EU proposal scraps mandatory 'dirty' label for tar sands

EurActiv: A mandatory EU requirement to label oil from tar sands as more polluting than other forms of crude could be scrapped altogether following years of lobbying from top producer Canada, according to a draft European Commission proposal. The change removes one obstacle to Canada shipping crude from tar sands to Europe, but will be criticised by environmental campaigners.

The clay-like sands have to be dug up in open-pit mines with massive shovels, or blasted with steam and pumped to the surface, before oil can be extracted. As a result, the oil costs more to produce than regular crude, uses more water and energy, and emits more carbon.

Canada, oil majors and the refining industry have fiercely opposed EU plans to label tar sands as highly polluting. In the context of the Russia/Ukraine crisis and fears about European energy security, Canada argues Europe should be embracing its oil as a secure form of energy.

"We don't see the crisis in Ukraine as simply an opportunity to market Canadian products, but obviously we're deeply engaged in a discussion with our allies on how we can make sure that globally our energy supplies are secure and stable," Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper told reporters after G7 talks in Brussels on Thursday (5 June).

...The European Commission draft document proposed that oil refiners would only have to report an EU-wide average of the emissions for the feedstock they use. "The proposed methodology requires suppliers to report a (European) Union average greenhouse gas emission intensity per fuel with an option to report supplier specific values," the draft said....

Syncrude's Mildred Lake plant in the Athabasca Oil Sands of Alberta, Canada. Shot by The Interior, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons 3.0 license

Potentially 'catastrophic' changes underway in Canada's northern Mackenzie River Basin: report

EurekAlert via the Rosenberg International Forum on Water Policy: Canada's Mackenzie River basin -- among the world's most important major ecosystems -- is poorly studied, inadequately monitored, and at serious risk due to climate change and resource exploitation, a panel of international scientists warn today.

In a report, nine Canadian, US and UK scientists convened by the US-based Rosenberg International Forum on Water Policy, say effective governance of the massive Basin, comprising an area three times larger than France -- holds enormous national and global importance due to the watershed's biodiversity and its role in hemispheric bird migrations, stabilizing climate and the health of the Arctic Ocean.

The panel agreed the largest single threat to the Basin is a potential breach in the tailings ponds at one of the large oil sands sites mining surface bitumen. A breach in winter sending tailings liquid under the ice of the tributary Athabasca River, "would be virtually impossible to remediate or clean-up," says the report, available in full at http://bit.ly/13gc01K

"Extractive industries should be required to post a substantial performance bond which would be used to cover the costs of site clean-up should the enterprise fail financially or otherwise fail to fully remediate damage and destruction at the site in question," the report says. "The performance bond should be secured prior to site development and the commencement of operations."

Researchers have compared the Mackenzie Basin to Africa's Serengeti Plain, an area of comparable size. Both ecosystems harbour high biodiversity and biological productivity compared to others in their respective regions. There are some 45,000 biologically productive lakes in the Mackenzie Basin....

Researchers have compared the Mackenzie Basin to Africa's Serengeti Plain, an area of comparable size. Both ecosystems harbor high biodiversity and biological productivity compared to others in their respective regions. There are some 45,000 biologically productive lakes in the Mackenzie Basin. Meanwhile, the ice and snow cover in the Mackenzie Basin provides a vital refrigerator-like cooling role, in weather and climate patterns throughout the northern hemisphere. Credit: Rosenberg International Forum on Water Policy

Oil sands and loss of carbon-trapping bogs and fens

Jonathan M. Gitlin in Ars Technica: Exploiting the Canadian oil sands to extract their stored hydrocarbons remains controversial. The mix of sand, clay, water, and bitumen that we call the Canadian oil sands might be the second largest oil deposit on the planet. If that didn't make it an attractive target for exploitation, the fact that it's located in a stable, friendly country that shares a land border with the US seals the deal for many. But extracting useable oil from oil sands is much more energy intensive (and expensive) than obtaining it from traditional oil fields, and concerns about the ecological impact remain.

In some ways, the name 'oil sands' is a bit misleading, since the area is not a sandy desert, but peatland, which has to be converted to open-pit surface mines. Although the various mines have to have plans for post-mining land reclamation, it's not possible to return the mines to peatland, and mine operators propose to construct forests and tailing lakes. A new study from the University of Alberta, published in PNAS, has examined the effect of this transformation on carbon sequestration. It doesn't paint a happy picture.

The study's authors compare the pre- and post mining landscapes of the 10 approved mines in Alberta. Prior to mining, 64 percent of the landscape was wetland, with only 24 percent supporting upland vegetation. Only four of the mines (Horizon, Jackpine-Phase 1, Muskeg, and Kearl) had post-mining reclamation plans detailed enough to be able to make a direct comparison.

Of these four mines, the most striking difference pre- and post-mining will be the loss of up to two thirds of the peatland, which will be replaced mainly by upland forest. This means forests of white aspen, jack pine, and trembling aspen will replace the current landscape of fens and bogs with tamarack and black spruce; an undergrowth of blueberries, cranberries and dogwood will replace the mosses.

The plans involve creating lakes from existing tailing ponds, which will be topped up by drainage from the hilly forests. Currently, these tailing ponds are filled with highly contaminated water that was used in the oil extraction process, but this approach appears to be the lesser of two evils; recreating wetlands with the contaminated water would likely increase soil contamination, since the increased surface area will enhance evaporation....

Athabasca oil sands shot by NASA