[Graeme]

Oil sands bitumen exports undermine Canada's economic future

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')anada is headed down a path of economic ruin by exporting raw oil sands bitumen, former ICBC CEO Robyn Allan said in her stirring presentation a week ago at the Sheraton Wall Centre. Allan highlighted the economic danger posed by oil sands pipelines including Keystone XL, Northern Gateway and Kinder Morgan that the federal government has been promoting in the name of jobs and growth. Below are excerpts from her presentation, "Oil Sands Development and the Economic Consequences".

Let me begin by being clear about the oil sector in Canada and who is running the show.

Canada’s energy strategy is determined in the boardrooms of a handful of multinational corporations and by the governments of foreign countries through their state-owned oil companies.

The strategy is communicated to the federal and provincial governments through closed-door meetings with lobbyists and at state dinners over dessert in foreign countries.

It is supported by legislative changes that reduce environmental protection and public participation.

Five multinational oil companies control 78% of current oil sands production. These companies are Suncor, Imperial Oil (whose parent is Exxon Mobile), Shell, Canadian Natural Resources and Cenovus. And new, primarily state owned companies, such as Norway’s Statoil, and China’s Sinopec, Petro China and the Chinese National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC), that recently purchased Nexen.

So what is big oil’s plan for us?

They want to rapidly extract oil sands heavy crude called bitumen, mix it with imported diluent to allow it to flow through pipelines and export it as diluted bitumen to the US Gulf Coast along Keystone XL and to Asia along Northern Gateway and TransMountain’s twin.



Economic exploitation

We cannot allow a handful of powerful multinational oil companies and foreign countries through their state-owned oil companies to dictate an energy strategy that:

hollows out our resource sector;

robs Canadians of meaningful jobs and environmental standards;

crowds out BC’s legitimate economic activity;

increases petroleum product prices for Canadian consumers and businesses; and

puts our terrestrial and marine based ecologies directly in harms way.

To put it simply: when it comes to non-renewable resources, rapid extraction and export of raw bitumen is not economic development.

Development means enhancement, value added, improvement—some form of contributing to a better state because of economic activity.



Creating a dependency on condensate imports

Big oil’s decisions to enhance refineries in the US to accept our bitumen, and plan to do the same in Asia, has already started to hollow out Alberta’s resource sector. The percentage of bitumen upgraded in the province has begun to decline.

By 2017, Alberta will only upgrade 48% of the bitumen it produces and by 2025 it will be less than 40%. That’s a long way away from where we would have been when Alberta promised 72% of the bitumen would be upgraded in Alberta by 2016.

Because bitumen is so dense, like tar or wet cement, in order for it to flow down a pipeline it requires diluent, like condensate.

Up until 2005 Canada was self-sufficient in condensate production. When we produced a barrel of bitumen and mixed it with domestically produced condensate to make diluted bitumen, we exported a barrel of diluted bitumen—or what the industry refers to as dilbit.

Not true any more.


The “The Top 10” economic reasons to reject oil pipelines and supertankers along BC’s coast are:

1. Decades of higher oil prices for Canadian consumers and businesses across the country.

2. Lost opportunity to add value, create meaningful jobs and control environmental standards here at home.

3. Hollowing out of the oil sector as raw bitumen exports take precedence over upgrading and refining.

4. Continued reliance on foreign oil imports through eastern Canada.

5. A growing dependence on foreign condensate imports through western Canada.

6. Crowding-out of BC’s legitimate and vibrant economic activity.

7. Twice the number of pipelines and double the tanker traffic to move diluted bitumen as compared to upgraded bitumen.

8. More than twice the environmental risk and related costs.

9. As soon as Northern Gateway and TransMountain are approved, more pipeline capacity will be demanded.

10. Supernatural British Columbia becomes a Supertanker terminal for Alberta.

[Graeme]

Keystone XL: TransCanada Seeks Restraining Order Against Oklahoma Opponents

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'D')oug Parr wasn't shy with his description of TransCanada's tactics, including those the pipeline company employed on Monday in an attempt to bar people in Oklahoma from disrupting progress on the company's proposed Keystone XL pipeline.

"Corporate shenanigans," he called them.

"They're trying to gag and prevent people from educating and learning about the dangers associated with the extraction and production and transport and refining of this tar sands material from Canada," said Parr, an Oklahoma City-based criminal defense lawyer who has been working pro bono for folks participating in nonviolent protests along the southern leg of the controversial conduit, between Cushing, Okla., and the Gulf Coast.

TransCanada spokesman Shawn Howard confirmed that the company had filed a request on Monday for a temporary restraining order against 21 individuals who, he told The Huffington Post, "have been interfering with TransCanada's property rights and ability to safely construct a pipeline in the state of Oklahoma."

"This is an abuse of the law, in my opinion," Parr said. "TransCanada is trying to shut down peoples' constitutional rights ... all of these acts of civil disobedience are totally nonviolent and nondestructive."

Some of the individuals protesting in Oklahoma have chained themselves to Keystone construction equipment. In February, Elizabeth Leja, who was named in Monday's injunction, chained her neck to a giant excavator attempting to clear a route for the pipeline through central Oklahoma.

"I'm not worried," Leja told HuffPost after hearing of the restraining order request. "I think TransCanada is scared."

[Graeme]

Oil Sands Reality Check

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'F')ocused on five major areas — climate, economy, human rights, land and species, and air and water — Oil Sands Reality Check offers the facts about how these key indicators of health on the planet are affected by the tar sands. Knowing full well that “facts” can often be misconstrued, all the information on Oil Sands Reality Check was reviewed by a scientific advisory committee made up of academics, scientists, and economists. So, you can rest assured, the facts are straight.

If you write about Alberta’s tar sands, major oil pipeline development (Keystone XL, Northern Gateway, Energy East), global emissions, energy policy, climate change, or ecological sustainability, this website is a fantastic resource. Every fact presented on Oil Sands Reality Check has a primary source linked to it, which is also available for more in-depth analysis.

[Graeme]

How the Keystone XL Pipeline Has Become Too Big to Approve

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he past few weeks have brought some surprising developments and contradictions in the Keystone XL pipeline saga. Former Vice-President Al Gore told Canada's The Globe and Mail that he wished President Obama would cancel the pipeline project. Current Vice-President Joe Biden casually told an activist that he opposes the Keystone XL pipeline, although he's "in the minority" (echoing his recent gay marriage support ahead of the official change of position by the White House). On Earth Day, Obama's Environmental Protection Agency criticized Obama's State Department over the environmental impact review of the Keystone XL pipeline, citing "environmental objections." And finally, an unnamed U.S. official told Reuters that the president now plans to delay his decision on the pipeline even longer -- possibly until 2014. What is going on here? How did a pipeline that was supposed to win approval two years ago become such a contested topic among close allies?


President Obama is a master of symbolism and is certainly highly attuned to the growing meaning behind the Keystone XL battle. With this pipeline, he faces a decision about the economic future of America with outsized symbolic significance: will we go further down the old road of the oil economy -- no matter how dirty, dangerous or destructive -- or will we take a bold turn toward building a new economy based on low-impact, renewable, domestic energy? The president does not want to make this choice, even symbolically. He knows that approving the pipeline would be wrong for the country and for the planet. But doing the right thing would alienate the most powerful industry in the world and disrupt the very fabric of our oil-based economy. So he drags his feet.

[Graeme]

Tar sands exploitation would mean game over for climate, warns leading scientist

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'M')ajor international oil companies are buying off governments, according to the world's most prominent climate scientist, Prof James Hansen. During a visit to London, he accused the Canadian government of acting as the industry's tar sands salesman and "holding a club" over the UK and European nations to accept its "dirty" oil.

"Oil from tar sands makes sense only for a small number of people who are making a lot of money from that product," he said in an interview with the Guardian. "It doesn't make sense for the rest of the people on the planet. We are getting close to the dangerous level of carbon in the atmosphere and if we add on to that unconventional fossil fuels, which have a tremendous amount of carbon, then the climate problem becomes unsolvable."

[Graeme]

Keystone XL: The Iconic Climate Battle

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')n February, 50,000 people marched on the freezing Washington Mall to tell President Obama that he must reject Keystone XL and move forward on climate. Since then, Sierra Club activists and our partners have met President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and Secretary of State John Kerry at more than 20 events around the nation to repeat the message. Hundreds of people demonstrating the escalating public opposition to Keystone XL - from 200 in Chicago, to 500 in New York City, and 1,000-plus in San Francisco. Just last week, hundreds more met President Obama in Palo Alto and Santa Monica, California, and the size and momentum of these events only continues to grow as the decision on the pipeline looms closer.

It's no accident, and certainly no mistake, that the fight to stop the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline has become the iconic climate fight.

The attention and controversy we've generated in this fight has led to a common question, "Why Keystone XL, what's the big deal?" Some climate activists who came late to the battle argue that it's the wrong target. Not so. For those of us who were there at the start of the tar sands campaign seven years ago, Keystone is a brilliant target and a battle that win or lose, we win. Here's ten reasons why has become a critical battle in the war on climate.



At the end of the day, President Obama knows that approving Keystone would be a giant step backwards. It's not just a random battle we picked. It is a litmus test of whether he is going to be bold enough on the penultimate climate issue of our day. If he opens the door to exploitation of the tar sands, he sends the signal to oil, coal and gas companies around the world that the one president who actually got climate change, didn't have the courage to stand up for what was right and protect the birthright of future generations--a healthy planet.

On the other hand, if the president rejects the pipeline, he sends the message to the oil industry, major institutional investors, auto and truck manufacturers, cities, states, provinces in Canada and countries that the days of oil, coal, and gas are numbered. The market is shifting, and they had best shift with it. The rejection of KXL will unleash a wave of grassroots and grasstops activists emboldened to support his efforts to adopt strict carbon rules on coal power plants, block new and properly regulate existing oil and gas fracking, stop coal, gas, and oil exports, and even begin to lay the ground for a price on carbon. It will be the victory that signals the end of the fossil fuel industry's enormous power and influence in Washington.

Either way, KXL is a winner.

[Graeme]

Feds, Arkansas attorney general sue Exxon over tar sands spill and illegal cleanup

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'O')n Thursday, the Department of Justice in partnership with Arkansas’s attorney general Dustin McDaniel filed a lawsuit against ExxonMobil (XOM, Fortune 500) for a massive tar sands pipeline leak in March and the illegal handling and storage of waste during subsequent cleanup efforts, the CNN Money reported.

Most residents of Mayflower, Ark., were unaware that a pipeline carrying Canadian tar sands crude from Texas to Illinois was silently operating 2 feet underground through the area for more than 70 years until March 29, when a rupture occurred spilling 12,000 barrels of the dark ooze throughout a residential neighborhood and into waterways.

In addition to breaking federal environmental laws, alleges the suit, oil contamination damaged 22 homes for which the state is seeking civil penalties from Exxon.

At the time of the spill, Anthony Swift, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) spoke of concerns regarding pipeline integrity and the challenges involved in cleaning up the mess. "The tragedy is a lot of these issues haven't been given the attention they merit," said Swift.

[Graeme]

New Evidence Reveals Significant Carbon Pollution Increase if Keystone Pipeline Approved

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')his week, environmentalists called on the State Department to reopen the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline environmental review process. New information from the Department of Energy, the International Energy Agency, industry analysts and refining executives offers new evidence that Keystone XL will, in fact, directly contribute to increased tar sands development, U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and pollution at U.S. refineries, calling into question the original State Department findings.

“Since the close of the comment period, evidence of inaccuracies and bias in the State Department’s review of Keystone XL has been steadily mounting,” says Doug Hayes, Sierra Club attorney. “This new information demonstrates that the review relies on an overly-simplistic, outdated view of a rapidly-changing oil market.”

The new data contradicts three primary conclusions by the State Department:
Increased rail shipments of crude oil have the potential to completely replace the capacity of Keystone XL if the pipeline were rejected.

Increasing domestic production of oil will not affect the demand for heavy Canadian crude oil in Gulf Coast refineries.

Canadian crude will not be exported from the Gulf Coast if the pipeline is built.
“The State Department is alone in its conclusion that the Keystone XL pipeline is not fundamental to the prospects of the dirty tar sands industry,” says Lorne Stockman, research director at Oil Change International and coauthor of the letter. “State needs to take a careful look at the new evidence that we’ve compiled in the past several weeks and they will reach the same conclusion that we do: that the Keystone XL pipeline is crucial to the expansion of the tar sands, and that expansion is not in the public interest.”

President Obama said his administration will weigh the pipeline’s impact on the climate and it will be approved only if “this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution.” Evidence that Keystone XL is the lynchpin for tar sands development detailed in the letter includes:

A Goldman Sachs report that says that rail shipments of tar sands could not replace the proposed pipeline logistically and economically.
Royal Bank of Canada’s estimate that denial of Keystone XL would jeopardize $9.4 billion in tar sand development.

U.S. EPA estimates that Keystone XL will add 18.7 million metric tons of carbon pollution per year. And a new U.S. government report increases the estimated social cost of this pollution—related to human health, sea level rise and other natural disasters—by as much as double.

“This recent information paints a clear picture,” said Anthony Swift, Natural Resources Defense Council attorney. “The Keystone XL tar sands export pipeline would significantly increase climate emissions while providing few benefits to the United States—it really is an all risk and no reward proposition for the American people.”

According to the groups, the State Department is obliged by federal law to analyze and respond to this new data.

Groups who have signed on to the letter include Bold Nebraska, Center for Biological Diversity, National Wildlife Federation, Natural Resources Defense Council, Oil Change International and the Sierra Club.

[rangerone314]

Money rules the world. That money is owned by the kind of idiots that built the unsinkable Titanic. No point in trying to tell the fools an iceberg is going to sink it.

Ready your own lifeboat. Let the fools drown.