From President Barack Obama to regional environmental groups, people are taking sides on the oil sands mining operations in Alberta, Canada.
Andrew Nikiforuk, a Calgary-based journalist and author, speaks at the 2013 Oil/Tar Sands Speaker Series April 4 in the Agricultural Sciences building auditorium. The series included visits from three Canadian experts who discussed the issue of petroleum extraction from Alberta’s oil/tar sands. The last presentation in the series will take place Wednesday April 17 in the Agricultural Science building auditorium.
Jakob Magolan, chair of the Washington-Idaho Border Section of the American Chemical Society, helped arrange a three-part speaker series to inform the community on this rising environmental issue. The first two have passed, but the final presentation will occur at 6 p.m. Apr. 17 in the University of Idaho Agricultural Sciences Building auditorium.
Magolan said the Alberta oil sands seem to have reinvigorated a lethargic North American attitude on global warming.
“The climate movement has always been going, but it hasn’t been in mainstream news in a long time, and I think in the last year or so this pipeline has revived it,” Magolan said. “It’s on the president’s table.”
The Keystone XL pipeline — a transportation system for Alberta’s crude oil proposed by North American energy company TransCanada — will stretch from Alberta to Nebraska pending Obama’s presidential permit approval, with an extension into Texas upon construction. According to TransCanada, the system could pump 830,000 barrels of oil daily to refineries across the American Midwest and Gulf Coast.
Magolan said the entire oil sands mining operation creates a significant climate change concern. The cost in natural gas energy to access the oil is high, he said, and the mining procedures release a notable degree of carbon from the earth.
“Compared to what’s mined in the Middle East, or what was mined in Texas, this is a much more energy-intensive project,” Magolan said.
Don Thompson, executive adviser for Canadian Oil Sands Ltd., will offer a pro-mining perspective at the Apr. 17 lecture.
Thompson said the question isn’t whether we use oil, but from where we obtain it, and the United States’ alternative options — Iran, Iraq, Venezuela and others — come with more questionable environmental records than its northern neighbors.
“You’re better off getting (oil) from Canada, whose business practices, human rights legislation and environmental regulations are similar to those in the U.S.,” Thompson said.
The safest and most effective way to transport oil is by pipeline, Thompson said, and U.S. energy and lifestyle needs demand a supply that surpasses the capabilities of alternative energy forms like solar power. Canada is the biggest supplier of U.S. oil by a margin of a million barrels per day, and the cross-border oil sands industry provides significant assets in the form of U.S. jobs and GDP. Environmental stability is also an important factor and he said he wants to take a holistic approach to the issue.
“I’m coming here to speak to the community in order (for people) to understand that all issues need balance,” Thompson said.
Magolan said the recent rupture of the ExxonMobil pipeline beneath Mayflower, Ark., which flooded the city with oil and caused multiple home evacuations, poses a threat to the XL proposal.
“That could be the final nail in the coffin for the big XL pipeline,” Magolan said. “The visuals are so powerful, to see oil running in a suburban neighborhood, just with the street full of it.”
He said in a culture in which the typical consumer doesn’t feel empowered to make any significant environmental impact through small efforts like recycling and alternative transportation, the oil sands mining operations and the XL pipeline have created a practical focus for climate-centered efforts.
Magolan said while the Alberta oil is environmentally dirty, he doesn’t have a particular opinion on the oil sands issue because he isn’t sure where the lines should be drawn. The WIBS-ACS can act as an arbiter for this conversation, he said, because the organization wants to provide education to the public with credible, respected representatives from all sides of the argument.
“Even though we’re a pretty small community, arguably in the middle of nowhere, we’re getting some authorities on this issue,” Magolan said. “So it’d be good to have an audience to hear them out.”
Matt Maw can be reached at [email protected]