Greenpeace commissioned respected journalist Andrew Nikiforuk to
write the report: "Dirty Oil: How the tar sands are fueling the
global climate crisis." Nikiforuk is the award-winning author of
"Tar Sands: Dirty oil and the Future of a Continent."
The report shows how the world's addiction to oil is driving tar
sands development with production likely to expand by three to five
fold by 2020. The unconventional bitumen resource of the tar sands
produces a dirty oil that is one of the world's most
carbon-intensive fuels. The report argues that the unrestrained
release of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, especially
carbon-intensive ones, "now threatens the political stability of
human civilization."
The rapid increase in the development of carbon-intensive,
unconventional oil "could tip the scales towards dangerous and
uncontrollable climate change." Tar sands development may provide
the technological and financial tool kit for developing other
sources of unconventional oil, adding greatly to the threat of
global warming.
The report notes that to promote tar sands development, the
Canadian government has actively obstructed energy conservation at
home and has blocked the development of effective action on climate
change abroad.
The environmental destruction caused by the tar sands is not
just a Canadian problem. Every major multinational oil firm and
state-owned oil company has invested in development of the tar
sands, the world's largest energy project. As a result, companies
face dramatic increases in financial liabilities and increases in
their carbon footprints. The world faces an increase in the threat
of climate chaos.
Report Findings:
1. The rapid development of the tar sands, the world's
largest capital project, signals the end of cheap oil. To escalate
the production of high-cost and high-carbon unconventional fuels
will destabilize the climate and the global economy.
2. The tar sands now produce 1.3 million barrels of heavy oil
a day and supply the US, the world's largest oil consumer, with 13
per cent of its crude imports. That share could grow to 37 per
cent. China, the world's second-largest oil consumer, has proposed
a strategic alliance with Canada to transport dirty oil by
supertanker to Asian refineries.
3. If exploitation of the tar sands continues unabated, by
2020 it could produce more GHGs than Austria, Portugal, Ireland or
Denmark. The project's CO2 output could even rival or exceed that
of Belgium, a nation of 10 million people. Emissions from the tar
sands currently exceed those of several European nations including
Estonia and Lithuania. Climate changing gases from two major mining
operations now dwarf the emissions of Cyprus and Malta.
4. Energy exports to the US and tar sands production have
made Canada one of the most energy- and carbon-intensive nations in
the industrial world. Canada is one of the world's highest per
capita GHG emitters.
5. Canada does not report life-cycle emissions from the tar
sands in a transparent way. Data are incomplete and inaccessible.
Most life-cycle carbon studies do not include the effects of
destruction of carbon sinks in peat lands or of land disturbance
caused by drilling for natural gas, the key fuel for tar sands
production.
6. Due to their extreme energy intensity, the tar sands have
a higher carbon footprint than any other commercial oil product on
the planet. The dirtiest projects burn extreme volumes of natural
gas to create steam to melt oil out the ground. These in situ, or
steam plants, now use four times more natural gas than mining
operations. Some projects are now 10 times dirtier than production
of oil in the North Sea.
7. The tar sands now cannibalize Canada's natural gas supply
and represent approximately 20 per cent of Canadian demand. To
replace the unsustainable consumption of natural gas as a fuel
stock for inferior oil production, some organizations have proposed
as many as 25 nuclear reactors to produce bitumen by 2025.
8. Given its growing dependence on oil revenue and the
influence of fossil fuel lobbies, Canada has actively fought
standards to lower the carbon content of fuels, lobbied against US
legislation to lower emissions, muzzled federal scientists and
obstructed international climate change negotiations.
9. Like many European oil companies, Royal Dutch Shell has
banked its entire future on production from the tar sands. It risks
becoming the world's most carbon-intensive company.
10. Many US agencies and lobbyists cite Canada's low-level
regulatory regime as a global model for exploiting high-carbon
fuels such as oil shale.
11. Unproven, band-aid technologies, such as carbon capture
and storage (CCS), will not reduce emissions from the tar sands on
any significant scale in the near future. Neither peak oil nor the
carbon crisis, flip sides of the same coin, can be solved with more
energy inputs.
For more information, please
contact:
Brian Blomme, Communications Coordinator, (416) 930-9055