Shifting Sands: Shaping Sustainability in Northwestern Saskatchewan, Report on a Public Outreach Workshop September 23-25, 2009 (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Canadian oil sands: environmental, economic, social, health, and other impacts
WIT Transactions on Ecology and The Environment, 2013
As world energy demands increase, so will the exploration and exploitation of alternative energy resources. The present level of energy generation cannot meet the needs of future generations if the pace of population growth and energy consumption continues at the current rate. While some unconventional energy sources are still in research and development phase, others have been effectively implemented. The impacts of different energy operations are still being debated, with respect to environmental, social, economic, and health effects. The definition of sustainable development adopted by United Nations (UN) uses the expression "…meets the needs of the present…" to indicate the required development by a current generation to maintain its standard of living while minimizing environmental, economic, social impacts. Large industrial developments will affect a range of stakeholders, and may entail cultural and political change. The level of impacts and their implications depends on many characteristics of the development, such as its size, production rate, duration of exploitation, processes used (including treatment of waste streams), and regulatory standards. While local communities, businesses and surrounding areas are first expected to be impacted, certain developments can attract global attention. Canadian oil sands developments are of interest to oil producers because of the size of the proven reserves; but the scale of development and the perceived enduring impacts are of concern to different stakeholders. This work presents a discussion and analysis of the economic, social, health, and other impacts of current operations in Canadian oil sands that are of concern to different stakeholders, including some uncertainties in levels and persistence of
Transformism in Alberta : the environmental political economy of the bituminous sands
2018
The author retains copyright ownership and moral rights in this thesis. Neither the thesis nor substantial extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author's permission. AVIS: L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive permettant à la Bibliothèque et Archives Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public par télécommunication ou par l'Internet, prêter, distribuer et vendre des thèses partout dans le monde, à des fins commerciales ou autres, sur support microforme, papier, électronique et/ou autres formats. L'auteur conserve la propriété du droit d'auteur et des droits moraux qui protège cette thèse. Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés ou autrement reproduits sans son autorisation. In compliance with the Canadian Privacy Act some supporting forms may have been removed from this thesis. While these forms may be included in the document page count, their removal does not represent any loss of content from the thesis. Conformément à la loi canadienne sur la protection de la vie privée, quelques formulaires secondaires ont été enlevés de cette thèse. Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu manquant.
From Narrative of Promise to Rhetoric of Sustainability: A Genealogy of Oil Sands
Environmental Communication-a Journal of Nature and Culture, 2016
Since its conception, "oil sands" has been the name of a pro-development narrative seeking to convince skeptics that bitumen saturating the sandstone of Alberta's Athabasca region ought to be extracted and chemically altered into Synthetic Crude Oil (SCO). Over the decades, the nature of skepticism has changed, and thus oil sands (along with its meanings and claims) has been continually reproduced so as to placate new criticisms. This paper offers a discursive genealogy of the oil sands narrative, demonstrating how it has been transformed from what was throughout the twentieth century a materially situated "narrative of promise" aiming to prove that SCO production was physically possible and that it could be commercially profitable, into what by 2015 was at its core a largely reactive "rhetoric of sustainability" aiming to convince a new class of critics that, contrary to their claims, SCO was in fact being produced in an environmentally responsible manner.
Discontinuation Governance of The Canadian Oil Sands.docx
The Canadian Oil Sands are analyzed under the multi-level perspective, for the purpose of building towards a sustainability transition. Despite demonstrating that the oil sands are experiencing initial transitional phases brought about by landscape level political and climate change pressures, evidence suggests that the oil sands regime is comparable to that of the American Military Industrial Complex and the South African Minerals Energy Complex. Thus, we re-term the oil sands as the Canadian Oil Sands Industrial Complex. Particular focus is given to the landscape and landscape shocks as they have been understudied in previous work. It is suggested that landscape shocks may be useful tools in initiating and accelerating sustainability transitions, and suggestions are provided for both policy makers and future researchers in the implementation of these concepts.
Policy Analysis of the Canadian Oil Sands Experience
2013
Canadian oil sands reserves are located in three major areas, Athabasca, Cold Lake and Peace River, in the Province of Alberta. According to Alberta's government, Canadian oil sands are the second largest source of oil in the world following Saudi Arabia, with proven reserves of over 168 billion barrels 1 as compared to Saudi Arabia's 264 billion barrels. 2 The Government of Alberta expects to increase production from 1.31 million barrels per day in 2008 to 3 million barrels per day in 2018. 3 The Alberta government owns 81% of the province's mineral rights; the remaining 19% are freehold mineral rights owned by the federal government on behalf of First Nations or in National Parks (11%), and by private individuals and companies (8%). 4 By contrast, the U.S. oil sands resource is fairly small. U.S. oil sands resources are spread over several states, with the Utah oil sands resource comprising 93% of the total domestic resource; Utah's oil sands resource is 11.5 billion barrels (of oil equivalent) of proven resources and an additional 20.7 billion barrels of unproven resources. 5 Domestic resources are spread across federal, state, private and tribal lands. 6 1 About 80% of the 170 billion barrels of remaining established reserves are suited for in-2 Government of Alberta, Energy, Facts and Statistics, http://www.energy.alberta.ca/OilSands/791.asp (accessed July 24, 2013). Measured in terms of resource "rent," the difference between the price of oil and the cost of producing it from the given resource, inclusive of opportunity costs, the "size" of the oil sands resource would be somewhat less, but still formidable.
The Case for Phasing out Tar Sands
Alberta Institute of Agrologists, 2017
The Alberta Tar Sands released 68 Mt of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2014. Alberta’s climate plan allows them to grow to 100 Mt by 2030. Growing emissions from the production of oil and will entirely cancel out Alberta’s reductions in electricity, vehicles, and methane by 2030. Allowing Sands GHGs to grow that much will almost certainly prevent Canada from reaching its 2030 Paris Agreement targets. This paper proposed three steps to meet the target of ending Sands production by 2040: 1) Place a permanent moratorium on new Sands production. 2) Give a closing time for Sands projects and units of projects that long ago paid off the capital costs, starting with the initial Suncor and Syncrude units, which are over 50 years old. 3) Require each Sands project to lower its emissions annually by 3–4% per year (2–3 Mt) starting in 2018. Projects that fail to meet GHG reduction targets must be fined at a level higher than the costs to comply. A just transition for Sands workers will require research, thought, and consultations with impacted, workers and communities.
A Critical Look at Sustainable Development in the Canadian North
ARCTIC, 1992
The notion of sustainable development has considerable appeal in northern Canada, a reflection of traditional practices of indigenous populations and the region's experiences with the encroachment of industrial society. The lexicon of "sustainable development" has made the identification of appropriate economic activities a central issue.'There is no standard approach to this problem although Weeden (1989) produced a useful framework for evaluation. Analysis of the evolution of the economic geography of the North provides some insights into both the current emphasis on the role of communities in sustainable development strategies and the origin of candidate activities. Review of possible candidate activities suggests that there is perhaps a tendency to confuse renewal with sustainability and that the appropriateness of activities may be called into doubt when viewed from the standpoint of relative energy consumption and global context. Sustenance harvesting is seen as perhaps the most viable sustainable activity, although some assessments of its value may be overstated. Non-renewable resource exploitation is a particular problem, yet the extraction of some non-renewable resources may contribute to a global goal of sustainability. A prerequisite for the development of a rational approach to sustainability lies in establishing the nature of the reciprocal relationship between urban centres and the northern periphery.
2009
The Athabasca Oil Sands, located in northeastern Alberta, Canada, were for many years anomalous. Two oil sands operators developed their extraction techniques for 30 years, refining their technology before production became economically profitable. In the last 15 years as oil prices climbed, a tremendous amount of growth has occurred in the oil sands. Dozens of new projects are under construction or awaiting approval, creating one of the largest and most capital intensive mining operations in the world. Curiously there is a significant difference in environmental performance among three companies involved in open pit mining of the oil sands, Syncrude, Suncor Energy and Shell Canada's Muskeg River Mine. Suncor Energy is known for their reputation in stakeholder collaboration and reporting initiatives but has one of the most problematic environmental legacies. Meanwhile, Syncrude is seen as a relative leader in land reclamation but has taken the least action with regard to climate change. Shell Canada's Muskeg River Mine, draws from the resources of their parent company, Royal Dutch Shell, to proactively frame climate change management but has no public indicators of their land reclamation progress. What is the cause of this variation in environmental performance? Is it a result of difference corporate environmental governance strategies or of government policies? I suggest the variation of environmental performance is an organic response to the innate discretionary nature of environmental policymaking in Alberta, the lack of government leadership and the degree of initiative demonstrated by each company. From my research it is clear that the inconsistent and at times vague government policy and regulations, opaque govemment agencies, poor monitoring and enforcement, inadequate incentives and penalties does not effectively encourage stronger environmental performance among oil sands developers. At the same time, internal corporate strategy, often in response to the recent pressure from environmental groups, First Nations communities and international media compels some companies to innovate and others to simply follow the regulations. Maintaining their social license, reducing costs, and anticipating future regulations have all been cited as motivation for innovation. Those advocating the status quo cite the exemplary regulatory framework already in place and the adequacy of existing stakeholder engagement processes; whereas corporate environmental leaders are frustrated by the uncertainty around environmental policies created by the provincial government. Ultimately the responsibility for the environmental management of the oil sands lies with the province. Companies can strive to innovate and compete with other developers, but they are not accountable for the management of cumulative effects in the region. If Alberta is going to improve the environmental performance of oil sands developers then a more transparent, credible and strategic environmental planning process must be created. I conclude with three areas of policy improvements the Province can make to not only improve the environmental performance of the oil sands but also regain public trust in their role as manager of Alberta's natural resources: transparency, monitoring and enforcement, and responsible