“A solution is proposed which will make the oil sands the source of the world’s greenest oil.”
— Peter Silverstone
Hmm. Really? I had my doubts, but I reluctantly pulled some cash out of my wallet and bought Silverstone’s book, World’s Greenest Oil: Turning the Oil Sands From Black to Green.
I haven’t seen the film Avatar, but I have seen the documentary Petropolis and I have read the National Geographic article on the subject. So when I see the words “oil sands” and “green” in the same sentence, I do a second take.
But to be fair to Silverstone, he prominently states in the book that he is solely looking at the issue of greenhouse gas emissions; he hasn’t written about what he admits are very serious water and land use issues (perhaps that’s fodder for another book).
When I turned to the back of the book, I saw that fully a quarter of it consisted of bibliographical references, ranging from sources as diverse as the Sierra Club and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.
That shows me that he isn’t just an ideologue, cherry picking only the facts that support his thesis.
A case in point is the chapter titled How ‘dirty’ is oil derived from the oil sands compared to other sources?
We have all heard the competing claims that the “tar sands” (sorry, old habits die hard) are either only marginally more carbon intensive than conventional oil, or that they’re a lot more carbon intensive.
It all depends on whether you include “well to tank” (WTT) in the calculations. Tank means gas tank, and if you include the entire journey of the carbon atom from the bitumen under the ground out to the exhaust from your tail pipe, McMurray bitumen is about 20 per cent dirtier than Saudi crude, but only about 5 per cent dirtier than the oil from California’s third largest oil field (Kern River).
However, if we look at just the process of getting the oil or bitumen out of the ground and refining it, McMurray bitumen (from the SAGD process, which uses natural gas) is 220 per cent dirtier than Saudi crude and 90 per cent dirtier than Kern River.
Thus, as Silverstone notes “…by far the largest impact on CO2 emissions will be through using less oil, and not changing the origin of the oil.”
In other words, we all, to varying degrees, share some guilt when we burn oil or buy plastic or eat vegetables trucked up from California.
Nevertheless, Silverstone notes that the tar sands are still problematic with respect to greenhouse gases in the public eye, and perception counts, especially in an era of climate change run amok (and to his credit, he devotes four chapters to explaining why climate change is a very serious issue that needs to be addressed).
What is his prescription, then?
Well, for one, he would have the oil companies move away from the now dominant SAGD process, which, due to the necessary inputs of natural gas, is 85 per cent more carbon intensive than even the operations which use the vast open pit mines that we’re so familiar with.
One alternative he mentions is the THAI process (toe to heel air injection), which Petrobank Energy is doing field trials with. This method is much cleaner, both in terms of water use and CO2 production.
Another possible method is COGD (combustion overhead gravity drainage), which uses 80 per cent less energy than SAGD.
He then writes about possible improvements in the upgrading and refining processes, followed by possible changes in royalty rates, which would encourage companies to invest in cleaner operations.
I would go into further detail, but that would be another column.
Or perhaps I’ll just leave that up to you. The book is a quick and easy read, and Silverstone has obviously done his homework.
If you’re still not sure, you can get a quick summary of it at his website at www.greenestoil.com.
Evan Bedford is a local environmentalist. Direct comments, questions and suggestions to wyddfa23@telus.net. Visit the Energy and Ecology website at www.evanbedford.com