There’s a science to using science.
Oil-sand crude is as much as 22 per cent more carbon intensive- study
On May 9, the government of Alberta released a study into the extra carbon emitted by crude produced using oil sands instead of more conventional sources. The study, by a unit of California-based Jacobs Engineering Group, found that emissions from oil-sand crude are just 12 per cent higher than from regular crude.
But the report was not just about the science. It also sent a political signal to Europe: Canada’s fight over oil sands is not done yet.
As part of its ambitious efforts to cut carbon emissions, the EU has proposed classifying crude produced from oil sands, or tar sands as environmentalists and others call them, as much dirtier than other fuels.
A 2011 study for the EU by Stanford University academic Adam Brandt found that oil-sand crude was as much as 22 per cent more carbon intensive.
Canada, whose oil sands have helped it become an energy power, fears such a ruling could imperil a resource it estimates will add more than C$3 trillion (€2 trillion) to its economy over the next 25 years.
Which is why Ottawa has waged a concerted lobbying campaign against Brussels’ proposal over the past three years. An examination of hundreds of pages of documents obtained under access to information legislation in both Brussels and Ottawa, some dating back to 2009, as well as interviews with leading officials in both Canada and Europe show just how extensive that effort has been.
The governments of Canada and Alberta, along with Canadian companies, have wooed dozens of European parliamentarians, offered trips to Alberta and sponsored conferences in an effort that Chris Davies, a British Liberal Member of the European Parliament and a backer of the EU proposal, said “has been stunning in its intensity”.
Satu Hassi, a Finnish MEP for the Greens and another backer of the EU proposal, said the thing that sets Canada’s campaign apart is not its size but its official backing. “There have been massive lobbying campaigns by the car industry, by the chemicals industry, banks, food giants, etc. But so far I have not seen such a lobbying campaign by any state.”
Perhaps the most surprising thing about the campaign is that virtually no fuel from Canadian oil sands reaches European refineries. Ottawa’s fear is that a European ruling will influence other markets, including the US, where Canada currently sends virtually all its oil.
Canada’s battle with the EU began in 2009 when Europe – the largest economic market in the world – agreed to adopt a measure called the Fuel Quality Directive to reduce the level of greenhouse gases emitted by vehicles.
Brussels has still not agreed precisely how that will be achieved, but in 2009 the Commission published findings that tar sands might have a greenhouse gas intensity around one-fifth higher than conventional crude.
Nearly all the massive reserves of oil concentrated in the northern part of Canada’s Alberta province – home to the world’s third largest proven reserves of crude after Saudi Arabia and Venezuela – are in the form of tar sands.
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. The process means the oil costs more to produce than regular crude, uses more water and energy, and emits more carbon.
As Canada has developed its sands – the industry in Alberta grew from 603,000 barrels a day in 2000 to 1.6 million in 2011 – environmentalists and NGOs have stepped up campaigning against the resource.
Canada’s Conservative government – which touts Canada as a “clean energy superpower” – counters that it needs to defend itself against lies and unwarranted discrimination against the tar sands.
E-mails from Canadian diplomats and other documents show Canada feared negative publicity could hit tens of billions of dollars of investment in its industry by such European majors as Royal Dutch Shell, BP, France’s Total and Norway’s Statoil.