Time gushes over boys with toys
[JR: Here is Bill Becker on a favorite CP topic, see “The tar sands — Canada’s version of liquid coal” and “BP greenwashing.”]
I consider Time to be one of the more forward-looking periodicals when it comes to the environment. But the editors messed up in this week’s edition. The June 2 TIME carries a breathless feature about the potential petroleum bonanza in Canada’s tar sands.
The article’s authors are so giddy with the testosterone-rush of big-ass earth-moving machines that they forgot what a multifaceted disaster this “bonanza” would be. The magazine quotes tar-men in Alberta as they marvel at their own ability to move mountains, literally.
At one open-pit mine, a manager brags that his operation moves enough dirt every 48 hours to fill Toronto’s 60,000-seat SkyDome. “A year from now, that mountain won’t be there,” he says, referring to a wall of black soil. Some of the biggest trucks on earth, 20-feet tall, carrying 320 tons of dirt in each load, crawl through the “stark landscape of jack pine, spruce and poplar forests” like Tonka toys built for Paul Bunyan.
How intense is the mining?
It takes two tons of tar sands to produce one barrel of oil, and oil companies are extracting 1.3 million barrels of crude every 24 hours. Much of the world’s petroleum, about 2 trillion barrels, is in tar sands. It is an alluring prize; as conventional crude becomes more expensive, oil from tar sands becomes more profitable.
“The mega-projects across Alberta’s oil sands rival some of the humankind’s greatest engineering achievements, including the pyramids of Giza and the Great Wall of China,” gushes Time. “Canada may become the new Saudi Arabia, the last great oil kingdom, right on the U.S. border.”
Let’s pause for a moment, take a deep breath and think about this great engineering achievement. The “stark” landscape TIME describes is Canada’s boreal forest. The Natural Resources Defense Council describes that major ecosystem this way:
In the far north latitudes, just below the treeless tundra of the polar region, a forest of evergreen trees encircles the earth: this is the boreal forest. The last frontier of northern forest wilderness in Canada, the boreal forest is North America’s greatest conservation opportunity. Although most of the world’s original wilderness forests have been logged or developed until just about 20 percent remains, approximately 80 percent of the Canadian boreal forest is still unfragmented by roads. Mostly in public hands, over half of Canada’s boreal has yet to be allocated to industrial use. This situation is quickly changing, however, as the boreal forest comes under imminent threat from industrial logging, hydropower, mining and oil and gas development.
Like the Amazon, the boreal forest is of critical importance to all living things on earth. It is home to the one of the world’s largest remaining stands of spruce, fir and tamarack. The thick layers of moss, soil and peat of the boreal are the world’s largest terrestrial storehouse of organic carbon and play an enormous role in regulating the Earth’s climate. Boreal wetlands filter millions of gallons of water each day that fill our northern rivers, lakes, and streams. As a vast, intact forest ecosystem, the boreal supports a natural web of large carnivores, such as bears, wolves and lynx along with thousands of other species of plants, mammals, birds and insects.
“Canadians cannot forget they are custodian to one third of this essential global resource,” the Atlas of Canada warns. But good custodianship isn’t compatible with Canada becoming the Saudi Arabia of the north. As the NRDC explains:
The tar sands found deep beneath Alberta’s vast old-growth forests are made up of 90 percent sand, clay, silt, and water and 10 percent bitumen, a tarlike substance that can be converted to oil. Currently, most tar sands production relies on open pit mines, some as large as three miles wide and 200 feet deep. Because less than 20 percent of the oil-producing bitumen deposits are close to the surface, the rest of the deep reserves must be extracted by injecting steam underground and pumping out the melted bitumen. The amount of natural gas used daily during these processes could heat about four million American homes. Once separated from the sand, clay and silt, the bitumen is still of low grade and must undergo yet another energy-intensive process to turn it into a crude oil that more closely resembles conventional oil.
Oil from tar sands has two especially sensitive liabilities. It uses a lot of water and it produces a lot of carbon emissions. Water is becoming an increasingly critical resource worldwide. It takes several barrels of water to make one barrel of oil from tar sands. And tar-sands production emits three times more carbon than regular crude oil. It already is undermining Canada’s ability to meet its obligations under the Kyoto protocol. The Pembina Institute estimates that tar sands production in Alberta is producing 40 million tons of greenhouse gasses a year, with projections of 142 million tons by 2020.
Time concurs with NRDC about what’s driving Alberta’s mining. It’s the U.S. oil addiction and one of our principal dealers, ExxonMobil. Canada provides 20 percent of U.S. oil imports, our biggest source. Much of that oil comes from tar sands. Plans are to pipe tar-sands oil to refineries in Minnesota, Ohio and North Dakota. ExxonMobil is a major force behind the plan. Some $124 billion is expected to be invested in this scheme from 2007 to 2012. That same investment, redirected to solar energy, would put America firmly on the path to an economy free of fossil fuels by mid-century.
As Exxon pushes for the biggest oil boom in North American history — and as the melting arctic ice opens access to vast new oil and gas fields — it’s hard to imagine a more dramatic and critical fork in the road of human progress. One path offers dazzling new riches for oil companies and provides tantalizing new frontiers for wildcatters. But it leads us to an even deeper addiction to finite fossil fuels and to the quickly approaching point of not return on global climate change. Think of this year’s floods, tornados and wildfires on steroids.
The other road takes us to a future in which our energy is inexhaustible, our economy is secure, drilling and digging have been phased out in favor of green industries and jobs, and global warming is stabilized.
We have very little time to choose. Unfortunately, the allure of black gold and big trucks appears to be taking us down the wrong path.
– Bill Becker
May 27th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
We now have a past Premier of Alberta warning against the pace of development up there. The Athabasca tar sand projects are licensed to withdraw twice the amount of freshwater consumed by the city of Calgary each year. That sludge ends up in large toxic tailing ponds visible from space. A doctor who found cholangiocarcinoma-a rare cancer of the bile duct-in six patients in the 1200 person town of Fort Chipewyan, when the incidence in the general population is one person in 100,000, was charged with four counts by both Health Canada, and Alberta Health and Wellness. Since that time three of the four charges were dropped, and the last one, that he raised undue alarm in the community, is the last remaining charge yet to be dropped.
Maybe the toxic wasteland will halt the eastern progression of the pine beetle…
May 27th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Well, the battle has certainly been joined… See here.
Most recently, Imperial Oil’s $8billion Kearl project had its water rights permit denied, likely delaying the project for a year or more.
May 27th, 2008 at 8:51 pm
Times statements about the Tarsands being the next Saudi Arabia are of course a myth. Look at the environmental destruction, social decay, and cost overruns in Ft. McMurray with production at a (relatively small) one million barrels per day.
Peter Tertzakian, a seasoned oil analyist, explains why there will never (god forbid) be over 3 million bpd from these sands:
http://www.spe.org/ spe-app/ spe/ jpt/ 2006/ 05/ guest_ed_Tertzakian.htm
It’s fairly depressing considering how poorly the media have generally dealt with both climate change and the peak oil story to see how they completely fall on their faces relating how these two issues relate to one another. I listened to an hour episode of “To the Point” with Warren Ulne today, who is usually a somewhat competent journalist, and in that hour of Peak Oil and oil supply disscussion, he and his guests were never able to really relate or introduce the joint issue of climate change into the discussion at the same time in any type of intelligent way.
May 28th, 2008 at 12:41 am
200 Trillion Dollars and leave it in the ground? A 30,000 dollar asset for every person in the world.
I thought there is plenty of fresh water going to waste in Greenland? With the money saved by the use of tar sand oil we can develop solar, nuclear fission and fusion and have enough left over to settle the solar system. Canada could go tax free and have decent health care.
If the wells in the tar areas were in the ground prior to the extraction of the oil, most likely the water was contaminanted before.
May 28th, 2008 at 6:31 am
Well, yes - you’re right. Canada has probably done worse than any of the Kyoto signatories since 1990. But they are a very small part of a much larger problem, which is that the whole world is on a trajectory of rising CO2:
http://photos.mongabay.com/ 07/ co2_country_area_2030-max.jpg
Joe - I would like to see you make a serious attempt at a proposed solution to the global, political issue, which is that we have an enonomic and political system based on a continual growth model. Under this model even population (and immigration) growth is viewed positively by politicians because it bring economic growth.
Fixing CO2 emissions in one small corner of the planet will never be more than a gesture.
May 28th, 2008 at 10:16 am
Foley:
Not a 30,000 dollar assett for many — several tens of millions will be dead from spreading diseases, drought, flooding and starvation due to global warming, and several hundred million will be refugees with no permanent address to send that 30,000 check to. But by your calculus, that’s all the better, because then the share of that 200 trillion (sic) goes up for the rest of us. So Hey! It’s actually more.
Wait. I have an idea. Why not crank up AGW so we kill more people, faster then we get an even larger share. Boy what a great idea!
Thanks, Mr. Foley. you sure are some smart fella.
May 28th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
John, is it flooding or drought, please pick one. Co2 should actually be increasing the rate of food production, all other things being equal. Just how much of the “green” food production revolution is the effect of the 50 % increase in CO2 ppms?- Even a flood bring a layer of fertile silt. Trust me the end of the carbon economy will kill many multiples of any century long possible increase in average temps.
Is my grammar defective ? trillion = 1,000,000,000,000 on this side of the Atlantic. Please correct any errors of fact or logic.
Hasn’t Kyoto expired?
With the example of the strength of the Canadian dollar due to their rational act of using their internal energy sources instead forcing the use of imported energy as the misguided legislation in the USA has.
Where I’m at a one degree increase in temps increases my income and lowers my carbon usage (as with the majority of the world’s people), how about where you are at?
How long can you be obsessed with a CO2 mania? As a famous Roman said, “moderation in all things.”
May 28th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Peter F
Th issue of how CO2 affects crop production is very complex. C3 plants benefit, but C4 do not, and there are many other factors such as the balance of water, nutrients available. This is one of many papers:
http://query.nytimes.com/ gst/ fullpage.html?res=9C0CE4DE1E39F93BA2575AC0A966958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all
“…since crops do not benefit from higher carbon dioxide levels unless more fertilizer is applied and more pesticides are used to kill insects and, in the case of C4 crops, competitive C3 weeds. “
May 28th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Foley has been shown multiple times about what you said, Robert. He doesn’t care about your explanation. Don’t bother.
Best,
D
May 28th, 2008 at 11:40 pm
Dano, Did you bother to read the web page, yet another negative feedback, Faster growing trees lead to lower populations of fauna, more plant mass ends up as proto-coal,–some call it sequestered carbon. Maybe Obama/Clinton can start a no AGWer left behind reeducation program for next years congressional session.
Bill Becker, how far negative do temps need to go to halt the anti-carbon jihad? Let us allow the present carbon based society generate the next two to four times the wealth for all before we kill the the Goose that is laying the wealth eggs.
C4 use less water, isn’t that a benefit?
Dano, belittling me doesn’t make you any more informed, or perfect your faulty belief system. Just another frustrated monkey flinging intellectual poop around the internet Zoo. Occasionally you hit your target, but you always have filthy hands.
May 29th, 2008 at 5:46 am
Peter, The interannual variablity is much larger than the long term trend. This accounts for what appears to be a lull in global warming over the last few years. If you look at the 8 year trend lines on this chart they still all point upwards and have done so with hardly a break for the last 30 years:
http://www.realclimate.org/ index.php/ archives/ 2008/ 01/ uncertainty-noise-and-the-art-of-model-data-comparison/
May 29th, 2008 at 9:13 am
This is the typical reaction of Foley when confronted with the mountain of evidence that negates the belief system*.
This should be instructive, as a good fraction of the populace reacts in one way or another - similiar to this, many more polite - to this identity conflict. Some go into denial, some write letters to the editor, some refuse to change, some construct elaborate behaviors…many adopt one or more of these.
We can bang our heads and try and change their minds despite the fact that changing their minds means refuting their identity, or we can forget about changing their minds and do what we’re doing anyway.
Best,
D
* around which he’s chosen his identity. You’d be mad too if people were trying to take away your identity.
May 29th, 2008 at 11:52 am
Robert, Where was the the inter annual variability when temps actually were increasing yearly. Steak tomorrow and steak yesterday, If I did a word search for “lull” in any IPCC work, would it exist? Time for a “new” testaments to come down AGWer’s mount Sinai
Your graph raises the question about the magical math that went negative during the Pinatubo event but not during a very similar event in the past decade.
I’ve got the the whole real world for evidence Dano. I am not trying to prevent several trillions of dollars of economic growth and destroy a vital part of our energy system on an unproven theory.
Neither AGW or cooling is part of any of my beliefs.
In my youth I ‘believed’ in pop science, but the AG cooling mania in the seventies taught that me herds are often wrong.
Without a runaway temperature change, the Co2 forcing are a very minor short and medium term problem, and with most possible future scenarios, self correcting as we abandon carbon based tech for its then cheaper replacements.
Transference of various personal and AGW movement flaws to persons/groups that disagree with all or part of the AGWers “solution” set.
Some twit with an inflated opinion of themselves is in no danger of effecting my identity. My self isn’t based on the latest Eco-fad.
That thought your belief system requires new members to refute parts of their identities shows belief in Agw requires leaps of faith. It is monotheistic faith with a very jealous god.
May 29th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Peter Foley wrote “Without a runaway temperature change, the Co2 forcing are a very minor short and medium term problem, …” Short term, centuries; medium term, millennia.
That-a-way, Peter! Really long range thinking.
Unfortunately, in the nonce, a good change that we leave agriculture behind as we head off on our climate adventure.
May 29th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Peter Foley wrote “It is monotheistic faith with a very jealous god.” Its called physics. But, indeed, Nature does not care; not even jealous.
May 29th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Oops. Two posts back: ‘chance’, not ‘change’.
June 1st, 2008 at 1:21 am
David B. Benson, Take a crack at the black body physics of Earth as your supposed Six degree rise happens. What is the increased Wattage/meter squared ? several times the alleged forcing. I.e the it can’t happen.
Worst case we have to resort to some clean pollution to lower temps if the the bodies politic will allow a return to “cold” climates.(Those damn democracies can be so hard to manipulate long term.) AGWers are throwing the economic baby out because of some dirty diapers.
Short term problem = reallocating ag production to ‘new’ climates. Degrees days increases and moisture increases would allow more production as the CO2 ppms increases have and will. Medium term problems, cure various technology phobias such as anti-nuke, extraction industries, and unchurching ’science’. And what to spend all the extra taxes on that the fast growing GNP will produce.
While it would be unethical to isolate the irrational, it is just as immoral to allow a psuedo-sceince practitioners to control the fate of our Western culture.