[IPSM] Canada’s Tar-Sands Oil Can Be ‘Clean,’ Obama Says

[Macdonald Stainsby]

Obama wants carbon capture and sequestration [CCS]. Just like Eddie 
Stelmach, premier of Alberta. This means status quo on the world's most 
dangerous, destructive and largest industrial project ever. CCS does not 
really exist and to use it in North America would require more money 
than the federal bailout; we are looking at TRILLIONS, as essentially 
the entire North American oil and gas grid would need to be replicated 
for pipelines and more. Not at all feasible.

--Macdonald

Canada’s Tar-Sands Oil Can Be ‘Clean,’ Obama Says
By Jim Efstathiou Jr.

Feb. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Oil extracted from tar sands in Canada can be 
made a clean energy source, and the U.S. will work with its northern 
neighbor to develop the technology, President Barack Obama said.

A joint effort by the U.S. and Canada, its biggest trading partner, on 
ways to capture and store carbon dioxide underground would “be good for 
everybody,” Obama said yesterday in an interview with the Canadian 
Broadcasting Corp. Obama will make his first journey as president 
outside the U.S. tomorrow to meet with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen 
Harper.

Conservationists on both sides of the border have called on Obama to 
reject any bid to exempt tar-sands oil from proposed climate-protection 
rules. Government officials in Canada say restrictions on exports would 
increase U.S. dependence on oil from unfriendly countries. The oil is 
separated from sand and clay with intense heat in a process that 
releases more greenhouse gases than pumping conventional crude.

“The United States is the Saudi Arabia of coal, but we have our own 
homegrown problems in terms of dealing with a cheap energy source that 
creates a big carbon footprint,” said Obama, who has backed “clean-coal” 
technology in the U.S. over skepticism about its prospects from 
environmentalists such as former Vice President Al Gore.

Reducing greenhouse-gas emissions from energy sources such as coal and 
oil sands will promote economic growth in both countries, Obama said.

‘Ceiling’ on Growth

“If we don’t, then we’re going to have a ceiling at some point in terms 
of our ability to expand our economies and maintain the standard of 
living that’s so important, particularly when you’ve got countries like 
China and India that are obviously interested in catching up,” the 
president said.

Two oil-sands producers, Chevron Corp. and Canadian Natural Resources 
Ltd., were among nine companies singled out today by Ceres, an alliance 
of investor and environmental groups, that said the producers aren’t 
accounting for changes brought on by global warming or emerging 
climate-change regulations. The group includes the Sierra Club and the 
United Nations Foundation and says it represents investors with $1.9 
trillion in assets.

“Investors have a message for President Obama on the eve of his visit to 
Canada: please do not forsake long-term prosperity and long-term 
shareholder value for short-term energy independence,” Ceres president 
Mindy Lubber said in a statement.

Kurt Glaubitz, a spokesman for San Ramon, California-based Chevron and 
Corey Bieber, a spokesman for Calgary-based Canadian Natural, weren’t 
immediately available for comment.

780,000 Barrels

The U.S. imported about 780,000 barrels a day of tar-sands oil in 2008, 
60 percent of total production, according to the Canadian Association of 
Petroleum Producers. Petro-Canada, the country’s third-largest oil 
company, and other producers expect to more than double industry output 
to 3.3 million barrels a day by 2020.

Alberta’s oil sands may hold the equivalent of 173 billion barrels, 
enough to supply the U.S. for 24 years, according to some government 
estimates. Only Saudi Arabia, the biggest producer in the Organization 
of Petroleum Exporting Countries, has more reserves.

“Canada’s energy industry is willing to invest money, technology, 
know-how and time in this effort, but we really can’t do it alone,” 
Petro-Canada Chief Executive Officer Ronald Brenneman told reporters 
last week in New York. “It will take the combined efforts of the 
industry, government, regulators and consumers.”

Environment Minister

Canadian Environment Minister Jim Prentice has said Canada and the U.S. 
should work together to develop systems to capture and sequester 
underground carbon-dioxide emissions. The total “life- cycle” of 
emissions released, all the way to filling a car’s tank with gasoline, 
are 20 percent more than conventional oil, the Rand Corp. research 
organization of Santa Monica, California, said in a 2008 report.

Carbon capture would help “transition from a high-carbon present to a 
low-carbon future while avoiding a disruptive and dislocative period,” 
Prentice said on Jan. 20.

Obama backs slashing emissions of heat-trapping gases to 1990 levels. 
The new president will have to square his environmental agenda with his 
call to trim dependence on oil supplies from the Mideast and with the 
U.S.’s longstanding policy to treat Canada as a commercial and strategic 
ally.

“Would I rather rely on Canada for my energy security or would I rather 
rely on Hugo Chavez?” Gordon Giffin, U.S. ambassador to Canada during 
President Bill Clinton’s second term, said in an interview, referring to 
Venezuela’s president. “What Canada is saying to the United States is we 
now believe that we ought to be developing a North American approach to 
energy and to the environment. Our energy issues are not identically 
connected, but they’re logically connected.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Jim Efstathiou Jr. in New York at 
jefstathiou at bloomberg.net