The Canadian oil sands dilemma

With America’s reliance upon Middle Eastern oil falling under increasing criticism, President Obama recently traveled to Canada to check out their oil sands operation with the hope of inspiring them to clean up their act; the meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Harper did not produce any measurable results, though.  The U.S. has been searching for alternatives to the high-quality oil it has depended upon for decades from the Middle East because of geopolitical pressures and depleting reserves in the region, but a new dependence upon Canadian oil may result in an even dirtier habit for America.

The dilemma surrounding America’s reliance upon domestic coal for a majority of its electricity generation is similar to the situation developing with America’s newest supplier of oil; for the time being, both seem to be a necessary evil.  A new age of environmental awareness has pushed the U.S. toward seeking to find a way to capture emissions from coal-fired power plants and ultimately clean the whole coal process, but the current technology is still dirty.  Much like the coal industry, excavation from the Canadian oil sands contributes copious amounts of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and is extremely destructive to the surrounding environment, but, for the time being, it allows the American economy to continue to function. 

In today’s dual-natured reality—a heightened environmental climate within a worsening recession—President Obama seems to be caught between getting the American economy back on track and investing in technologies that will clean up some of the processes we currently use to get energy.  The tightrope he has to walk keeps getting thinner and thinner and is leading him to more uncertain terrain.

Of course, there are numerous recent studies that point to the fact that investing in clean energy technologies creates jobs, but oil and coal are not going to disappear overnight, so it would behoove America to begin to figure out ways to clean the whole fossil-fuel-to-energy process while also trying to make the transition to a low carbon economy happen.  Finding a way to make extracting oil, as well as burning coal, cleaner will benefit society in the short- and long-term, but there is a certain sense of impatience developing in the environmental movement that is contributing to a growing trend that America should abandon of fossil fuels altogether; a proposition as preposterous as drilling for more oil or mining more coal. 

It goes without saying that forcing oil and coal companies to invest in technologies to clean their extraction or burning processes costs money.  The more regulations that are placed upon projects like Canada’s oil sands, the closer the projects come to being unprofitable; where then will America get 20% of its oil from?  Similarly, if we place regulations on emissions from coal-fired power plants, those costs have to be recovered somewhere, most likely in the mining process, and the practice of mountaintop mining becomes necessary.  America’s energy dilemma is daunting. President Obama’s goal of finding a way to meet U.S. energy demands while at the same time creating environmental regulations is commendable, but is it practical?  His recent trip to Canada proved that this balancing act, in today’s marketplace, sometimes cannot produce measurable results.

Both Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and President Obama said during their recent meeting together that energy security and the environmental impact of Canada’s oil sands operations will be priorities in the development of a joint energy policy that seeks to foster the development a continental dependence upon the fossil fuel.  “What we know is that the oil sands create a big carbon footprint. So the dilemma that Canada faces, the United States faces, and China and the entire world faces is how do we obtain the energy that we need to grow our economies in a way that is not rapidly accelerating climate change,” President Obama said recognizing the precarious position the world’s major economies have gotten themselves into.

The fact that these issues are being addressed through policy and legislation in America is reassuring, but the practice of extracting oil from the tar sands in Canada and of burning coal are...

__________________

Read the full article at:

http://www.examiner.com/x-2903-Energy-Examiner
~y2009m3d1-The-Canadian-oil-sands-dilemma