The Oil Drum

146 comments on Will Canada Fuel Fortress America?

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SocraticGadfly on March 13, 2006 - 2:24am

In essence, this is robbing Peter to pay Paul. Of course, here in the U.S., the same will be true for things like the F-T coal-dieselfication process.

Meanwhile, beyond health problems, environmental degradation and economic dislocation, let's not forget one other problem with the tar sands, especially when being exploited at breakneck speed:

Greenhouse gases.

The only way Canada can come close to winning this deal if it becomes so warm as to massively slash national heating bills. (Of course, if the globe is that hot, greedy Americans will want yet more Canadian gas for electricity to run icebox-temperature AC units.)

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SocraticGadfly on March 13, 2006 - 2:43am

Forgot to enter the specifics on greenhouse gases. From Wiki's page on tar sands, here's a few numbers.

"For every barrel of synthetic oil produced in Alberta, more than 80 kg of greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere."

And how does this impact Kyoto and Canada's efforts to meet its stipulations?

"In ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, Canada agreed to reduce, by 2012, its greenhouse gas emissions by 6% with respect to the reference year (1990). In 2002, Canada's total greenhouse gas emissions had increased by 24% since 1990."

Oops.

Since these are both formal treaties, does one trump the other? Can Ottawa use that as an legal justification to junk NAFTA?