Canada’s oil exports increased by 65 per cent in 10 years under former Prime Minster Stephen Harper’s leadership according to analysis of the most recent figures issued by BP’s annual Statistical Review of World Energy.

Between 2004 and 2014, Canadian exports soared from 2,148,000 barrels per day to 3,535,000 barrels per day.

The BP data, compiled by Carbon Brief in its Global Oil Trade interactive, shows that the majority of this oil went south of the border — exports to the United States increased by 60 per cent during this time from 2,119,000 barrels per day to 3,388,000 barrels per day.

Exports to U.S. and the EU

In fact, almost 96 per cent of all Canadian crude exported in 2014 went to the U.S. The U.S. shale gas boom saw a rapid decline in the amount of oil the country imported, particularly from Mexico, Africa and South America. But this didn’t stop the flow of oil coming in from Canada.   The next biggest recipients of Canada’s oil over the last 10 years have been Europe, Japan, and South and Central America.

Europe is the second largest export market for Canada. Recently, the EU came close to labelling oilsand’s crude as high-carbon due to its energy-intensive extraction and refining process.

So it’s interesting to note that Canadian crude represents just a small fraction of the total oil imported by Europe (86,000 barrels per day in 2014 compared to 162,000 barrels per day from India, 1,575,000 barrels per day from West Africa, and 6,028,000 barrels per day from former Soviet Union countries).

Ultimately, the move to label the oilsands a highly carbon-intensive energy source was thwarted by serious lobbying efforts by the Canadian and Albertan governments under the former Conservative majority under Stephen Harper.

Harper’s Legacy

Since 2006, the Harper government pushed aggressively for the country to become an “energy superpower."

In 2014, Canada was the world’s fifth largest oil exporter, behind China, the U.S., Russia and Saudi Arabia.

While Canada's oil exports increased many environmental protections were weakened or eliminated, under the Harper government, including protections for fish, rivers and lakes. Legislative changes made under omnibus bills C-38 and C-45 eliminated thousands of environmental assessments and repealed Canada's only law for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.    During roughly the same 10-year period that Canada’s oil exports increased, not a single meeting was held between provincial, territorial and federal government ministers to specifically discuss climate change.

As Glen Murray, Ontario’s Liberal minister for environment and climate change recently told The Canadian Press: “The previous government in 10 years couldn’t produce a paragraph [on climate policy], never mind a framework, so there’s a lot of work going on [now].”

Climate Challenge

Canada has pledged as part of the Paris climate deal agreed in December to cut its annual greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution to 524 megatonnes by the end of the next decade.

But as the most recent emissions data released last month by Environment and Climate Change Canada shows, the country is way off course in meeting the weak greenhouse gas reduction targets set under the previous Conservative government.

Under Harper, Canada indicated it would reduce its greenhouse gas output only by roughly 14 per cent by 2030 based on 1990 levels.

The Trudeau government said it plans to improve on this target, but has yet to state by how much. Canada currently exceeds 1990 levels by 18 per cent. Canada has also agreed to phase out the use of fossil fuels by the end of the century and eliminate net carbon emissions by 2050. 

The federal government is set to meet with Indigenous leaders and premiers in Vancouver on March 2-3 in the hopes of laying out the framework for a national climate strategy. And as part of this, Canada’s oil production, and its ever-increasing global exports, will undoubtedly have to be factored into the decision making process.

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A new study casts doubt on the long-term ability of the Athabasca River to supply the water Alberta’s oil sands industry relies on.

Water is allocated to oil sands operations based on river flow data collected since the 1950s, but that doesn’t necessarily represent an accurate assessment of the Athabasca River’s flow variability over the longer term, according to a report published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Development of Alberta’s oil sands, the world’s third-largest crude oil reserve at an estimated 168 billion barrels, uses a lot of fresh water — more than 3 barrels of water for every barrel of oil produced. Currently, the oil sands industry is allocated 4.4% of the mean annual flow of the Athabasca River to meet that demand. In 2010, the oil and gas industry accounted for 74.5 percent of total surface water allocations in the Athabasca River Basin, the report says.

That allocation takes into account seasonal fluctuation, but not long-term climatic variability and change, the authors of the report write — even though the region has a history of droughts and future droughts are likely, suggesting the industry's water use might be unsustainable.

Syncrude's Mildred Lake oil sands operation in Alberta, Canada. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

Researchers from the University of Regina and the University of Western Ontario, both in Canada, analyzed the measured river flow record for the Athabasca River Basin while accounting for the effects of climate oscillations that can confound attempts to spot long-term trends, like the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the Pacific North American mode and El Niño.

Their analysis revealed declining flows throughout the river basin, which is consistent with the record of regional warming and the resulting loss of glacier ice and snowpack at high elevations in the Rocky Mountains, the origin of much of the Athabasca’s water.

The team also reconstructed the annual flow of the Athabasca River over the past 900 years by examining tree rings in the river basin, which they say indicated much greater variability in flow than is apparent from the measured record. They found that there were several periods of severe drought over the past nine centuries, some lasting for decades.

Many of the historical droughts were far worse than any that have occurred in the six decades that instruments have been in place to measure the Athabasca’s flow. The researchers found there was one drought in the Athabasca River Basin that lasted for 50 years.

These two sets of results taken together, the authors argue in the report, show that current and projected surface water allocations from the Athabasca River for the exploitation of Alberta’s oil sands are based on an “untenable assumption” of how representative the short instrumental record really is.

This post originally appeared on Mongabay.com.  

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

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In late May, Canada’s “energy leaders” met in Toronto for the Energy Council of Canada's Canadian Energy Summit.

The theme of the summit? “Telling the Energy Story.”

“The aim is to raise awareness and improve understanding of the many ways that the energy sector influences the economy, regional development, innovation and aboriginal partnerships across Canada,” a press release proclaimed. “We believe that improved understanding will lead to better-informed energy dialogue and energy decisions.”

Sounds nice and all, but there’s a catch: the various players in Canada’s energy debate are telling very different stories.

While industry emphasizes jobs and economic growth, environmentalists and First Nations focus on air and water contamination, climate change and aboriginal rights.

The problem for the energy sector isn’t “telling the story” — it’s the massive logic gap between their story and the very real concerns of the Canadian public.

Right now, Canada’s energy debate is like a dysfunctional family dinner, with drunk Uncle Ed blowing a gasket on one end, Aunty Hilda screaming back and everyone else staring down at their dinner plates wishing they’d stayed home.

On the one hand, you hear rhetoric about oilsands destroying the planet and needing to be “shut down” and on the other hand you hear oil execs talking about extracting as much bitumen as possible out of the ground ASAP.

“Those extreme arguments are the ones that make everybody roll their eyes,” says Ken Chapman, former director of the Oil Sands Developers Group and proponent of triple-bottom line resource development.

“And there’s about 20 per cent on one side and about 20 per cent on the other side and neither one of them will ever bridge that gap.”

Left watching the shouting match are the 60 per cent of Canadians who aren’t on either extreme, Chapman says.

“The 60 per cent in the middle don’t know who to believe, don’t know who to trust and don’t know who to rely on,” he told DeSmog Canada.

Canada’s energy debate is stuck in what’s known as a “logic schism,” in which two sides talk past each other, impeding meaningful dialogue.

“In a logic schism, a contest emerges in which opposing sides are debating different issues, seeking only information that supports their position and disconfirms their opponents’ arguments,” describes Andy Hoffman, a professor of sustainable enterprise at the University of Michigan.

“Each side views the other with suspicion, even demonizing the other, leading to a strong resistance to any form of engagement, much less negotiation and concession.”

Instead of leading the way, the federal government has been part of the problem.

In October, Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources Greg Rickford spoke to a closed-door meeting of about 40 to 50 oil and gas executives, urging them to get outside the board room and pitch projects to the public to win the public relations battle over energy.

“Enhance and expand your outreach. Communicate more effectively and clearly to Canadians with solid facts and evidence,” Rickford said, according to the documents revealed through an Access to Information Request.

Notably, Rickford mentioned nothing about improving performance in the oilsands — Canada’s fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions.

CAPP spokeswoman Chelsie Klassen told The Guardian that industry is taking Rickford’s advice and “embarking on a different level of engagement,” including “moving to a ground campaign model to activate industry supporters.”

Since then CAPP has opened an office in Vancouver to bolster its “Canada’s Energy Citizens” campaign.

CAPP is trying to spread the message that oilsands producers share values around developing the resource sustainably and transporting it safely, CAPP’s CEO Tim McMillan told the Vancouver Sun.

While there’s no doubt some truth in that statement, it overlooks the fact that CAPP has fought new greenhouse gas regulations and successfully lobbied to weaken Canada’s environmental laws — preventing Canada from “acting responsibly.”

It’s little wonder that a poll by Alberta  Oil Magazine found that fewer than one in 10 post-secondary graduates find oil and gas industry associations credible when it comes to carbon emissions.

So who can Canadians trust and how can we move beyond the dysfunctional dinner debate?

“Everbody is trying to prove each other wrong on the facts and quite frankly this is now like religious belief. And it doesn’t matter what the facts are; it’s the belief systems that are dominating,” Chapman says.

“What is open yet is the adult conversation, as opposed to the elementary school recess conversation.”

This week, well-known environmentalist Tzeporah Berman stepped into that “adult conversation” space with an op-ed in the Toronto Star:

It’s time for a new, honest conversation in Canada. It’s time to recognize that the oilsands are, in fact, a technological marvel that took great Canadian ingenuity and acumen. It’s also time to acknowledge that when we began the exploration of the oilsands we did not know what we know today.

Finally, something most Canadians can actually agree on.

 “We’re going to be in the fossil fuel business for a while,” Chapman said. “We have a responsibility to do it better. [The leadership] will have to emerge, but the leadership isn’t in two extremes.”

With the new NDP government in Alberta, Chapman sees an opportunity for a significant change.  

“There are calmer heads, cooler heads, deeper thinkers and people who understand complexity now dealing with the issue at the political level,” he said.

The first step is acknowledging that the issues in the oilsands can’t be solved with public relations. No advertising campaign, faux grassroots outreach effort or multi-million dollar messaging exercise is going to address growing greenhouse gas emissions, habitat destruction, air and water contamination and treaty violations.

Demonizing the oilsands as a planet-killing monstrosity also isn’t going to move us any closer to a responsible management regime.

The first step to recovery is acknowledging you have a problem — and what we have in in the oilsands is not a PR problem, it’s a performance problem due to a lack of regulation. And it’s high time Canadians got the conversation they deserve about how to do better.

Image: CAPP

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A pipeline at Nexen Energy’s Long Lake oilsands facility southeast of Fort McMurray, Alberta, spilled about five million liters (32,000 barrels or some 1.32 million gallons) of emulsion, a mixture of bitumen, sand and water, Wednesday afternoon — marking one of the largest spills in Alberta history.

According to reports, the spill covered as much as 16,000 square meters (almost 4 acres). The emulsion leaked from a “feeder” pipe that connects a wellhead to a processing plant.

At a press conference Thursday, Ron Bailey, Nexen vice president of Canadian operations, said the company "sincerely apologize[d] for the impact this has caused." He confirmed the double-layered pipeline is a part of Nexen's new system and that the line's emergency detection system failed to alert officials to the breach, which was discovered during a visual inspection. 

At this time, the company claims to have the leak under control, according to CBC News.  

Nexen's "failsafe" system didn't detect massive pipeline spill: http://t.co/ULEnxlmQEN pic.twitter.com/DmChECTUX7

— Anna Mehler Paperny (@amp6) July 17, 2015

The spill comes at a particularly bad time for Canada’s premiers, who are poised to sign an agreement three years in the making to fast-track the approval process for new oil sands pipelines while weakening commitments to fight climate change, according to Mike Hudema, a climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace.

“As provincial premiers talk about ways to streamline the approval process for new tar sands pipelines, we have a stark reminder of how dangerous they can be,” Hudema said in a statement. “This leak is also a good reminder that Alberta has a long way to go to address its pipeline problems and that communities have good reasons to fear having more built.”

New pipelines would lead to more development of the tar sands, Canada’s fastest growing source of carbon emissions, Hudema said. “We need to stop new pipeline projects before they’re built and focus on building renewable sources of energy that are sustainable and won’t threaten communities, our environment, and the planet.”

Raw footage of the emulsion spill from CBC News.

Canada’s premiers aren’t alone in seeking to remove barriers to new pipeline construction in order to get more tar sands flowing out of Alberta. It recently came to light that Wisconsin officials worked with an attorney and lobbyist for Canadian pipeline company Enbridge to draft a controversial provision placed into the 2015 Wisconsin Budget that would fast-track expansion of the company's Line 61 pipeline, what’s been called a “Keystone XL clone.”

Nexen and Alberta regulators say it’s too soon to determine what caused the pipeline failure Wednesday, or how long it was leaking before it was shut off. The emulsion has so far not reached any bodies of water, according to reports, but did flow into muskeg or bog.

This is the biggest spill at least in recent Alberta history. Last March, 2.7 million liters of condensate (about 17,000 barrels, or 700,000 gallons), used to dilute heavy oil so it flows through pipelines, were spilled at Murphy Oil’s Seal oilfield in northwestern Alberta.

In 2011, 4.5 million litres of oil (over 28,000 barrels, or 1.2 million gallons) leaked from a Plains Midstream pipeline into marshlands near the northern Alberta community of Little Buffalo. A year later, about half a million litres of oil spilled from another Plains pipeline into the Red Deer River in central Alberta.

Plains Midstream is a subsidiary of Houston-based Plains All-American Pipeline, the company that owns the pipeline that spilled 105,000 gallons (2,500 barrels) of oil near Santa Barbara, California earlier this year.

Image Credit: CBC via Youtube.

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When you cover energy and environment issues day in and day out, you’re prone to having some pretty geeky fantasies.

Case in point: over the holidays, my mind wandered to considering what advancements in Canadian energy policy I’d put on my wish list for 2015. I could have rattled off five or 10 things, but one kept rising to the top.

If I could wave my magic wand and make just one thing happen on the energy and environment front, what would it be? I’d like Alberta to start managing its oil wealth more responsibly.

The context: as 2014 draws to a close, Calgary public-school officials are asking the province to cough up the funding required to complete eight new schools and two modernization projects on time.

Right now, one-third of Calgary’s schools are running at more than 90 per cent capacity. All of the projects that require funding have been announced by Alberta Premier Jim Prentice since he took office in September.

“With the recent fluctuation in oil prices, we’re concerned,” Calgary Board of Education trustee Amber Stewart told Metro Calgary.

Let’s take a pause and reflect on how totally absurd this is for a moment.

Alberta has been developing one of the world’s largest sources of oil for more than 40 years and yet Calgary’s schools are nearly overflowing and the province doesn’t know if it’ll be able to locate the cash to build new ones because — surprise! — the price of oil changed.

So what’s wrong here? For starters, new infrastructure shouldn’t be tied to the price of oil. Even the Fraser Institute and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives can agree that the Alberta government shouldn’t rely on non-renewable resource revenue to fund its operating expenses. (For the best run-down on this topic, read Money for Nothing: The Province vs. Non-Renewable Resource Revenue by Alberta Oil editor Max Fawcett.)

Fawcett references a 2013 Fraser Institute report that said to treat oil revenues as “analogous to sales tax receipts, and to spend them on projects that provide a flow of present services, would be to engage in unwise capital consumption, a drawing down of principal. Intuitively, the present generation would be selfishly eating away at a finite stock pile of wealth, rather than acting as custodians of ­nature’s gifts on behalf of all future generations.”

Another report by former Premier Ed Stelmach’s Council for Economic Strategy noted: “The true Alberta advantage is not the ability to create a low-tax environment by underwriting a significant proportion of government services with funds received from the sale of energy assets.”

Despite generating almost $190 billion in non-renewable resource revenues since 1980, the value of Alberta’s Heritage Fund was just $17.3 billion at the end of 2013 — paling in comparison to both Norway and Alaska’s non-renewable resource savings.

So here we are digging up two millions barrels of oilsands per day, and Prentice is warning that tough times could lie ahead as oil prices plunge below $75 U.S. per barrel. The province has projected that there could be a $7 billion shortfall in revenues next year as a result of the price crash.

Could these fiscal woes offer the window of opportunity needed for Albertans to wake up and see how poorly their oil wealth is being managed?

It took millions of years for all of that oil to end up trapped in sand in northern Alberta. We only get one shot at digging it up. It’s high time we start getting that right (and getting that right would inevitably mean going slower and collecting higher royalties).

The first step in changing the way Alberta manages (or mismanages) the oilsands is to untether government spending from oil revenues, thus starting to dismantle the government’s reluctance to fairly regulate industry. Right now you have a situation in which the Alberta government is reluctant to bite the hand that feeds it.

As an added bonus, keeping one-time resource wealth out of the province’s operating budget could weaken the government’s chokehold over its citizens (pretty easy to stay in power when you’re dishing out $400 “prosperity cheques”) — not to mention actually creating a savings fund for the future.

In an interview with The Tyee, Terry Lynn Karl, one of North America's foremost experts on the politics of oil, offered some wise words on the impact of oil revenue on governments. 

"Let me be clear: the commodity itself is neither good nor bad,” she said. “But the excessive profit involved from what Adam Smith called 'reaping what has not been sown' has led to a concentration of power and influence that makes it exceptionally difficult to fight the negative consequences of hydrocarbon dependence.”

The first step to breaking up that concentration of power and influence? Stop borrowing from the future and spending oil revenue like it's going out of style.

So here’s a little new year’s resolution suggestion for Prentice and the Alberta government: show your commitment to managing the oilsands responsibly by weaning yourselves off relying on one-time oil revenues to provide government services. If you showed that kind of courage, there may be short-term pain, but Albertans 50 years from now would still be clinking their glasses in your honour.

Photo: Jim Prentice by Connect 2 Canada

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In recent years, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has come under fire for disallowing scientists working for the Canadian government to speak directly to the press. 

An article published in August by The New Republic said "Harper's antagonism toward climate-change experts in his government may sound familiar to Americans," pointing to similar deeds done by the George W. Bush Administration. That article also said that "Bush's replacement," President Barack Obama, "has reversed course" in this area.

Society for Professional Journalists, the largest trade association for professional journalists in the U.S., disagrees with this conclusion. 

In a December 1 letter written to Gina McCarthy, administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the society chided the Obama administration for its methods of responding to journalists' queries to speak to EPA-associated scientists. 

"We write to urge you again to clarify that members of the EPA Science Advisory Board (SAB) and the twenty other EPA science advisory committees have the right and are encouraged to speak to the public and the press about any scientific issues, including those before these committees, in a personal capacity without prior authorization from the agency," said the letter.

"We urge you…to ensure that EPA advisory committee members are encouraged share their expertise and opinions with those who would benefit from it."

Press NGOs: Muzzling Policy Impacts

Harper maintains similar procedures, with scientists unable to speak directly to the press without prior authorization from public relations higher-ups.

Unlike the Harper rules, EPA Science Advisory Board members do not work directly for the U.S. government. Instead, they serve as advisors for U.S. environmental policy, but almost all members work full-time at U.S. universities, corporations or environmental groups. 

Critics say muzzling of these scientists matters because they make policy decisions with real-world impacts on society.

"Federal advisory committees are generally composed of experts outside the federal government who provide advice to policymakers on a broad range of issues," the Society for Professional Journalists, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Society of Environmental Journalists and others wrote in an earlier August letter.

"Very often, their advice carries great weight and is reflected in final rules, especially when statutes require that regulations be developed based solely on the best available science."

Muzzling Fits into Broader Trends

Due to National Security Administration (NSA) surveillance of electronic communications and the U.S. Department of Justice subpoenaing phone records of the Associated Press' newsroom, the Committee to Protect Journalists — which generally only covers the media of other countries — wrote an October 2013 report about Obama's press treatment.

The committee's report concludes that the AP subpoena and NSA electronic surveillance has gone a step further than the EPA's procedure to route journalists to PR spokespeople for comment. That is, they also want to control and know who journalists are talking to off-the-record or confidentially, which the report concludes has had a chilling effect for both sources and reporters.

"I worry now about calling somebody because the contact can be found out through a check of phone records or e-mails," R. Jeffrey Smith, a reporter for the Center for Public Integrity, said in a statement to the Committee to Protect Journalists. "It leaves a digital trail that makes it easier for the government to monitor those contacts."

Due to the report's findings and other related issues, investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill has said on multiple occasions that the Obama Administration has launched a "war on journalism."

Stop Spin, Let Sunshine In 

A July letter written by many free press and open government organizations called on the Obama Administration "to stop the spin and let the sunshine in." 

"You recently expressed concern that frustration in the country is breeding cynicism about democratic government," they wrote. "You need look no further than your own administration for a major source of that frustration – politically driven suppression of news and information about federal agencies. We call on you to take a stand to stop the spin and let the sunshine in."

These groups also demanded the Obama administration reverse course and issue a new, press-friendly policy.

"We ask that you issue a clear directive telling federal employees they’re not only free to answer questions from reporters and the public, but actually encouraged to do so," they continued. "We believe that is one of the most important things you can do for the nation now, before the policies become even more entrenched."

To date, there is little indication a policy shift from Obama is in order in this sphere, though.

Photo Credit: U.S. Department of State

So for now, not only do Canada and the U.S. have a shared bond in that record amounts of Alberta's tar sands now flow into the U.S, but also that the muzzling of scientists, and by extension the press at-large, is a threat to democracy in both countries.

Photo Credit: Vladimir Gjorgiev | Shutterstock

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Chevron made waves in the business world when it announced its October 6 sale of 30-percent of its holdings in the Alberta-based Duvernay Shale basin to Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company (KUFPEC) for $1.5 billion.

It marked the first North American purchase for the Kuwaiti state-owned oil company and yields KUFPEC 330,000 acres of Duvernay shale gas. Company CEO and the country's Crown Prince, Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, called it an "anchor project" that could spawn Kuwait's expansion into North America at-large. 

Kuwait's investment in the Duvernay, at face-value buying into Canada's hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") revolution, was actually also an all-in bet on Alberta's tar sands. As explained in an October 7 article in Platts, the Duvernay serves as a key feedstock for condensate, a petroleum product made from gas used to dilute tar sands, allowing the product to move through pipelines. 

And while Kuwait — the small Gulf state sandwiched between Iraq and Saudi Arabia — has made a wager on Alberta's shale and tar sands, Big Oil may also soon make a big bet on Kuwait's homegrown tar sands resources.

"Kuwait has invited Britain’s BP, France’s Total, Royal Dutch Shell, ExxonMobil and Chevron, to bid for a so-called enhanced technical service agreement for the northern Ratqa heavy oilfield," explained an October 2 article in Reuters. "It is the first time KOC will develop such a big heavy oil reservoir and the plan is to produce 60,000 bpd from Ratqa, which lies close to the Iraqi border [in northern Kuwait]…and then ramp it up to 120,000 bpd by 2025."

In the past, Kuwait has said it hopes to learn how to extract tar sands from Alberta's petroleum engineers.

Canadian Tutelage

Back in 2007, Kuwait had much more ambitious plans for the Ratqa oil field.

Though the current goal is to suck 120,000 barrels per day of heavy oil out of the field, back in 2007 the goal was 900,000 barrels per day by 2020. And Alberta's petroleum engineers would lend their expertise to the cause, or at least that was the plan for Kuwait Oil Company at the time. 

"Unless we seek the experience of the industry here, we will not be able to reach our target," Ali al-Shammari, at the time the deputy managing director for finance for the Kuwait Oil Company, told the Calgary Herald. "We will need [international oil companies'] help in developing the reservoirs and may also consider the options of signing enhanced technical services agreements."

Kuwait's entrance into Canada depicts how important Alberta's tar sands have become for the global geopolitical landscape. And Kuwait opening its doors to the oil majors depicts the country as an emerging player in the global oil market.

Geopolitics At Play 

The Islamic State — formerly known as the Islamic State in the Levant (ISIL)— has established what it calls a Caliphate in both northern Iraq and large swaths of Syria.

Fueled by $25 to $60 per barrel oil sold on the black market, Kuwait has largely escaped from the day-to-day newscycle. But as the famous Mark Twain quip goes, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme."

The Ratqa oil field is the same geological formation as the Rumaila oil field, which sits in southern Iraq. Iraq and Kuwait fought a war over the field in early-1990s, in which the United States led the call to arms against former President Saddam Hussein: Operation Desert Storm, the first Gulf War. 

In 2010, Iraq and Kuwait signed an agreement — an armistice really — to share the border oilfield. 

Further, Wikileaks U.S. Department of State diplomatic cables made public by whistleblower Chelsea Manning show that the U.S. government has kept a close eye on the Ratqa oil field, as well as on which U.S.-based oil companies stood to win and lose if developed. 

Though almost two and a half decades have gone by since Operation Desert Storm and Saddam Hussein is no longer even alive, one thing remains constant: oil still runs the show in the Persian Gulf region. And this time around, it's tar sands oil — the same oil running the show in Alberta.

Photo Credit: esfera | ShutterStock

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A time-lapsed map released today by the World Resources Institute using satellite imagery from Global Forest Watch shows how much forest is being lost in Northern Alberta to make way for major industrial operations, mainly to extract oil from the tar sands, also referred to as the oilsands.

According to the data compiled by Global Forest Watch, industrial development and forest fires in Canada's tar sands region have cleared or degraded almost 2 million acres (775,000 hectares) of boreal forest since 2000.

The pink regions depict forest loss. Watch what happens at year 2010:

The World Resources Institute and Global Forest Watch have been researching the world's boreal forests since 1990. According to their research, Canada holds the vast majority, 54 per cent, of the world's total boreal forest across a region of 500 million hectares or 14 times the size of California. Boreal forests hold twice as much carbon dioxide as tropical forests. 

Another map shows tree loss in the tar sands region between 2000 and 2012.

For more images, visit the World Resources Institute website.

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A new website launched today by the corporate accountability group SumofUs.org asks ordinary Canadians to take a closer look at oilsands major Suncor's latest ad campaign, "What Yes Can Do."

By launching their own version of the ad campaign at www.whatyescando.org, SumofUs.org is questioning the disparity between "what yes can do" as Suncor puts it, and "what yes has done" in the Alberta oilsands.

SumofUs.org points out Suncor's green ad campaign, which emphasizes the corporation's efforts to preserve "…an environment for generations to come," doesn't square with the company's own lobbying effort to limit protections for the Athabasca River. 

More than five years ago, a panel of experts recommended an end to water withdrawals from the Athabasca River during certain times of the year, when water levels are at their lowest. The cut-off would protect fish hatchlings and other aquatic life from dying off during low river flow.

All companies operating in the Alberta oilsands agreed to the recommended cut-off, but Suncor, along with Syncrude, are lobbying the Alberta government for an exemption. 

Suncor's overall water consumption continues to increase, as the SumofUs.org alternative "What Yes Can Do" website reports:

"Suncor claims it takes water consumption seriously and says it has drastically lowered its overall water withdrawals. In reality, its water consumption continues to climb. In 2012, its water use increased by 20 percent over…the previous year according to records contained in the Oil Sands Information Portal. By 2017, consumption is expected to further increase by 47 percent based on aggressive expansion plans."

Campaign video from official Suncor "What Yes Can Do" website.

Spoof "What Yes Can Do" video launched by SumofUs.org.

SumofUs.org's alternative campaign brings the pleasantries of corporate advertising into stark contrast with the difficult reality of oilsands development as it affects local water, the industrialization of the boreal forest, vanishing local caribou populations, and First Nation's treaty rights. 

It turns out what 'yes can do' is complex and acheiving our clean energy ambitions is going to involve meaningful carbon-emission reductions policies, responsible industrial growth that respects First Nations' rights and ways of life, and evidence-based decision making from the industrial to the governmental level. And it will take us a lot more than just saying 'yes' to get there.

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Critics of Enbridge’s Line 9 oil pipeline project are concerned the project will be approved despite insufficient evidence the 38-year old pipeline is safe. The National Energy Board – Canada’s independent energy regulator – is expected to deliver its final decision on Line 9 any day. Enbridge is applying to reverse and increase the flow of the aging pipeline to transport oilsands bitumen and Bakken shale oil to Eastern Canada.

“Enbridge should have to reapply for the pipeline. The safety of the pipeline is outside the scope of the Line 9 project’s application,” Darko Matovic, a fluid dynamics engineering professor at Queens University told DeSmog Canada in an interview.

Enbridge describes Line 9 as a project of “limited scope,” suggesting review of the Line 9 proposal be restricted to proposed construction at “the seven Project sites.” The project sites consist of six pipeline pumping stations and a new densitometer site.

Critics fear if the NEB takes this narrow view of the Line 9 proposal the current condition of the pipeline will not be properly assessed to ensure public safety. The pipeline lies in southern Ontario and southern Quebec where nearly one-in-three Canadians live.

“Enbridge cannot tell the NEB what the Board's parameters are when assessing a project,” says Rick Munroe energy analyst for the National Farmers Union and participant in the Line 9 hearings last October.

“The NEB has a mandate to make decisions which are in the public’s best interest and above all, to ensure public and environmental safety. The NEB's legal duty overrides Enbridge’s insistence on a limited scope,” Munroe told DeSmog from Kingston, Ontario.

Critics suggest changes proposed to Line 9 are not of a “limited scope." Enbridge applied to ship heavy crudes such as oilsands bitumen and Bakken shale oil through Line 9, reverse the pipeline to flow from Sarnia to Montreal, and increase the capacity from 240,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 300,000 bpd.

Matovic, who is also the president of the Ontario Pipeline Probe, argues Enbridge’s application for Line 9 does not adequately establish the pipeline can operate at the levels of pressure necessary to transport 300,000 bpd. He finds it alarming the pipeline company did not assess what would happen if Line 9 ruptured, especially given the known difficulties of cleaning up a bitumen spill.

Enbridge justified not assessing spills in its application stating, “scenarios concerning pipeline rupture events are not within the scope.”

Pipeline safety expert Richard Kuprewicz estimates the likelihood of Line 9 rupturing is “over 90%” if the National Energy Board approves the project without any conditions.

Ruptured pipeline from the Enbridge Line 6B which released more than 3 million litres of oil into a tributary of the Kalamazoo River in Michigan in 2010.

“I do not make the statement ‘high risk for a rupture’ lightly or often. There are serious problems with Line 9 that need to be addressed,” Kuprewicz told DeSmog Canada in an interview last October.

Extensive existing damage on the pipeline known as stress corrosion cracking and the larger pressure swings associated with shipping heavy crudes are the basis of Kuprewicz’s prediction for Line 9.

Enbridge for its part has not asked to increase the maximum operating pressure of Line 9. The pipeline has not operated at full capacity or pressure in recent years. Kuprewicz and Matovic both agree Line 9 needs to undergo a hydrostatic test to prove the pipeline can still do what it was approved to do nearly forty years ago.

A hydrostatic test would pump water through the pipeline at pressures above the line's maximum to ensure the pipeline can operate safely at full capacity. The NEB did order a hydrostatic test of Line 9 when the pipeline was reversed to flow from Montreal to Sarnia in 1997.

“The issues with Line 9 are too serious to ignore. No other pipeline in Canada is located in such a densely populated area. Ontario can only lose if Line 9 is approved,” says Matovic.

It will be up to the NEB to demand a hydrostatic test and more information on Line 9’s condition that goes beyond the limited scope of the project’s application.

Emily Ferguson, independent researcher and founder of the Line 9 Communities website, questions why the NEB is considering Enbridge’s application for the project at all.

“If the Line 9 project was a new pipeline being installed, the NEB would not even consider the application because some of its features do not meet present day engineering standards,” says Ferguson from Guelph, Ontario.

Line 9 meets pipeline manufacturing standards from 1971. The pipeline's quarter-inch walls and single layer PE-tape (polyethylene encasement) outer protective coating are no longer found on oil pipelines constructed today. Half-inch pipe walls have become standard for a thirty-inch pipelines segments, like those used in Line 9.

PE-tape’s tendency to become unglued, allowing moisture to corrode pipelines is a prolbem known to the pipeline industry. It was also identified as the cause of the Kalamazoo spill in Michigan, the largest onshore oil spill in US history.

“Why is the NEB even considering the application to use this outdated and faulty technology to ship oil through our communities?" Ferguson said.

Image credit: Enbridge, NTSB

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 is a guest post by energy economist Andrew Leach.

Neil Young and the Honour the Treaties Tour is crossing the country in support of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation’s court challenge against Shell’s proposal to expand its mining operations north of Fort McMurray.

The biggest risk I see from this tour is not that Neil Young says things which are wrong (there have been a few), that he blames Prime Minister Harper for promoting an industry that has played an important role in the policies of pretty well every Prime Minister to precede him in the past four decades (that part was pretty clear), or, least of all, that he’s a famous musician who hasn’t spent his life working on energy policy.

The biggest risk I see is that all of the heat and light around the Neil Young tour will distract you from what you should do, which is to sit down, read the mine approval, and decide for yourself what you think.

A joint review panel approved (PDF) the Jackpine Expansion in July 2013, and in December, the project received cabinet approval. The most important issue here, so far over-shadowed during Neil Young’s tour, is summarized in one line in the decision letter: “the matter of whether the significant adverse environmental effects (of the project) are justified in the circumstances.”

This decision is likely to be as important for the future of the oil sands in Canada and its so-called social license as the pipelines, rail accidents and greenhouse gas policies which have been covered to a much larger degree in the media. This is a decision where your government had spelled out clearly before it the environmental risks and uncertainties of an oil sands project, in all its gory detail, and decided it was worth it or, “justified in the circumstances.”

We’ve come a long way from the days when then-Premier Ed Stelmach declared environmental damage from the oil sands to be a myth.  Around that time, in its approval of the Kearl oil sands mine, for which Phase I started last year, a Joint Review Panel concluded that, “the project is not likely to result in significant adverse environmental effects.” But, the panel evaluating Kearl raised a flag, saying that, “with each additional oil sands project, the growing demands and the absence of sustainable long-term solutions weigh more heavily in the determination of the public interest.”

We’ve now reached the point—the panel evaluating the Jackpine Mine left no doubt—where significant environmental consequences will occur in order to not (and, I kid you not, these are the words used) sterilize bitumen. Reading the Report of the Joint Review Panel (warning, it’s a slog) will be eye opening. Let me give you a couple of excerpts, in case you can’t spare the time:

·      The Panel has concluded that the Project would provide significant economic benefits for the region, the province, and Canada

·      The Project will provide major and long-term economic opportunities to individuals in Alberta and throughout Canada, and will generate a large number of construction and operational jobs.

·      The Panel concludes that the Project would have significant adverse environmental project effects on wetlands, traditional plant potential areas, wetland-reliant species at risk, migratory birds that are wetland-reliant or species at risk, and biodiversity

·      The Panel understands that a large loss (over 10,000 hectares) of wetland would result from the Project, noting in particular that 85 per cent of those wetlands are peatlands that cannot be reclaimed.

·      The Panel finds that diversion of the Muskeg River is in the public interest, considering that approximately 23 to 65 million cubic metres of resource would be sterilized if the river is not diverted

·      The Panel recognizes that the relevant provincial agencies were not at the hearing to address questions about why the Project (which seeks to divert the Muskeg River: author’s addition) is not included in the Muskeg River Interim Management Framework for Water Quantity and Quality;

·      The Panel concludes that it could not rely on Shell’s assessment of the significance of project and cumulative effects on terrestrial resources;

·      The Panel notes that a substantial amount of habitat for migratory birds that are wetland or old-growth forest dependent will be lost entirely or lost for an extended period;

·      The Panel is concerned about the lack of mitigation measures proposed for loss of wildlife habitat…that have been shown to be effective.

Don’t stop reading before you get to the good parts:

·      Although the Panel has concluded that the Project is in the public interest, project and cumulative effects for key environmental parameters and socioeconomic impacts in the region have weighed heavily in the Panel’s assessment;

·      All of the Aboriginal groups that participated in the hearing raised concerns about the adequacy of consultation by Canada and Alberta, particularly with respect to the management of cumulative effects in the oil sands region and the impact of these effects on their Aboriginal and treaty rights.

It’s these last two that have got us to where we are today—to a First Nation challenging the government in court for a decision that it made which valued bitumen over the environment and their traditional territory and for not fulfilling its constitutional duty to consult on that decision.

The decision on this project will, in all likelihood, go all the way to the top court in the land. The decision which really matters, however, will be the one you take: is it justified, in your mind, given the circumstances?

This article originally appeared on Maclean's. Republished here with permission. Read Leach's Neil Young Fact Check, also on Maclean's, here.

Image Credit: Waging Heavy Peace book cover

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.