ROCKMAN wrote:"It's been rather hypocritical of some Americans to protest Canadian tar sands oil". But isn't it hypocritical to protest the producers of any fossil fuel given that the overwhelming amount of GHG produced is created by the consumers burning them? Even with our above average IQ crowd here what the ration of fossil fuel producer criticism vs fossil fuel consumer criticism? Maybe 5 to 1? Or 10 to 1? How many folks here blame fossil fuel producers for climate change who themselves are a part of THE major source of GHG...the consumers?
The Climate Vulnerability Forum, an alliance of 20 countries that are especially vulnerable to climate change, has teamed up with DARA, an international humanitarian organization funded by UNICEF, to bring us the Climate Vulnerability Monitor, one of the most comprehensive attempts to quantify the deaths and economic damage that climate change is already causing around the world. Their verdict?
[C]limate change causes 400,000 deaths on average each year today, mainly due to hunger and communicable diseases that affect above all children in developing countries. Our present carbon-intensive energy system and related activities cause an estimated 4.5 million deaths each year linked to air pollution, hazardous occupations and cancer.
Climate change caused economic losses estimated close to 1% of global GDP for the year 2010, or 700 billion dollars (2010 PPP). The carbon-intensive economy cost the world another 0.7% of GDP in that year, independent of any climate change losses. Together, carbon economy- and climate change-related losses amounted to over 1.2 trillion dollars in 2010.
These are staggering figures. Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions from the industrial revolution to present are about 2.2% of global emissions, and mix with the emissions from other countries, causing climate damages in communities around the world. If we focus on climate change impacts (400,000 deaths and US$700 Billion)*, Canada’s GHG emissions can be said to be responsible for 8,800 deaths and $15.4 Billion in damages each year.
The advice that’s given to people who have a problem they created for themselves is “if you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.”
It’s time for Canada to stop digging.
We need to stop causing further harm, and we need a discussion about who should pay for the harm that we can no longer avoid, and how. As a country, we need to implement and enforce a price on carbon that will shift us away from our fossil fuel dependence, and our role in causing harm to other people and substantial economic losses.
kanon wrote:52 million cubic metres of bitumen is approx 3.12 billion barrels.
Yes, they are [1]. Using the more appropriate “full fuel cycle” analysis, which includes all emissions from extracting the fuel out of the ground, to refining it and burning it in your automobile, tar sands produce 15%-20% more greenhouse gas emissions than regular oil. Less usefully for understanding the true climate impacts, the State Department’s analysis of the Keystone XL did not consider a full fuel cycle analysis, which is a big part of why it was more favorable towards them.
Alberta's oil sands represent a significant tonnage of carbon. With today's technology there are roughly 170 billion barrels of oil to be recovered in the tar sands, and an additional 1.63 trillion barrels worth underground if every last bit of bitumen could be separated from sand. "The amount of CO2 locked up in Alberta tar sands is enormous," notes mechanical engineer John Abraham of the University of Saint Thomas in Minnesota, another signer of the Keystone protest letter from scientists. "If we burn all the tar sand oil, the temperature rise, just from burning that tar sand, will be half of what we've already seen"—an estimated additional nearly 0.4 degree C from Alberta alone.
As it stands, the oil sands industry has greenhouse gas emissions greater than New Zealand and Kenya—combined. If all the bitumen in those sands could be burned, another 240 billion metric tons of carbon would be added to the atmosphere and, even if just the oil sands recoverable with today's technology get burned, 22 billion metric tons of carbon would reach the sky. And reserves usually expand over time as technology develops, otherwise the world would have run out of recoverable oil long ago.
The greenhouse gas emissions of mining and upgrading tar sands is roughly 79 kilograms per barrel of oil presently, whereas melting out the bitumen in place requires burning a lot of natural gas—boosting emissions to more than 116 kilograms per barrel, according to oil industry consultants IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates. All told, producing and processing tar sands oil results in roughly 14 percent more greenhouse gas emissions than the average oil used in the U.S. And greenhouse gas emissions per barrel have stopped improving and started increasing slightly, thanks to increasing development of greenhouse gas–intensive melting-in-place projects. "Emissions have doubled since 1990 and will double again by 2020," says Jennifer Grant, director of oil sands research at environmental group Pembina Institute in Canada.
Lore wrote:The best way to eliminate a problem is to go after the source. Slowly making the price of CO2 producing fuels too expensive to use in quantity means the sooner we can transition to less carbon producing alternatives.
It's kind of ridiculous actually for humans to use up their most dense source of energy in a few hundred year flash and then worry about what to do after it becomes too rare to use.
Alberta, the Canadian province whose carbon-intensive oil sands are the largest source U.S. oil imports, said on Tuesday it would have new climate change regulations in place by June 30, when the current rules expire.
Shannon Phillips, the environment minister for the province's newly elected left-wing government, said in a statement that her first steps would include energy-efficiency and renewable-energy strategies.
The New Democratic Party, which ended 44 years of government by the Conservative Party in Alberta in an election last month, has been pressed to have a new climate change strategy in place before late November's United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris.
"This government will take leadership on the issue of climate change and make sure Alberta is part of crafting solutions with stakeholders, other provinces and the federal government," Phillips said.
Under its current Specified Gas Emitters Policy, put in place in 2007, the province charges large emitters of greenhouse gases, such as oil sands projects, C$15 per tonne of emissions. Greenhouse gas emissions have continued to grow, however, reaching 249 million tonnes of carbon-dioxide emissions by 2012 on rising oil sands output.
The world’s biggest spenders on oil and gas assets have suddenly become extremely thrifty – and the world is taking notice.
The last decade saw China’s biggest national oil companies (NOCs) – Petrochina, Sinopec and China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) – buy international oil assets like no other. According to data from Petroleum Intelligence Weekly, the three Chinese NOCs made net purchases of foreign oil assets worth $104.1 billion between 2009 and 2013. To put this in perspective, the net purchases made by the three largest US oil companies during the same period were only $9 billion.
China’s retrenchment is on display in Canada’s oil patch. Petrochina faced criticism for investing in Canadian startups and ignoring the producing assets. CNOOC was ridiculed for cost-cutting and slashing its workforce in Ottawa after acquiring Nexen Inc., and Sinopec received flak after it backed out of its commitment to invest more in Sunshine Oilsands Limited.
Outcast_Searcher wrote:Lore wrote:The best way to eliminate a problem is to go after the source. Slowly making the price of CO2 producing fuels too expensive to use in quantity means the sooner we can transition to less carbon producing alternatives.
It's kind of ridiculous actually for humans to use up their most dense source of energy in a few hundred year flash and then worry about what to do after it becomes too rare to use.
I agree 100%. Now, being pretty much the ONLY person I know of who openly states he wishes for a roughly $20 tax (raised gradually, to keep from destroying the economy in the short term) on each and every gallon of gasoline and fossil fuel equivalent, to greatly incentivize conservation and a move to green alternatives -- how in the real world with real voters and real politicians, do we even BEGIN to accomplish that?
(Hint -- the response from almost everyone is to either want to stone me or just say I'm insane. Most people don't want ANY gas tax rise, except for possible a little to be devoted ONLY to transpo infrastructure repair).
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