Bird’s Eye: An excellent article from MIT’s Technology Review explores the tar sands issue in intelligent and unbiased (ymmv) detail. Two key points it argues: the question is when and how the development will happen, not if; the Canadian government can control the amount of pollution and carbon released by setting penalties for doing that. At present, there is no penalty for pollution, so it doesn’t make economic sense to invest money in finding ways to reduce it. We follow up with an amusing etymological piece exploring why you may say “oil sands” and I say “tar sands”, and end with Peter Kent, Canada’s environment minister, accusing those who oppose the tar sands of being traitors to Canada.
*Alberta’s Oil Sands Heat Up Technology Review
The question for oil-sands innovators is whether the financial risk of developing new types of in situ technologies will pay off. Cenovus needs a global oil price of just $45 to $50 per barrel to turn a profit on its Christina Lake investments; with prices now above $75 per barrel, it is making good money. In an era of cheap natural gas and pricey oil, Canada’s bitumen producers will need an extra push before they commit billions of dollars to alternatives to mining and SAGD…. Says Heather MacLean, a professor of engineering and public policy at the University of Toronto, “There has to be some type of a policy push … to really motivate the most efficient production and reduction of greenhouse gases and other environmental impacts.” What is needed, she says, is a price on carbon. Two years ago, Alberta introduced a carbon tax of $15 per ton, but that covers only a portion of industrial emissions, and even oil executives dismiss its impact on investments. “It’s in the tens of cents per barrel,” says Zieglgansberger.
* You Say Oil Sands, I Say Tar Sands… OpenFile
Type in “Alberta tar sands” into Google, and you get 852,000 results. Perform a search for “Alberta oil sands” instead, and you end up with 334,000 results—not even half that. And if you change “Alberta” to “Alberta’s,” the gap widens even further.
So why do most media outlets tend to default to the phrase “oil sands”? Is “tar sands” pejorative? Or do both terms carry their own bias?
* Oil Sands Opponents Treacherous: Canadian Environment Minister Reuters
In a sign of the strain the Canadian government is feeling over development of the tar sands, Environment Minister Peter Kent said on Wednesday that opposition legislators who campaigned in Washington against the idea were treacherous…. Much to Kent’s anger, two members of Parliament from the opposition New Democrats went to Washington this week to argue the pipeline should not go ahead until Canada has come up with a better plan to combat climate change. “One of the opposition parties has taken the treacherous course of leaving the domestic debate and heading abroad to attack a legitimate Canadian resource which is being responsibly developed and regulated,” Kent told reporters.
