The federal and Alberta governments and the oil industry are making multi-million dollar investments aimed at addressing the impact of oilsands development on land and water usage and carbon emissions, in some cases independently and other cases partnering on specific projects and initiatives.
The federal government invests in oilsands research through a number of departments and agencies, including Natural Resources Canada, the National Research Council, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), and Sustainable Development Technology Canada.
Earlier this year the government announced that it was investing $9.5-million through the National Research Council in a plant that will use algae to filter carbon emissions at a Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. oilsands project. In 2012 the federal government invested over $40-million in clean energy research and development through its ecoEnergy Technology program, with almost all of the funding going towards the oil and gas sector in Alberta and Saskatchewan.
One industry-led effort to address environmental impacts in the sector is the Canadian Oil Sands Innovation Alliance. Unveiled in March 2012, the organization is made up of 12 companies operating in the oilsands and provides a forum for sharing environmental innovations and practices to address water and land usage, tailings, and greenhouse gas emissions. To date, the organization says that its members have shared 446 technologies and innovations worth $700-million in research and development.
University of Alberta’s Centre for Oil Sands Innovation (COSI), whose funding sources include Imperial Oil, Alberta Innovates Energy and Environmental Solutions, NSERC, and Natural Resources Canada, is also conducting ongoing research into oilsands innovation. The centre is focused on “blue sky research”—developing unique solutions based on technology that is not currently being used by the industry.
Murray Gray, the centre’s scientific director, is currently researching a water-free method for separating bitumen from sediment in open-pit mining by using solvents to eliminate tailings. Imperial Oil is funding the laboratory research, and the company will soon determine whether or not to invest $30-million in large scale deployment of the technology.
Prof. Gray described tailings as a “25-year problem for the industry.”
He’s hopeful that COSI’s research will help solve the problem.
“It would use essentially no water and produce dry material that’s ready to go right back into the mine. No tailings ponds, no significant use of freshwater,” he explained.
The industry has had long-standing problem managing the tailings that are produced in the oilsands extraction process.
Alberta’s regulations on tailings were introduced by the Energy Resources Conservation Board in 2009, but a report released by the regulator in June found that oilsands operators were failing to meet their performance commitments and had not met “original expectations” under the framework.
COSI is also doing research into reducing the amount of energy required in the bitumen upgrading process by testing catalysts that would allow processing to occur at lower temperatures.
Asked why the industry continues to struggle with its reputation despite all the technological research addressing environmental impacts, Prof. Gray blamed “a targeted campaign” against the oilsands, but also a failure by the industry to meet its environmental commitments.
“The industry has had some problems living up to its own promises,” he acknowledged, referencing the recent ERCB tailings assessment.
Prof. Gray also noted that there is an unrealistic public expectation that sites be remediated immediately.
“This is not an overnight thing where you wave a magic wand, the mine is remediated, and everything is green grass and bison,” he said. “Going through a mining plan, opening up a mine, extracting the resource, reclaiming the mine, and putting it back into a productive landscape is a two or three decade proposition.”
But Alberta’s rules around tailings aren’t the only regulations that have fallen short of objectives. Recently released research by Global Forest Watch and Treeline Ecological Research found that the province’s Ministry of Environmental and Sustainable Resource Development has penalized less than one per cent of regulatory infractions in the oilsands between 1996 and 2012. Of 4,000 reported infractions, the groups found evidence of departmental action in only 37 cases over the 16-year period.
Simon Dyer, policy director at the Pembina Institute, said that it’s the absence of regulation on the oil and gas sector that is “the real impediment” to improved environmental outcomes in the oilsands.
“The regulatory process actually rewards the status quo. Projects are approved based on status quo technologies, there really is no incentive through the regulatory process to drive innovation,” Mr. Dyer told The Hill Times. “Why would a company take the risk of trying new environmentally innovative technology if an old technology still results in approval?”
Mr. Dyer expects that the industry will continue to struggle with its reputation until regulations are brought in that address the cumulative impacts of development, including water and land usage, greenhouse gas emissions, and biodiversity.
“Until we address the cumulative effects... I think the reputation is going to continue to erode. It’s not that any one oilsands project by itself is unacceptable, but the number of projects and the pace and scale that they’re proceeding at is creating unacceptable impacts,” he said.
Former environment minister Peter Kent (Thornhill, Ont.) had pledged to introduce draft oil and gas regulations this summer, but he was replaced by Leona Aglukkaq (Nunavut) in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s recent Cabinet shuffle.
The Hill Times contacted Ms. Aglukkaq’s office for comment on when the new regulations would be ready, but questions were redirected to Environment Canada’s communications department.
“The federal government is focused on a realistic approach to GHG regulations that will reduce emissions while continuing to create jobs and encouraging the growth of the Canadian economy,” Environment Canada spokesperson Mark Johnson stated in an email. “As the regulations are still being developed, it would be premature to comment further.”
Original Article
Source: hilltimes.com
Author: Chris Plecash
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