Tar sand companies try balancing oil gains, environmental pains
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ATHABASCA OIL SANDS, Alberta -- Nobody said sucking 175 millionbarrels of oil out of sand was going to be easy or tidy.And it isn't. Environmental challenges posed by massive operationsthat strip-mine forests and extract bitumen embedded in sand beneathare proving as vast as Alberta's tar sands region, an area the sizeof Florida.Questions about environmental protections abound. Can companies limitgreenhouse gases and other air emissions from their tar sandsoperations? Can they separate oil from sand without using large slugsof water from the Athabasca River and massive amounts of natural gas?And can they restore the ravaged landscape to something approximatingnatural conditions?Companies working here say they are making considerable strides inprotecting the environment. They are eager to discuss their effortsto reduce air pollution and water use and boast of their post-miningrestorations, including one where rolling hills support bison herds."Environmental management is a huge growth area" for the tar sandscompanies, says Janet Annisely of Shell Oil Co., majority owner ofthe Albian Sands Inc. project here. Syncrude, which operates theworld's largest tar sands production facility, for example, boasts ofspending more than $30 million a year on science and technology andcalls its 4,000 on-site employees "environmental managers."The view west from the top of the coker under construction at theSyncrude plant, with a view of one of the plant's tailings lakes.Photo by Mary O'Driscoll.But critics say the environmental work done so far has been highlyexperimental and that there is no definitive answer as to thelong-term harm tar sands production is doing to northern Alberta."They're operating on a hope and a prayer that it will work out inthe future," said Dan Woynillowicz of the Pembina Institute forAppropriate Development, a Canadian think tank monitoring theenvironmental and economic effects of tar sands projects. "Andultimately, if there is a problem in the future, will they be willingto accept that they'll have to try to deal with it then?"The debate appears to hinge on whether the process can be donecleanly, or whether the tar sands should be mined and produced at all-- particularly given its enthusiastic backers' goal of triplingcurrent production by 2015."If you don't like mining on public land, you don't like this," saida staffer for a Western member of Congress who toured the Alberta tarsands region this month.And environmentalists do not like it. Not one bit."When they talk about how well they're doing, it's in the context ofthe filthiest industry one can imagine," said Stephen Hazell of theSierra Club of Canada. "I can't think of another industry that causesso much damage."Citing the greenhouse gas emissions and other air pollution, wateruse and other problems, Hazell added, "It all has to be put withinthat context. Yes, they're improving their performance, but what isthe baseline they're starting from? You have to sort of go back tothe 19th century to find parallels."Bitumen comes out, 'clean sand' goes back inBitumen mining takes a heavy toll on the landscape, as giant shovelsscrape and trucks the size of two-story houses haul away entireforests to get to the oil-rich sands and leave behind a barrenmoonscape. The smell of hydrocarbons hangs over the Albian Sandssite, owned jointly by Shell Canada, ChevronTexaco and Western OilSands Inc., as each truck carries the equivalent of 200 barrels ofoil to the start of the long process of becoming gasoline.Digging mines requires digging ditches to divert groundwater tooff-site ponds. Extracting the oil from the sands and upgrading thebitumen for refining requires drawing water from the Athabasca River,mixing it with water recycled from earlier runs through the system,to separate oil from sand.Heat is critical to the process. It forces "clean" sand to expand.Small mountains of mined sand stretch along the highway leading northfrom Fort McMurray to the Albian Sands site.This "clean" sand is used to fill mined areas. It is then covered bytopsoil, which was stripped away from the forest floor, and re-seededwith trees and shrubs. The companies call this reclamation.Syncrude, which has been mining tar sands since 1978 near MildredLake, just south of the Albian Sands site off Highway 63, says it"reclaims" about 741 acres a year at a cost of $10 million(Canadian). To date, the company says it has permanently reclaimedabout 8,401 acres of land, planting more than 2.8 million trees andshrub seedlings. By 2010, the company plans to have reclaimed morethan 17,000 acres.Syncrude's massive oil production facility is the largest singlesource of crude oil in Canada. It produces 13 percent of thecountry's annual oil requirements. Its Mildred Lake operation abuts amassive extraction and upgrade facility that is in the final stagesof an $8 billion expansion that will add equipment the company sayswill help reduce stack emissions of sulfur by 60 percent from today'slevels of 245 metric tons a day.Just south of Syncrude's plant is the company's first mining site. Itis now reclaimed -- rolling hills of grass and trees that support aherd of buffalo. The site includes a pond used for mine tailings.Looking northwest, tailings ponds and reclaimed mine area southeastof the Syncrude plant. The land to the west of this site has beenreclaimed to the point where it supports a herd of buffalo. Photo byMary O'Driscoll.Across Highway 63 is what appears to be a massive tidal flat withwet, light-brown sand that Syncrude spokesman Allan Reich said isanother mine site in the process of being reclaimed. Officials saidthat it would take 12 to 15 years to turn the site into rolling,grass-covered hills."It's our obligation to return the land to its equivalentcapability," Reich said. However, because the volume of the "clean"sand is larger than that of tar sand, he said, "At the end of theday, it will be more hilly than the day we came."The tailings ponds, some the size of lakes, include water from themines as well as water that has not been recycled through theextraction and upgrading process. The plan is to let the tailingssettle to the bottom, while the cleaner water rises to the top. Theponds would then be "capped" with fresh water that, eventually, wouldbe able to support aquatic life. Syncrude officials say theirresearch shows that can happen within two to three years ofcompletion of the fine tailings deposition process.The company also is combining fine tails with gypsum and sand throughthe deposition process, causing the tailings to settle faster andenabling Syncrude to develop landscapes that support grass, trees andwetlands. Also, the company and the Canadian Oil Sands Network forResearch and Development (CONRAD), are working on a "paste"technology that produces a soft clay out of the tailings that can beused immediately for reclamation into a finished landscape.Wildlife habitat at issueA key issue: How will tar sands' oil production affect habitat forendangered woodland caribou as well as the native black bears, mooseand wolves?The in situ production of oil, which is used in some parts of theAthabasca area and pipes steam into the bitumen reserves so it can bepumped out, much like conventional drilling, poses a particulardanger for the caribou, Woynillowicz said, because the processinvolves a network of pipes from one drill pad to another. Predatorywolves use the pipeline rights of way as highways that provide readyaccess to the caribou that do not like the noise and activity of thedrilling. That, he said, is changing the predator-prey balance.Tailings ponds at mine sites provide a particular challenge to thecompanies, as they need to keep wildlife away from the poisonouswater. Migratory birds are particularly difficult to shoo. AtSyncrude, Reich said the company fires cannons at regular intervalsto ward birds off the site, and also uses scarecrows -- unofficiallydubbed "bitu-men" -- to keep them away.Shell's Annisley said her company's research shows that birds getaccustomed to cannon fire, so instead the Albian Sands site uses whatit calls "bird-avert" technology -- large mechanical peregrinefalcons perched on "islands" in tailings lakes. The falcons areequipped with radar that senses when birds are near and makeperegrine sounds and wave their wings to scare them off.While companies express confidence in their research and work todate, environmentalists are wary. The removal of the bitumen from thesands and the use of tailings as the base of the ponds and lakesmeans the chemistry underground will be very different from theregion's normal state, raising questions about water flows and theireffects on native plants and species, they say."There's a lot of uncertainty, a lot of questions," Woynillowiczsaid. "At the end of the day, they're putting forth a confident facethat their experiment is going to work. But this is a large-scaleexperimental gamble with the future of the Athabasca River watershed."Two barrels of water for every barrel of oil?Environmentalists cite further fears about potential damage beingdone by companies' large water withdrawals from the Athabasca River.Environmentalists contend that tar sands processing requires anywherefrom four to six barrels of water for every barrel of oil. ButAnnisley said Shell uses two barrels of fresh river water for everybarrel of oil. She also said the company recycles about 80 percent ofthe water it now uses and is looking to further reduce the amount ofwater consumed by the process.The Athabasca River rises from the Columbia Icefield in the CanadianRockies and flows 956 miles north and east through mountains,prairies, forests and peat bogs into Lake Athabasca on the farnortheast border between Alberta and Saskatchewan in Wood BuffaloNational Park.There are no industry-wide figures for how much water the companiesuse, though Woynillowicz contends that at peak production, the siteswill use 350 million cubic meters of water a year -- roughly theamount of water used by a city of 2 million.Shell, whose Albian Sands project came on line in 2003 and usesarguably the most advanced technologies for mining the oil sands,used 26.9 million cubic meters of fresh water that year. Improvementsin the process meant the company used 22.2 million cubic meters offresh water in 2004.At the Syncrude site, the company uses 4,000 cubic meters of waterevery hour, recycling more than 70 percent of it, according tocompany reports.Energy production that consumes a lot of energyThe tar-sands process also uses huge and growing amounts of naturalgas -- at a time of soaring gas prices and when gas resources in theWestern Canada Sedimentary Basin are starting to decline. So effortsto ramp up tar-sand operations is raising concerns that the naturalgas from the MacKenzie Delta in the Arctic region, which is slated tocome to U.S. markets, instead could end up being used for tar sandsproduction.Mining equipment, such as electric power shovels used to removetopsoil, which the companies call "overburden," and recover tarsands, need energy, as do the pipelines and facilities that mix waterwith the oil sands to extract the bitumen and the upgrading processthat turns bitumen into higher-quality synthetic crude oil.All the processes use natural gas as a source of heat, as well as asource of hydrogen for the cracking and treating processes. TheAlbian Sands site, which only involves production and extraction,uses $15 million worth of natural gas a month, says Chief OperatingOfficer Chris Jones. The National Energy Board of Canada (NEB)estimates that the mining-extraction-upgrading process requires about500,000 cubic feet of gas for every barrel of bitumen.The in situ recovery process, which is more like traditional miningand is used in the Peace River and Cold Lake oil sands regions, aremore energy-intensive and require even more gas use than the miningand extraction process. Here, companies use gas to make steam, whichis injected into underground formations to force bitumen intoproducing wells. The NEB estimates that in situ generally takes 1million cubic feet of gas to produce a barrel of bitumen.The total projected requirements for use of natural gas with in siturecovery are anywhere from 1.2 billion cubic feet per day to 1.8 Bcfper day by 2015, according to the NEB report.Companies say they are working to reduce their energy use, throughbetter use of equipment, improved technologies and use ofcogeneration at mining sites, which allows them to sell power back tothe grid.However, achieving those goals can be difficult: Syncrude did notmeet its target for energy efficiency in 2004, according to companyreports. Performance was 1.35 million British thermal units perbarrel of oil produced vs. a target of 1.26 Btu. Contributing factorsincluded higher-than-expected gas consumption at its Autora mine dueto startup of a second production area, combined withlower-than-planned bitumen recovery and high energy consumptioncaused by unplanned outages of major production equipment.A major rift over global warmingAir pollution is a major concern for environmentalists. ProcessingAlberta tar sands generates emissions of greenhouse gases, sulfur andparticulate matter from all phases of the operations.Environmentalists say they are particularly worried that emissionsfrom increased tar sands processing will prevent Canada fromachieving its goals under the Kyoto Protocol, an international treatyaimed at reducing industrial pollution linked to global warming.Nationwide, Canada is trying to reduce emissions by 45 megatonnes,and measures being considered for limiting emissions nationwide wouldmake the tar sands companies responsible for about 12 percent of thenation's post-Kyoto greenhouse gases.The national government in Ottawa and the province of Alberta, whoseleaders have opposed the Kyoto treaty since its inception, remainsplit on the greenhouse gas issue.The Canadian government last month unveiled its plan to meet Kyotomandates through direct greenhouse gas emissions reduction, carboncredit trading and paying into a government-administered fund toencourage new carbon reduction technologies. This month thegovernment issued guidelines for an energy credit system that willallow large greenhouse gas producers to buy and trade emissionscredits while penalizing companies that produce excess pollution.The government pledged in the proposed rule to meet its Kyotoobligations beginning in 2008, while recognizing that broadereconomic transformation will be necessary to achieve GHG reductiontargets set out by Kyoto for the post-2012 period.Alberta, however, has long been opposed to the Kyoto Protocol,calling it a flawed agreement with unrealistic and unworkable targetsand timelines."Canada should be investing in the Canadian economy and Canadian jobs-- strategic investments such as Alberta's Innovative EnergyTechnologies Program, which supports pilot and demonstration projectsaimed at increasing recoveries from existing and new energyreserves," said Cathy Housdorff of the Alberta energy office.As individual companies work to reduce their energy intensity, theyhope to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions as well.Syncrude says it has succeeded in reducing greenhouse gas emissionsby 2 percent per year, and projects a 23 percent reduction in CO2emissions per barrel of crude oil produced by 2010, though totalemissions will rise because the company is significantly increasingits production and improving the quality of crude oil.The company also is working to reduce total emissions of sulfurdioxide by 60 percent per day from current levels of 245 metric tonsper day, and even with adding extra production of 100,000 barrels perday this year, total SO2 emissions will fall by 15 percent, thecompany says. This is the result of a new flue gas desulfurizationunit being added to the plant facility through the $8 billionexpansion project. The new unit will virtually eliminate all SO2emissions from a new fluid coker, as well as from the tail gas of allSyncrude sulfur recovery plants.Shell's greenhouse gas emissions from its Albian Sands site were 3.4million metric tons in 2004, with plans to reduce those emissions to1,750 million metric tons by 2008, according to company documents."Our goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the oil sands by50 percent of design by 2010," said Jones, the Albian Sands' chiefoperating officer. That level would put the oil from the Albian Sandssite on par with or better gases produced by imported crude oilsupplies.While efforts by individual companies are good, they are not going tohelp Canada meet the Kyoto goals, Sierra Club's Hazell said."If these guys scale up their production," he said, "they could blowour targets just by virtue of the tar sands."
ATHABASCA OIL SANDS, Alberta -- Nobody said sucking 175 millionbarrels of oil out of sand was going to be easy or tidy.And it isn't. Environmental challenges posed by massive operationsthat strip-mine forests and extract bitumen embedded in sand beneathare proving as vast as Alberta's tar sands region, an area the sizeof Florida.Questions about environmental protections abound. Can companies limitgreenhouse gases and other air emissions from their tar sandsoperations? Can they separate oil from sand without using large slugsof water from the Athabasca River and massive amounts of natural gas?And can they restore the ravaged landscape to something approximatingnatural conditions?Companies working here say they are making considerable strides inprotecting the environment. They are eager to discuss their effortsto reduce air pollution and water use and boast of their post-miningrestorations, including one where rolling hills support bison herds."Environmental management is a huge growth area" for the tar sandscompanies, says Janet Annisely of Shell Oil Co., majority owner ofthe Albian Sands Inc. project here. Syncrude, which operates theworld's largest tar sands production facility, for example, boasts ofspending more than $30 million a year on science and technology andcalls its 4,000 on-site employees "environmental managers."The view west from the top of the coker under construction at theSyncrude plant, with a view of one of the plant's tailings lakes.Photo by Mary O'Driscoll.But critics say the environmental work done so far has been highlyexperimental and that there is no definitive answer as to thelong-term harm tar sands production is doing to northern Alberta."They're operating on a hope and a prayer that it will work out inthe future," said Dan Woynillowicz of the Pembina Institute forAppropriate Development, a Canadian think tank monitoring theenvironmental and economic effects of tar sands projects. "Andultimately, if there is a problem in the future, will they be willingto accept that they'll have to try to deal with it then?"The debate appears to hinge on whether the process can be donecleanly, or whether the tar sands should be mined and produced at all-- particularly given its enthusiastic backers' goal of triplingcurrent production by 2015."If you don't like mining on public land, you don't like this," saida staffer for a Western member of Congress who toured the Alberta tarsands region this month.And environmentalists do not like it. Not one bit."When they talk about how well they're doing, it's in the context ofthe filthiest industry one can imagine," said Stephen Hazell of theSierra Club of Canada. "I can't think of another industry that causesso much damage."Citing the greenhouse gas emissions and other air pollution, wateruse and other problems, Hazell added, "It all has to be put withinthat context. Yes, they're improving their performance, but what isthe baseline they're starting from? You have to sort of go back tothe 19th century to find parallels."Bitumen comes out, 'clean sand' goes back inBitumen mining takes a heavy toll on the landscape, as giant shovelsscrape and trucks the size of two-story houses haul away entireforests to get to the oil-rich sands and leave behind a barrenmoonscape. The smell of hydrocarbons hangs over the Albian Sandssite, owned jointly by Shell Canada, ChevronTexaco and Western OilSands Inc., as each truck carries the equivalent of 200 barrels ofoil to the start of the long process of becoming gasoline.Digging mines requires digging ditches to divert groundwater tooff-site ponds. Extracting the oil from the sands and upgrading thebitumen for refining requires drawing water from the Athabasca River,mixing it with water recycled from earlier runs through the system,to separate oil from sand.Heat is critical to the process. It forces "clean" sand to expand.Small mountains of mined sand stretch along the highway leading northfrom Fort McMurray to the Albian Sands site.This "clean" sand is used to fill mined areas. It is then covered bytopsoil, which was stripped away from the forest floor, and re-seededwith trees and shrubs. The companies call this reclamation.Syncrude, which has been mining tar sands since 1978 near MildredLake, just south of the Albian Sands site off Highway 63, says it"reclaims" about 741 acres a year at a cost of $10 million(Canadian). To date, the company says it has permanently reclaimedabout 8,401 acres of land, planting more than 2.8 million trees andshrub seedlings. By 2010, the company plans to have reclaimed morethan 17,000 acres.Syncrude's massive oil production facility is the largest singlesource of crude oil in Canada. It produces 13 percent of thecountry's annual oil requirements. Its Mildred Lake operation abuts amassive extraction and upgrade facility that is in the final stagesof an $8 billion expansion that will add equipment the company sayswill help reduce stack emissions of sulfur by 60 percent from today'slevels of 245 metric tons a day.Just south of Syncrude's plant is the company's first mining site. Itis now reclaimed -- rolling hills of grass and trees that support aherd of buffalo. The site includes a pond used for mine tailings.Looking northwest, tailings ponds and reclaimed mine area southeastof the Syncrude plant. The land to the west of this site has beenreclaimed to the point where it supports a herd of buffalo. Photo byMary O'Driscoll.Across Highway 63 is what appears to be a massive tidal flat withwet, light-brown sand that Syncrude spokesman Allan Reich said isanother mine site in the process of being reclaimed. Officials saidthat it would take 12 to 15 years to turn the site into rolling,grass-covered hills."It's our obligation to return the land to its equivalentcapability," Reich said. However, because the volume of the "clean"sand is larger than that of tar sand, he said, "At the end of theday, it will be more hilly than the day we came."The tailings ponds, some the size of lakes, include water from themines as well as water that has not been recycled through theextraction and upgrading process. The plan is to let the tailingssettle to the bottom, while the cleaner water rises to the top. Theponds would then be "capped" with fresh water that, eventually, wouldbe able to support aquatic life. Syncrude officials say theirresearch shows that can happen within two to three years ofcompletion of the fine tailings deposition process.The company also is combining fine tails with gypsum and sand throughthe deposition process, causing the tailings to settle faster andenabling Syncrude to develop landscapes that support grass, trees andwetlands. Also, the company and the Canadian Oil Sands Network forResearch and Development (CONRAD), are working on a "paste"technology that produces a soft clay out of the tailings that can beused immediately for reclamation into a finished landscape.Wildlife habitat at issueA key issue: How will tar sands' oil production affect habitat forendangered woodland caribou as well as the native black bears, mooseand wolves?The in situ production of oil, which is used in some parts of theAthabasca area and pipes steam into the bitumen reserves so it can bepumped out, much like conventional drilling, poses a particulardanger for the caribou, Woynillowicz said, because the processinvolves a network of pipes from one drill pad to another. Predatorywolves use the pipeline rights of way as highways that provide readyaccess to the caribou that do not like the noise and activity of thedrilling. That, he said, is changing the predator-prey balance.Tailings ponds at mine sites provide a particular challenge to thecompanies, as they need to keep wildlife away from the poisonouswater. Migratory birds are particularly difficult to shoo. AtSyncrude, Reich said the company fires cannons at regular intervalsto ward birds off the site, and also uses scarecrows -- unofficiallydubbed "bitu-men" -- to keep them away.Shell's Annisley said her company's research shows that birds getaccustomed to cannon fire, so instead the Albian Sands site uses whatit calls "bird-avert" technology -- large mechanical peregrinefalcons perched on "islands" in tailings lakes. The falcons areequipped with radar that senses when birds are near and makeperegrine sounds and wave their wings to scare them off.While companies express confidence in their research and work todate, environmentalists are wary. The removal of the bitumen from thesands and the use of tailings as the base of the ponds and lakesmeans the chemistry underground will be very different from theregion's normal state, raising questions about water flows and theireffects on native plants and species, they say."There's a lot of uncertainty, a lot of questions," Woynillowiczsaid. "At the end of the day, they're putting forth a confident facethat their experiment is going to work. But this is a large-scaleexperimental gamble with the future of the Athabasca River watershed."Two barrels of water for every barrel of oil?Environmentalists cite further fears about potential damage beingdone by companies' large water withdrawals from the Athabasca River.Environmentalists contend that tar sands processing requires anywherefrom four to six barrels of water for every barrel of oil. ButAnnisley said Shell uses two barrels of fresh river water for everybarrel of oil. She also said the company recycles about 80 percent ofthe water it now uses and is looking to further reduce the amount ofwater consumed by the process.The Athabasca River rises from the Columbia Icefield in the CanadianRockies and flows 956 miles north and east through mountains,prairies, forests and peat bogs into Lake Athabasca on the farnortheast border between Alberta and Saskatchewan in Wood BuffaloNational Park.There are no industry-wide figures for how much water the companiesuse, though Woynillowicz contends that at peak production, the siteswill use 350 million cubic meters of water a year -- roughly theamount of water used by a city of 2 million.Shell, whose Albian Sands project came on line in 2003 and usesarguably the most advanced technologies for mining the oil sands,used 26.9 million cubic meters of fresh water that year. Improvementsin the process meant the company used 22.2 million cubic meters offresh water in 2004.At the Syncrude site, the company uses 4,000 cubic meters of waterevery hour, recycling more than 70 percent of it, according tocompany reports.Energy production that consumes a lot of energyThe tar-sands process also uses huge and growing amounts of naturalgas -- at a time of soaring gas prices and when gas resources in theWestern Canada Sedimentary Basin are starting to decline. So effortsto ramp up tar-sand operations is raising concerns that the naturalgas from the MacKenzie Delta in the Arctic region, which is slated tocome to U.S. markets, instead could end up being used for tar sandsproduction.Mining equipment, such as electric power shovels used to removetopsoil, which the companies call "overburden," and recover tarsands, need energy, as do the pipelines and facilities that mix waterwith the oil sands to extract the bitumen and the upgrading processthat turns bitumen into higher-quality synthetic crude oil.All the processes use natural gas as a source of heat, as well as asource of hydrogen for the cracking and treating processes. TheAlbian Sands site, which only involves production and extraction,uses $15 million worth of natural gas a month, says Chief OperatingOfficer Chris Jones. The National Energy Board of Canada (NEB)estimates that the mining-extraction-upgrading process requires about500,000 cubic feet of gas for every barrel of bitumen.The in situ recovery process, which is more like traditional miningand is used in the Peace River and Cold Lake oil sands regions, aremore energy-intensive and require even more gas use than the miningand extraction process. Here, companies use gas to make steam, whichis injected into underground formations to force bitumen intoproducing wells. The NEB estimates that in situ generally takes 1million cubic feet of gas to produce a barrel of bitumen.The total projected requirements for use of natural gas with in siturecovery are anywhere from 1.2 billion cubic feet per day to 1.8 Bcfper day by 2015, according to the NEB report.Companies say they are working to reduce their energy use, throughbetter use of equipment, improved technologies and use ofcogeneration at mining sites, which allows them to sell power back tothe grid.However, achieving those goals can be difficult: Syncrude did notmeet its target for energy efficiency in 2004, according to companyreports. Performance was 1.35 million British thermal units perbarrel of oil produced vs. a target of 1.26 Btu. Contributing factorsincluded higher-than-expected gas consumption at its Autora mine dueto startup of a second production area, combined withlower-than-planned bitumen recovery and high energy consumptioncaused by unplanned outages of major production equipment.A major rift over global warmingAir pollution is a major concern for environmentalists. ProcessingAlberta tar sands generates emissions of greenhouse gases, sulfur andparticulate matter from all phases of the operations.Environmentalists say they are particularly worried that emissionsfrom increased tar sands processing will prevent Canada fromachieving its goals under the Kyoto Protocol, an international treatyaimed at reducing industrial pollution linked to global warming.Nationwide, Canada is trying to reduce emissions by 45 megatonnes,and measures being considered for limiting emissions nationwide wouldmake the tar sands companies responsible for about 12 percent of thenation's post-Kyoto greenhouse gases.The national government in Ottawa and the province of Alberta, whoseleaders have opposed the Kyoto treaty since its inception, remainsplit on the greenhouse gas issue.The Canadian government last month unveiled its plan to meet Kyotomandates through direct greenhouse gas emissions reduction, carboncredit trading and paying into a government-administered fund toencourage new carbon reduction technologies. This month thegovernment issued guidelines for an energy credit system that willallow large greenhouse gas producers to buy and trade emissionscredits while penalizing companies that produce excess pollution.The government pledged in the proposed rule to meet its Kyotoobligations beginning in 2008, while recognizing that broadereconomic transformation will be necessary to achieve GHG reductiontargets set out by Kyoto for the post-2012 period.Alberta, however, has long been opposed to the Kyoto Protocol,calling it a flawed agreement with unrealistic and unworkable targetsand timelines."Canada should be investing in the Canadian economy and Canadian jobs-- strategic investments such as Alberta's Innovative EnergyTechnologies Program, which supports pilot and demonstration projectsaimed at increasing recoveries from existing and new energyreserves," said Cathy Housdorff of the Alberta energy office.As individual companies work to reduce their energy intensity, theyhope to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions as well.Syncrude says it has succeeded in reducing greenhouse gas emissionsby 2 percent per year, and projects a 23 percent reduction in CO2emissions per barrel of crude oil produced by 2010, though totalemissions will rise because the company is significantly increasingits production and improving the quality of crude oil.The company also is working to reduce total emissions of sulfurdioxide by 60 percent per day from current levels of 245 metric tonsper day, and even with adding extra production of 100,000 barrels perday this year, total SO2 emissions will fall by 15 percent, thecompany says. This is the result of a new flue gas desulfurizationunit being added to the plant facility through the $8 billionexpansion project. The new unit will virtually eliminate all SO2emissions from a new fluid coker, as well as from the tail gas of allSyncrude sulfur recovery plants.Shell's greenhouse gas emissions from its Albian Sands site were 3.4million metric tons in 2004, with plans to reduce those emissions to1,750 million metric tons by 2008, according to company documents."Our goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the oil sands by50 percent of design by 2010," said Jones, the Albian Sands' chiefoperating officer. That level would put the oil from the Albian Sandssite on par with or better gases produced by imported crude oilsupplies.While efforts by individual companies are good, they are not going tohelp Canada meet the Kyoto goals, Sierra Club's Hazell said."If these guys scale up their production," he said, "they could blowour targets just by virtue of the tar sands."
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