The assessment must include a reliability study of the inline pipeline inspection tool Enbridge uses to evaluate the threat of cracks and corrosion to the line.

The engineering assessment Enbridge submitted during the Line 9 hearings is primarily based on the pipeline's condition ten years ago.

Two other conditions strongly recommended by critics of the project and the government of Ontario – a third party independent review of Enbridge’s data on Line 9 and the requirement of $1 billion in liability insurance in the event of a spill – were also absent from the Board’s conditions.

“There’s nothing of substance [in the conditions]. It’s pretty basic stuff that’s already required in legislation that already exists, like how you’re going to mitigate the damage you’re going to do to water crossings when you dig up a pipeline,” said Adam Scott of Environmental Defence in an interview with NOW Magazine.

Canadians Need To Determine Their Energy Future Outside of the NEB

“With these conditions, the Board is of the view that the IMP (integrity management plan) which Enbridge has implemented to date, and proposed steps going forward, sufficiently protect the facilities from cracking to enable safe operation of Line 9,” the NEB decision reads.

Although Line 9’s approval surprised no one, critics of the project held out hope for stronger conditions.

Dave Core, president of the Canadian Association of Energy Pipeline Landowners Associations (CAEPLA), has been dealing with pipelines, and the NEB for over twenty years and thinks Canadians need to rethink the regulator.

“Canadians need to realize the NEB is doing exactly what it was designed to do over sixty years ago – protect pipeline company shareholder profits and protect politicians from the public. The Board cannot be relied on to protect the public, the environment, or landowners’ rights,” says Core, who is originally a farmer from southwestern Ontario where Line 9 lies.

"We need to have a discussion about the future of the NEB and whether there even ought to be a future for the Board. It is only through ironclad contracts with the discipline of the courts and insurance that our safety, the environment and landowner stewardship responsibilities will be protected," Core told DeSmog Canada from Vancouver. 

The fate of Line 9 now depends on the NEB deciding whether Enbridge has met all imposed conditions on Line 9’s approval. Because Line 9 is an existing pipeline the project does not require approval from the federal government. 

Image Credit: Enbridge, Robert Cory

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The National Energy Board approved Enbridge’s Line 9 pipeline project Thursday.

"[This] decision shows the system is broken. Line 9 puts millions of people and every waterway in Ontario leading into Lake Ontario at risk,” said Sabrina Bowman, a climate campaigner with Environmental Defence Canada.

Enbridge’s proposal to reverse Line 9 to flow from Sarnia, Ontario to Montreal, Quebec, increase its capacity by 20% and ship oilsands bitumen through the pipeline was approved by the Board (NEB) yesterday, but with thirty conditions. Bowman said the conditions do not protect people living along Line 9 from a spill. Line 9 is a 38-year old pipeline located in the most densely populated part of Canada.

“The Enbridge pipeline 9 reversal with crude oil and diluted Bitumen is not wanted through our Traditional Territory and under the Thames River and we will seek other avenues to protect the land” said Myeengun Henry, a band councilor with Deshkon Ziibi* (Chippewas of the Thames) First Nation of southwestern Ontario.

“We still need to be consulted and we are willing to listen,” Henry told DeSmog Canada.

The federal government thus far has failed to fulfill its legal duty to consult with First Nations in Ontario and Quebec about the Line 9 project. This leaves the door wide open for First Nations of both provinces to challenge the Line 9 decision in court.

“This approval puts people and ecosystems at serious risk. After carefully studying this proposal, international pipeline expert [Richard Kuprewicz] gives a 90% likelihood of rupture within 5 years,” said Canadian folk singer Sarah Harmer who participated in the Line 9 hearings last October. Line 9 goes through her family’s farm in Burlington, Ontario.

Kuprewicz told DeSmog Canada last October existing damage on Line 9 called 'stress corrosion cracking' coupled with the large pressure swings associated with shipping heavy crudes like bitumen make Line 9 “high risk” for a rupture.

Two demands in particular made by critics of the project and the Ontario government were absent from the NEB’s conditions: 1) for Line 9 to undergo a hydrostatic test to determine if the pipeline can operate at its maximum pressure and 2) a third-party independent review of Enbridge’s data on Line 9.

“While the NEB does leave themselves room to order Enbridge to conduct a hydrostatic test, it should have respected this demand of the Province of Ontario outright,” Harmer said from Kingston, Ontario.

“Now the province needs to do their own independent review,” she told DeSmog Canada.

The NEB in its decision stated it wants to review Enbridge’s hydrostatic testing program, and the pipeline company’s updated engineering assessment of Line 9 before deciding whether to order a hydrostatic test.

Aside from not allowing Enbridge to put the Line 9 project into operation immediately, the NEB more or less gave Enbridge everything they asked for.

 “The NEB’s decision is another clear indication that Canada’s long standing environmental safeguards have been gutted to pander to the oil industry,” Bowman of Environmental Defence told DeSmog.

Because Line 9 is an existing pipeline the NEB’s decision is final. Only projects where forty kilometers or more of pipeline are being built require approval from the federal government.

One hundred people have signed an online pledge to support or engage in civil disobedience to stop the Line 9 project.

More on the Line 9 decision to come on DeSmog Canada.

*Deshkon Ziibi is the Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) name for the “Chippewas of the Thames.”

Image Credits: Environmental Defence Canada, Enbridge

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The latest in a series of moves clearing the way for major tar sands expansion, the federal government has announced certain projects will no longer require a federal environmental impact assessment before approval. Notably absent from the list of projects requiring assessment is in situ mining, the fastest growing extraction method in the tar sands.

While the more commonly used open-pit mining requires digging up bitumen and sand from beneath the boreal forest, in situ mining pumps steam deep into the ground to melt and pump out the oil in place. The process typically occurs 200 metres or more below ground.

As shallow deposits of bitumen are exploited using open-pit mining, tar sands producers are using increasing amounts of in situ technology to develop deeper deposits. According to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, 80 per cent of all tar sands oil will be developed using in situ technology.

The ongoing tar sands spill on Canadian Natural Resources Ltd's (CNRL) operations occurred on a project using high pressure cyclic steam stimulation, or CSS, an in situ method of recovery. 

In addition to in situ mining, several other types of projects have also been excluded from federal environmental assessment:

• Groundwater extraction facilities.
• Heavy oil and oil sands processing facilities, pipelines (other than offshore pipelines) and electrical transmission lines that are not regulated by the National Energy Board.
• Potash mines and other industrial mineral mines (salt, graphite, gypsum, magnesite, limestone, clay, asbestos).
• Industrial facilities (pulp mills, pulp and paper mills, steel mills, metal smelters, leather tanneries, textile mills and facilities for the manufacture of chemicals, pharmaceuticals, pressure-treated wood, particle board, plywood, chemical explosives, lead-acid batteries and respirable mineral fibres)

There are also a handful of projects that weren’t previously required to undergo an environmental assessment that will require one going forward:

• Diamond mines.
• Apatite mines.
• Railway yards; international and interprovincial bridges and tunnels.
• Bridges that cross the St. Lawrence Seaway.
• Offshore exploratory wells.
• Oil sands mine expansions.

Before the change, whenever a federal authority planned to be involved in a new project, one of three levels of assesment was triggered. The lowest level screening required proponents to document the potential environmental impact of the project. The next level required a comprehensive study, and projects considered to carry the highest level of risk were subject a full panel review. In situ projects typically fell in the mid range.

After last year’s omnibus bill cancelled nearly 3,000 environmental assessments, the removal of the trigger mechanism will leave a significant gap in the assessment process.

The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, the body responsible for evaluating the potential impact of new projects on areas that fall under federal jurisdiction, such as waterways and greenhouse gas emissions, consulted stakeholders in the oil and gas industry as well as environmental groups. Last Thursday’s news release from the Ministry of Environment said the changes were made “to ensure that federal environmental assessments are focused on those major projects with the greatest potential for significant adverse environmental impacts to matters of federal jurisdiction.”

Greenpeace climate and energy campaigner Keith Stewart said the change is just another way for the federal government to ignore climate change. “I think it shows that the government simply doesn’t want to the information. It’s kind of a ‘see no evil, hear no evil’ type approach.”

You can’t regulate something you don’t know about, he added.

He said the push for a list-based approach to assessment came from the industry, which also lobbied against having in situ projects included on that list.

“What this means here is a whole lot of projects that don’t get any kind of federal review.”

This announcement comes on the heels of a report released last week that reveals the current government's efforts to rein in greenhouse gas emissions are falling well short of the mark. In spite of new regulations for the oil and gas industry, Canada is still likely to exceed its 2020 greenhouse gas emissions reduction target by as much as 122 megatonnes. The goal is 612 megatonnes, and the report predicts Canada will hit 734 in the next seven years.

The report also projects that by 2020 in situ projects will be producing more greenhouse gases than the Maritime provinces combined at today's levels.      According to the Copenhagen Accord, signed in 2009, Canada agreed to reduce carbon emissions to 17 percent below 2005 levels, or 612 megatonnes. The report credits action taken by consumers, businesses and governments with keeping levels from rising to more than 800 megatonnes.

Hannah McKinnon, program manager at Environmental Defence Canada, says the government’s failure to meet reduction targets comes as no surprise.

“It’s a pretty bleak picture, but the writing was on the wall. We currently haven’t seen any ambition from [the government] to indicate that they were serious at all about meeting their targets.”

While the report highlights the uncertainty of the projection, saying that a lot can change depending how regulations change, McKinnon says none of the options currently under discussion will come close to closing the gap.

“There’s still space to meet the target,” she says. "It just would require a level of ambition we don’t have a lot of reason to believe this government is going to show.”

McKinnon says the Harper government’s strong presence in Washington, DC, drawing connections between American and Canadian GHG targets, only serves to further illustrate Canada’s hypocrisy.

“The US has a plan to meet that. What this report clearly shows is that our government doesn’t have a plan to reach that target.”

Image Credit: Suncor Energy via Flickr

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The misconception with 'west-to-east' pipeline proposals like Enbridge’s Line 9 or TransCanada’s Energy East is shipping western Canadian oil to eastern Canada means ‘Canadian oil for Canadian refineries.’ This assumption overlooks the fact eastern Canadian refineries cannot refine a certain type of Canadian oil – tar sands bitumen.

Bitumen is the heavy unconventional oil found in the Alberta tar sands (also called oil sands). Only a specialized refinery can process bitumen and turn it into refined products such as fuels. Few refineries in Canada can do it. None of the refineries in eastern Canada can refine large quantities of bitumen.

TransCanada and Enbridge claim their west-to-east pipelines will transport mainly conventional oil and only small amounts of bitumen. This is unlikely to be true in the long term as conventional sources of oil dry up in Canada and bitumen production continues to increase.

If no eastern Canadian refinery makes the massive investment to outfit their operation to refine bitumen, Line 9 and Energy East are destined to ensure more bitumen will flow to markets overseas, not Canadian refineries.

“Building more tar sands pipelines will lock Canada into a highly polluting carbon-based economy for decades,” says Adam Scott, a climate and energy program coordinator for Environmental Defence Canada based in Toronto.

“We cannot support any pipeline that furthers the ongoing reckless and unchecked expansion of the tar sands,” Scott told DeSmog Canada.

TransCanada's proposed Energy East pipeline route

Refineries Require an Expensive Coker Unit to Refine Bitumen

Bitumen is not the black liquid that many people think of when they think of oil. It is low-grade oil with the consistency of peanut butter and riddled with impurities.

Bitumen is high in carbon and low in hydrogen. High quality oils such as light sweet conventional crude oil are just the opposite. Much of the carbon in bitumen needs to be stripped in order to convert bitumen into refined products that can be sold.

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Refineries usually require a coker unit to remove the carbon from bitumen. To remove the carbon, bitumen is heated in large steel coke drums at higher temperatures (480 degree Celsius) and for longer periods of time than typical conventional oil refinery is capable of. Hydrogen is added afterwards to make bitumen more like a liquid-fuel.

Suncor’s Montreal Refinery May Refine Bitumen if Line 9 is Approved

A few refineries in Alberta and one in Ontario have coker units. A massive investment $2 billion is required to install a coker. None of the three eastern Canadian refineries – Suncor, Valero, and Irving – have publicly announced their intentions to make this investment.

“Suncor is the most likely to install a coker because the company has tar sands projects in Alberta. Irving and Valero do not,” says Lorne Stockman, research director at Oil Change International (OCI) in the US.

“There is plenty of lighter, easier to refine oil coming out of new sources such as Bakken oil shale in the US. Irving and Valero will probably to stick to processing lighter oils for the time being,” Stockman told DeSmog Canada.

Neither Valero nor Irving appears interested in buying a coker at the moment. Irving, which has equipment to process small amounts bitumen, is investing in a $300 million marine terminal in Saint John, New Brunswick to export oil from the proposed Energy East pipeline. Valero announced earlier this year oil from Texas will be sent to its Quebec City refinery.

“Suncor may make more of a profit supplying its Montreal refinery with bitumen than by selling bitumen to its competitors,” says Stockman. 

There is speculation Suncor will announce its plans to construct a coker unit at its Montreal refinery after the National Energy Board (NEB) – Canada’s independent energy regulator – makes its decision on Line 9. The NEB decision on Line 9 could come as early as January 2014.

The US Has the Most Capacity to Refine Bitumen in the World

The probable destination of Energy East's or Line 9's bitumen is a refinery somewhere in the US, although some bitumen refining capacity does exist in Europe as well as China.

In the US, 59 of the 134 refineries are equipped with coker units. Approximately 30% of the US's bitumen refining capacity is in the nine Gulf of Mexico refineries TransCanada seeks to supply through its controversial Keystone XL pipeline. Sea-faring oil tankers traveling from Saint John, Quebec City or Montreal could also access these refineries.

Pet coke: the Coal Hidden in the Tar Sands

A major problem with refining bitumen is it has a rather nasty byproduct called petroleum coke or ‘pet coke’. Pet coke contains most of the heavy metals, sulphur and other impurities removed from bitumen during the coking process. Approximately 15% of a barrel of bitumen will become pet coke.

The research and clean energy advocacy group Oil Change International describes pet coke as “the coal hiding in the tar sands” because it has emerged as an inexpensive alternative to coal since the bitumen boom in Alberta began ten years ago.

“Pet coke is providing coal-fired power plants with a cheaper and dirtier source of fuel. It is breathing new life into the industry, which is cause for concern as the world desperately tries to reduce its carbon emissions output,” says Stockman of OCI.

The majority of pet coke produced in North America is sold to Asia and Latin America where regulations on sulphur releases from coal-fire power plants are lax. Pet coke produces 5-10% more greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than coal per unit of energy.

In Canada, pet coke is largely being stockpiled in Alberta. There are some exports of Canadian pet coke to Asia via ports near Prince Rupert, British Columbia.

Last August, the mayor of Detroit ordered the removal of pet coke piles sitting uncovered along the Detroit River. The piles were three-storeys tall. Dust particles containing the toxic heavy metals in pet coke were blowing off the piles and into the air and river.

The pet coke piles were from Marathon's refinery in Detroit. The refinery began refining bitumen in November 2012.

Oxbow Corporation is one of the largest sellers of pet coke in the world. The company is owned by William Koch, brother of the infamous pro-fossil fuels billionaires Charles and David Koch.

Image Credit: Northern Rockies Rising Tide, TransCanada, Enbridge, Oil Change International.

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