Despite what the folks at the Pembina Institute think, today's Globe has a different view on all of the weird and wonderful things the oil moguls in the west are doing to lessen environmental damage caused by oils sands extraction and production. David Ebner's The Greening of the Oil Sands, reads more like a list of excuses and threats from the oil industry. Essentially we are told not to threaten the Canadian oil industry with environmental regulation and other "rash decisions" or we stand to lose 20% of Canada's gasoline capacity. As Marcel Coutu, CEO of SynCrude told the Globe: “That's a big, big number. I don't think the country wants us to stop being a leading oil producer.” Well, maybe we do. Maybe some of us want to see Canada's gasoline requirements drop by 33% or more.
But not these guys. They want us to keep the exploration subsidies flowing and consider "innovations" such as the use of underground nuclear reactors so that the oil sands can be processed in situ. Or how about EnCana Corp's plan to reduce the amount of fresh water steam required to bubble up the bitumen by mixing solvents such as butane and propane into the steam. Oh, and Shell wants to pipe CO2 emissions to Edmonton where they will be pumped into older wells to be "permanently" stored.
Doesn't it just all sound so, so "sustainable"?
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