In a wide-ranging and candid interview with The Globe & Mail’s Editorial Board, Canada’s Environment Minister has admitted what environmental activists have been saying for years — that carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology probably won’t work at the Alberta Tar Sands. Nevertheless, over the last 18 months, the provincial and federal governments have offered the Alberta oil industry and power utilities almost $3 billion in funding to establish CCS demonstrations in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Most oil producers have shown little interest, but a few coal-fired power demonstration pilots will likely be approved.
“CCS is not the silver bullet in the oil sands,” said Prentice. “It’s important, but it is really in the upgrading of bitumen that CCS has more promise, rather than in the mining or in situ production.”
Minister Jim Prentice said that he is watching several projects closely that are testing solvents — instead of natural gas — in the extraction process to see if they cut GHG emissions. The Alberta oil sands are the fastest growing source of carbon pollution in Canada, and a big reason why the government is only promising to cut CO2 emissions by 2% by 2020 over 1990 levels.
Prentice does believe that CCS holds promise for capturing emissions that are produced by upgrading bitumen to a usable product. The problem with this acknowledgment is that most tar sands oil is sent to the US for refining.
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I have to say that this is the very first time that our Environment Minister has actually sounded like an Environment Minister. I’m still trying to figure out if he went off-script.
For more current news on the Alberta Tar Sands, have a look at Clearing the Air of Oil Sands Myths at the Pembina Institute.
Dear Random Environmentalist,
If you want my attention please do the following: call them the OIL sands. Tar is produced from wood, and has nothing to do with the bitumen produced from the oil sands. When you say ‘Tar Sands’, I know to immediately stop listening, because you have no idea what you are talking about.
I am not normally a conspiracy guy (nut) but this video kind of gave me the chills. What is the government up to? You be the judge. Here is a link to the page: http://tinyurl.com/cgrjnzt
Where by do you locate this specific design?
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