The Alberta government is trying desperately to make sure that oil sands oil doesn’t get blocked from the US market when new fuel policies come into effect.  As it stands, oil from Alberta’s oil sands will likely be blocked from California under the world-leading Low Carbon Fuel Standard.

In its efforts, the Government of Alberta commissioned two studies (TIAX – Executive Summary and Full Study -  and Jacobs - Executive Summary and Full Study) to analyse the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions associated with various types of crude oil – including crude processed from Canadian oil sands.  They found that some oil sands oil has lifecycle emissions comparable to some conventional crude oil (although most oil sands results turned out to be considerably higher than most conventional crude oils).  The attached image, from the Jacobs consultancy report, summarizes the findings.  Note that 70 gCO2e/MJ gasoline, which make up the bulk of the emissions, are embodied in the actual fuel.  The variation seen in this image is attributed to different production life cycles.  “Thermal” and “mining” refer to different development styles for oil sands in Canada.

Now, these reports have come under considerable criticism from organizations who don’t want to see oil sands / tar sands oil flowing into the US anymore, such as the Natural Resource Defence Council’s blog on the issue.  Honestly, this isn’t the interesting discussion for me.

The interesting thing for me is that different conventional crude oils have different lifecycle GHG emissions, possibly differing up to 10%, such as in the case between Arab Medium and Bonny Light, as illustrated above.

This means that any transport sector GHG emission analyses that assume one value for crude oil WTW emissions might be off by several percentage points, depending on the difference between the assumed weighted average of crude oil LCA GHG emissions, and the actual weighted average.

I like advanced biofuels as a means of reducing lifecycle GHG emissions in the transport sector, but if significant emission reductions can be achieved by simply shifting sources of crude oil from one supplier to another, this is also an important consideration to make, given that advanced biofuel technology is not quite commercialized yet.

It would be incumbent on China energy analysts to understand the relative sources of crude oil to China, and to undertake LCAs on each of those sources so as to minimize GHG emissions from the transport sector during this time of transition to alternative sources of energy.  Similarly, analyses on different sources of coal should be undertaken in order to accomplish the same lower carbon shifting of conventional energy sources.

The blog post I read was by Ken Chapman on CCS in Alberta. The feeling I got from Mr. Parker’s comment is that he doesn’t support CCS development, nor biofuel development, and I would like to know if this is also the position that the Green Party takes.

I’d like to mention that I am sympathetic to the views of the Green Party, and the need to have fundamental change in the way society and governance works in order to achieve sustainability, and I can see how from a Canadian perspective, where there are lots of opportunities to live more sustainably using energy efficiency, public transit, etc. as a means to reduce GHG emissions.

However, after living in China for 4.5 years, and working in the environment and energy policy sphere here, I see that Canada (and other developed countries) is a special case in this regard. In fact, countries like China and India and other developing countries already use huge amounts of public transit in their cities, and working on energy efficiency like crazy (for the vast majority of people here, life is “low carbon”). However, they still feel that their citizens have the right to live a high-quality, modern lifestyle as we all do in Canada. And who are we to disagree?

The fact of the matter is that countries like China are increasing their dependence on fossil fuels at rates completely unimaginable in Canada. Indeed, as recently highlighted by McKinsey’s “China’s Green Revolution” report, even with a continuation of China’s current energy efficiency improvement efforts and a 4.8% annual growth rate of carbon efficiency, China’s green house gas emissions in 2030 will be more than double 2005 levels (14.5 Gt per year of CO2e in 2030 vs. 6.8 Gt per year in 2005)  (Thanks to China Environmental Law Blog for pointing that out) .

In order to accomplish economic growth, China needs to increase its energy security, and as we all know, that means development of its vast coal resources and available biofuel resources. China doesn’t trust international oil markets, and other renewable energies simply cannot keep up with its growth. Since coal is basically unavoidable in this situation, development of IGCC and CCS power generation/carbon management technologies is also unavoidable and necessary. CCS systems attached to Coal-to-Liquid (CTL) are also completely necessary as China aggressively develops this fuel chain in order to decrease its dependence on foreign oil.

The second problem is that China sees climate change as a problem created by developed countries, including Canada, and a problem that needs to be solved, in large measure, by developed countries. It is therefore insisting that technology developed in developed countries be transferred to China for free or at preferential rates.

So, we have a problem. China insists that it needs technology. Developed countries are going to send it. Does Canada want to benefit from the development of that technology or not?

The only way Canada will benefit is to encourage scientists, engineers, and industry to engage in these climate-change marginal, but completely necessary technologies, whether it is through government spending, or whatever other support government can give. The fact is that, if developed properly, these technologies are better than simply burning coal and releasing emissions into the air.

I encourage the Green Party, and all of Canada’s political parties, to take a global view to its domestic policies. Climate change is a global problem, and it cannot be solved domestically in Canada without cooperating abroad. We don’t have the population or the strength to do so. The only way we can help solve this problem is to make ourselves known, and to contribute to the development of technologies that developing countries need, whether we in Canada need them or not.

Actually, I agree completely with many of the things that he said. We do need to have a wartime mentality to deal with climate change issues. And not a “war on drugs” or “war on terror” kind of mentality, but one that mobilizes all of society to try and deal with this one problem that humans the world over need to deal with in a hurry. Wind power is a great idea, and biofuels are going to cause a whole lot of problems.

Indeed, as he mentioned: Saving civilization is not a spectator sport.  However, I don’t think Mr. Brown’s approach is going to work in China if he continues the way it is.

1. Right off the bat, Lester encouraged everyone to engage their elected officials to prevent coal power plants and support alternative energies.  Um, hello?  We’re not in Kansas anymore, Mr. Brown.
2. After the talk, my colleague (a Chinese girl who studied environmental economics overseas) said to me, “it was alright, but he was so negative.”  I realized after hearing this type of comment a zillion times from all sorts of Chinese people, that Chinese culture doesn’t deal with negativity very well.  People don’t want to listen to it, and don’t want to react to it.
3. China has a whole lot of people that it doesn’t know what to do with.  Digging coal and heaving it around keeps millions of unskilled people employed and relatively happy – or at least distracted.  I’m sure President Hu doesn’t want dissatisfied unskilled labourers with nothing to do on his hands, regardless of the environmental impacts.

I don’t mean to be negative, but I think if Americans or any other westerners with fantastic visionary ideas are going to come to China and hope to have an impact on the public, they are going to have to do better.  They have to realize that there are 4 times more people to convince here than in the US, and all of them have a different way of looking at the world.

Doom and gloom and calling your representative aren’t going to cut it in China.  And Lester Brown should know it.  I hope we can all learn a lesson from this.

1. Doesn’t understand the bredth of policy development going on in China right now – is this reflecting on the work of the Canadian embassy in China?  Why can’t he be better informed…unless he’s doing this solely for political reasons.

2.  China and Canada actually have a lot in common, especially dirty energy (especially in Alberta).  China does use a higher proportion of coal to power its electricity economy but…

Anyway, both are interested in Carbon Capture and Storage technology.  Alberta has a long-term plan to develop this - at the same time, Alberta has a huge labour shortage.  China also has long-term interests in developing CCS.  Working together would certainly benefit both parties in so many different ways.  So, why doesn’t Canada invite Chinese companies to come to Alberta, with Chinese labourers, to build massive tracts of the Albertan CCS system?

There are certain benefits and drawbacks to this:

1. Political image in Canada: Chinese are taking our jobs – there is already a huge job shortage.  Chinese workers would be coming to fill surplus demand (how to allow people to see this).

2. Chinese stealing technology:  China has been “promised” capital and technology transfer in the Kyoto process to help them leapfrog old, dirty technologies.  What better way to fulfill that promise, and in the meantime, allow China experience in building technology that could eventually directly reduce their GHG emissions?

3.  Speed of implementation in Alberta:  If Alberta were to use Chinese labour to do this work, it would be done faster and cheaper.  There’s no question about that.  And the quality would be as good.  I know there are lots of political issues surrounding this.  But if our interest is actually in reducing GHG emissions, why would we so vehmently discount this possibility?

Well, it’s just an idea for now.  And what’s wrong with an idea?

The Calgary Herald reported today that Imperial Oil (whose parent company, Exxon, is one of the biggest corporate “climate change disblievers” out there) has demonstrated how good and selfless they are in developing the oil sands – for the sake of all the poor people in all the undeveloped countries out there.

Imperial’s new chief executive, Bruce March, described the oilsands as a vital global energy source in a world where billions of people live with poor sanitation, unsafe drinking water and inadequate or no electricity.

Call me naive.  Call me crazy.  But there are a few things that disturb me about this – and in my rage, I might not get this in quite the right order, so forgive me.

1. Oil sands contribute a large percentage of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions – maybe around 20% between 1990 and 2005.
2. Canada, according to recent government reports (I’ve got to cite a Reuters report for the time being stating that although Canada’s population makes up only 0.5% of the world’s total, it pumps out 2% of the worlds GHG emissions.
3. GHG emissions are putting poor starvign people in “undeveloped countries” under water, under sand (desertified) or under hurricanes/typhoons and other extreme weather conditions.  Pushing ahead with super-carbon intensive petroleum development like oilsands using current technology isn’t going to help them one iota.
4. Oil sands exports go to fuel US and Canada-based SUVs.  They don’t go to fuel poor starving people in ‘undeveloped countries.’  Please.  I know plans have been rekindled for Enbridge’s gateway pipeline, but there still nothing on the ground there.

I think Imperial’s got to take a good look in the mirror if they think they are doing the world a big huge favour by using present technology to develop oil sands.  Nobody – especially the poorest people in the world – needs more GHG emissions than are absolutely necessary.  And Alberta’s oil sands have time after time been proven to be a huge source of such gasses.

Let’s push Imperial, and all the other oil sands developers – to use the most cutting edge technology to reduce GHG and other emissions (including tailings). Let’s push the Alberta government to resist approving new development until new technologies such as Carbon Capture and Storage are developed and commericalized.  The world doesn’t have time to be grandfathering carbon-intense technology just because the price of oil is high today.