As reported by CTV.ca this morning, "Nine out of 10 oilsands producers in Alberta got a failing grade in a new study that compared the environmental records of the different companies. The study by the Pembina Institute and World Wildlife Fund looked at the 10 largest producers and compared them against the best performer in each of 20 categories, making it a true ‘apples to apples’ report, said Dan Woynillowicz, of the Pembina Institute. The 20 questions the companies were asked touched on issues such as environmental management, land, air emissions, water and climate change."
Here are the 10 companies listed in the order they were ranked (from least worst to worst):
Albian Sands Muskeg
Total E&P
Petro-Canada Oil Sands
Shell Canada
Imperial Oil
Suncor
Canadian Natural Resources Ltd.
Albian Sands Muskeg expansion
Syncrude
Syneco
The news article reports, "(Dan Woynillowicz) said the amount of water used in the oilsands on a daily basis is twice the amount used by the Municipality of Calgary each day. Further, unlike the water used by Calgary, it becomes so badly polluted during use that it cannot be released back into the environment. The amount of energy used on a daily basis is also staggering, Woynillowicz said. ‘The natural gas consumption on a daily basis is equivalent to heating three million homes a day, so a huge amount of energy, and that translates into a lot of greenhouse gas pollution.’"
In the article Rob Powell, one of the report’s authors, says, "We’re not getting the kind of regulatory oversight that’s required to achieve a reasonable standard of environmental performance."
You will remember that on January 18, 2007 CBC News reported that, "U.S. and Canadian oil executives and government officials met for a two-day (Security and Prosperity Partnership working group) oil summit in Houston in January 2006 and made plans for a ‘fivefold expansion’ in oilsands production in a relatively ’short time span,’ according to minutes of the meeting obtained by the CBC’s French-language network, Radio-Canada."
That CBC report also stated, "…the current extraction of oil from the tarsands results in the spewing of millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere…" and, as noted in the minutes of the January meeting, the proposed expansion would require Canada to "streamline" its environmental regulations.
On March 19, 2007, the Globe and Mail reported that, "Finance Minister Jim Flaherty…announced Ottawa will spend $60-million over the next two years to create a Major Projects Management Office, in order to streamline the regulatory approval process for major resources projects."
The 72-page ‘Under-Mining the Environment: The Oil Sands Report Card’ can be downloaded at http://pubs.pembina.org/reports/OS-Undermining-Final.pdf.
The full article can be found at http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080110/oilsands_080110/20080110?hub=TopStories.
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