Green plan urged for upgraders

Alberta should not approve as many as six more oil sands upgraders near Edmonton until the province has a solid plan to limit the huge amount of fresh water they will use and to better manage the pollution they will produce, a new study says.

The Pembina Institute’s Oil Sands Fever report, released on Monday, says nine bitumen upgraders are expected to begin operating just northeast of the capital between 2015 and 2020.



Together they would consume 10 times as much water as the City of Edmonton each year and spew 45 megatonnes of greenhouses gases