Home » News » Fairy tale realm no place for oilsands
News
Fairy tale realm no place for oilsands
Opinion | Calgary Herald | Deborah Yedlin | March 04, 2010
Read the full article on the originating site
What do Canada’s James Cameron — nominated in the best director category at this weekend’s Oscar ceremonies in Hollywood — and the energy sector have in common?
Plenty, according to 50 nongovernmental organizations, including the usual suspects from the environmental groups and a number of First Nations, who have made the spurious link between Cameron’s film, Avatar, and the big, bad oilsands.
When the special Oscar edition of the Hollywood trade publication, Variety, hits the stands today, it will contain a full-page ad presumably lobbying for Avatar to win the honours for best picture because of its apparent link to the oilsands.
Huh?
For those who haven’t seen the big-budget sci-fi flick, the beginning of the movie shows monster mining trucks that look similar to what is used in mining operations around the world. But somehow the connection has been stretched to mean the scene is one depicting an oilsands operation.
The storyline has to do with big, bad corporate types exploiting the landscape and steamrollering the indigenous population as they search for an element called “Unobtanium.” The bad corporate types are eventually sent packing.
“There’s a lot of themes in Avatar that parallel what’s happening in the oilsands,” said Mike Hudema, spokesman for Greenpeace in Alberta, who said the ad initiative is backed by groups in both Canada and the U.S., including some aboriginal groups such as Keepers of the Athabasca.
The film definitely has the typical good-versus-evil setup and, were it not for its fabulous production values, the storyline would have a hard time standing on its own.
The fact, however, that a full-page ad is appearing in Variety once again illustrates the amount of misinformation that continues to exist about the oilsands. Even more surprising is that a number of First Nations are supporting the ad, notwithstanding the fact more than 1,500 First Nations people hold full-time jobs in the oilsands and the fact that more than $3 billion has been netted by First Nations companies between 1998 and 2008.
“Canada’s oil and gas companies are committed to constructive engagement and consultation with aboriginal peoples. No oilsands project may go ahead without direct and meaningful consultation about both impacts and benefits,” said Janet Annesley, vice-president of communications for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.
California, as many might be aware, is on the road to implementing its low-carbon fuel standard, which places specific limits on the carbon footprint of oil used in the state. The fuel standard does not take the “wells to wheels” approach in terms of evaluating the true carbon footprint of the barrel, which means it effectively ignores the results of a study completed last year showing that oilsands crude is roughly equivalent to a conventional barrel imported from Saudi Arabia.
It also, interestingly enough, excludes California’s own thermal oil from the low-carbon standard; this, despite the fact its carbon footprint modestly exceeds that of what is produced from the oilsands.
The NGOs that remain fixated on the oilsands as the world’s carbon villain have got so many things wrong, and it’s too bad they are using Variety as the medium to promote their ill-informed message.
Once again, we go back to the fact that the issue of carbon dioxide emissions in the oilsands pales in comparison to what the coal-fired electricity plants spew into the atmosphere south of the border.
A better question might be how many tonnes of carbon dioxide from coal-fired power were released into the air during the time it took to make Avatar.
Stop producing oil from the oilsands and there is no impact on the global emissions picture because its contribution is 1/10th of one per cent.
In other words, it’s de minimis. But stop using coal as the fuel of choice for electricity and the decrease in emissions would be dramatic.
As for those who want to talk about cancer rates in northern Alberta, that, too, has been exposed as an example of spurious correlation; the oilsands have nothing to do with what’s going on in Fort Chipewyan.
Let’s look at it another way — from the supply perspective and what the oilsands mean to the United States.
Not only is it about jobs in the Midwest, which receives something in the order of 800,000 barrels a day to refine, the tire-producing plants in South Carolina or the manufacturing facilities that make those monster dump trucks, it’s about security of supply.
Most Americans might have missed two interesting statistics: China has now surpassed the U.S. as the biggest importer of oil from Saudi Arabia, and India has doubled the number of barrels it is going to buy from the largest member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. It won’t be long — even though the Chinese government didn’t approve the purchase of General Motors’ Hummer division — before that country’s oil consumption exceeds that of the United States.
This means the bunfight to secure oil supplies is not about to end any time soon.
From the U.S. perspective, even if demand stays at current levels — or drops as a result of efficiency measures — the fact remains it is still going to be a net importer of oil to satisfy its needs. And with the great vacuum sound sucking crude into Asia, the list of suppliers is going to get shorter.
Finally, while the oilsands are easy pickings because of the Syncrude ducks trial, the fact remains that more than 80 per cent of the resource will be extracted using in situ methods — whose environmental footprint is not far off that associated with conventional methods.
Hollywood likes to celebrate fairy tales — and tying Avatar to the oilsands is just that: a fairy tale.
Tagged with: avatar, calgary herald
