A 'nice gesture,' or more?
Environmental reactions ranged from skeptical to angry. The pact is a "nice gesture" but comes at a time when the government won't force emissions reductions on the sector, said Gillian McEachern of Environmental Defence.
An analyst at Greenpeace Canada slammed the agreement as a way for industry to target lawmakers in the United States and Europe. In addition to the debate about Keystone XL, Europe is weighing whether to label oil sands fuels as 22 percent more carbon-intensive than traditional types.
"In the absence of any commitments to real reductions in pollution with penalties for not meeting them, this is simply another example of 'greenwash,' where an industry association makes vague promises to clean up its act in order to avoid regulations with real teeth," said Keith Stewart, climate and energy campaigner at Greenpeace Canada.
Green groups say that the oil sands singlehandedly threaten to undo Canada's climate targets to reduce emissions 17 percent by 2020. Greenhouse gas emissions are growing faster than any other sector in Canada and are likely to double annually by 2020, according to the Pembina Institute, an environmental think tank.
The announcement comes on the heels of a major initiative by the Albertan and Canadian governments to increase monitoring stations measuring how oil sands operations are placing pollutants in waterways, increasing emissions and altering wildlife patterns (ClimateWire, Feb. 6).
In addition to Royal Dutch Shell, Cenovus Energy and ConocoPhillips, the other participating companies are BP Canada Energy Co., Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., Devon Canada, Imperial Oil, Nexen Inc., Statoil ASA, Suncor Energy Inc., Teck Resources Ltd. and Total E&P.
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500
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Add Commenti do not now over ever believe the mega rich oil companies are doing anything to clean up the pollution. i believe quite the reverse that they are lying or just trying a more deceiving approach to get their money and run. the tar sands should be put back in the ground, and the lying oil companies should be prosecuted by real judges that they have not bought off. All their riches are from confidence schemes on other poor countries they have ripped off in the past. most all their executives should be tried for murder. they get away with it by buying the judges or postponing the trial to run out the time on the statue of limitations. They want everyone to live in caves and pay millions of dollars for a lamp full of oil that we can use to cook our grub worms we will eat as they live in their solid gold towers, and they jet around the globe spreading their manufactured lies. Never, never ever trust them to ever do anything good!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisif you want to know the mind and soul of an oil person, go watch the movie THERE WILL BE BLOOD!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is classic "greenwash". As in the practice of "whitewashing" or covering up a problem with meaningless words, all of this talk about cleaning up the pollution from the Tar Sands Oil is evading the root problem. In order to prevent disastrous climate change we must stop the burning of all forms of sequestered carbon - the carbon that the planet has removed from circulation in the atmosphere by burying it in coal and oil and natural gas deposits over millions of years. Humanity has reversed that process in the last hundred years, putting a high percentage of the sequestered carbon back into the atmosphere. The constantly growing energy and food and space needs of our heedlessly growing population is worsening the problem exponentially. Deforestation is a major contributing factor in the rising CO2 level and the heating of the planet. Coal was the dirtiest "energy source" but the tar sands will be worse, no matter what they say about "cleaning up" the process. Nothing they can do will stop the CO2 from entering the atmosphere, not to mention the environmental damage from open pit mining.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEven natural gas, being loudly touted as a safe replacement for oil and coal, is proving to be as bad if not worse than coal, when methane escaping into the atmosphere is considered.
In order to do anything effective about climate change, we must stop burning coal and leave the tar sand oil where it is. We can replace coal and tar oil with modern nuclear reactors. The fourth generation reactor designs are not only inherently safe, they can convert the present stockpiles of nuclear "waste" into energy at a 98% efficiency, leaving only a tiny amount of relatively short half-life material unused. There will be no storage problem, and the amount of nuclear fuel from the "waste" we already have will give us energy for a thousand years.
Read "Storms of My Grandchildren" by Dr James E Hansen, and "Power to Save The World" by Gwyneth Cravens.
This is where the capital needs to be invested. Proceeding with the tar sands madness is just ensuring that the disasters from climate change come sooner and are worse. These include rapid ocean level rise, population displacement, crop failure due to drought, heat, and flooding, violent weather, ocean acidification, etc.
The cost of the problems will be hugely greater than the cost of converting to non-polluting energy sources. Ultimately, how can you consider the cost of the loss of the climate we depend on for our survival? It is sheer idiocy to continue with the tar sands project.
A prayer I once heard went like this:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGod grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
What we cannot change... the use of fossil fuels. This is simply a what is, and rail against it as much as you want, it will not make any difference. Tar sands are a profitable source of oil, and they will be developed. That is also a what is.
What we CAN change is the environmental impact of using fossil fuels. Carbon sequestration is a good place to start. Other technologies that reduce the about of CO2 and CH4 emitted int the atmosphere requires agreements of this sort to be accelerated.
At the end of the day, companies really do care about their image, just like people do. At their core they may be greedy basts, but if they can spend a few bucks to make money with less pollution and environmental impact they certainly will. It costs less than getting everyone's panties in an uproar.
Efforts to reduce the environmental impact of recovering petroleum from tar sands are to be applauded. It is environmentalists who block the very best technology. If these companies were to use nuclear generated steam instead of gas the process would be much cleaner as well as preserving the precious gas for other purposes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSounds more like a PR stunt.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat about the water usage? It is the reason behind my objection to the pipeline. I think that is more important as currently they use alot of it.
I have to disagree. Nuclear power plant are very very expensive to build. You only recoup your investment over the life of the plant. These power plants are built near to customers and they last 40 years. Does anyone know how long before the sands are mined up?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOk, so my comment above was in reference to the comment about using nuclear power instead of natural gas powered elec. generation to make the steam to get the oil out of the tar sands.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFree the gas - nuke the tar sands
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMost international opposition to Tar sands crude would disappear if Alberta nuked the tar sands replacing gas generated steam with nuclear steam, saving big bucks and eliminating production GHG's at the same time.
To do the trick 8 big mass produced Westinghouse AP-1000 reactors or 300 hot tub sized Hyperion units ($400 kw of steam) reactors would be needed. The total cost of the zero GHG, clean and green Hyperion units is $9 billion. Natural gas at $4 a thousand cu ft is $3 billion a year. Payback - three years.
http://talknuclear.ca/index.php/2011/08/size-matters-small-nuclear-reactors-and-albertas-oil-sands-development/
Any excess clean and green nuclear power would be delivered to the dunces at BCHydro at a third the price it's paying for dirty carbon intense run of the river power, generating huge profits for Alberta.
Alberta could like Utah, start a motor vehicle CNG program to use the surplus gas for autofuel at 30 cents a liter equivalent.
Hundreds of Albertans die every year and tens of thousands sickened from Alberta's coal plant air pollution. While nuking the tar sands nuke the coal at the same time. Save money save lives.
"In the absence of any commitments to real reductions in pollution with penalties for not meeting them, this is simply another example of 'greenwash,' where an industry association makes vague promises to clean up its act in order to avoid regulations with real teeth," said Keith Stewart, climate and energy campaigner at Greenpeace Canada.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"What we cannot change... the use of fossil fuels. This is simply a what is"
We, the people, can decide to change our use of fossil fuels or not, that is a fact.
"Tar sands are a profitable source of oil"
For now. We can legislate it to be unprofitable, that is also a "what is".
"we CAN change is the environmental impact of using fossil fuels"
Of course we can. Enforcing present legislation is a good place to start
"At the end of the day, companies really do care about their image"
Image, yes that is the right word
"At their core they may be greedy basts, but if they can spend a few bucks to make money with less pollution and environmental impact they certainly will"
Yes, that is were legislation comes in again, we need to apply the sanctions already in place because companies are not following the rules and are degrading and polluting the environment, so it is clear they need to be forced to clean up their act.
"It costs less than getting everyone's panties in an uproar"
If you mean fining companies to force them to clean up their pollution now is cheaper than we, the people, clean it up in the future once the companies have skipped town, I agree.
So all these problems are caused by big bad companies? Who do you think owns these companies? Either through direct shareholdings or indirectly through pension funds, life insurance & many other pathways, the wealth they generate as well as the costs are shared by everyone. Do you think government owned institutions would do better? Good luck with that. If you are part of modern society, as obviously any computer user is, you are a consumer of the products you complain about.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo all these problems are caused by big bad companies? Who do you think owns these companies? Either through direct shareholdings or indirectly through pension funds, life insurance & many other pathways, the wealth they generate as well as the costs are shared by everyone. Do you think government owned institutions would do better? Good luck with that. If you are part of modern society, as obviously any computer user is, you are a consumer of the products you complain about.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWho is posing as sault to post such exaggerated, uncharacteristic drivel?
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