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Gov’t, industry underestimate oilsands greenhouse gas emissions: report
News Articles | Metro News | Bob Weber | October 01, 2009
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The document by Global Forest Watch, to be released Friday, says official estimates don’t account for carbon released as forest cover is cut and peatlands disturbed.
“It adds up to a significant amount of greenhouse gases that will be emitted, particularly because of peatland destruction,” said Peter Lee, one of the authors of the report.
Industry figures say oilsands facilities release about 36 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent each year.
However, oilsands mining, as well as road building and other infrastructure construction, could eventually require the disturbance of more than 1.1 million hectares of boreal forest. As well, much of that forest is underlain by deep deposits of peat, internationally recognized as a major carbon storehouse.
Many areas in the oilsands region have peat deposits more than five metres thick.
“The reason it’s so significant here is primarily due to the amount of peatlands or muskeg that occurs in this region,” said Lee. “It’s the peatlands that contain so much of this stored carbon.”
The report calculates that less than half of the carbon stored in trees and muskeg would be released if all the oilsands proposals on the books were developed. But that would still mean that the equivalent of 873 megatonnes of carbon dioxide would be emitted over the life of the industry.
Over 100 years, that’s an average of 8.7 megatonnes a year that doesn’t show up in official estimates, Lee said – more than a 25 per cent underestimate.
“It has not been reported or measured by the companies or reported by governments to date.”
Eddy Isaacs of the Alberta Energy Research Institute, which oversees Alberta’s climate change research, acknowledges the official estimates only include what he called “direct” emissions. “When we did our life-cycle analysis, we did not take into account land disturbance emissions.”
But Isaacs pointed out that all forms of energy development create indirect or induced carbon emissions. Conventional oil and gas, for example, require extensive exploration efforts that oilsands companies don’t face.
“(Oilsands) indirect emissions could be significant, but I would ask it to be compared to (conventional) indirect emissions. There are a lot of emissions that are not accounted for.”
Still, Lee said the report’s figures should be included in the public discussion about greenhouse gases.
“Our point is to have the information in order to make a wise decision,” he said.
He said that forest reclamation, which would recreate the previous carbon storehouse in the form of new trees and other plants, is in its infancy in the oilsands. And he pointed out that even people in the industry concede there’s no known way to restore peatlands.
“It takes them 8,000 to 10,000 years to form,” said Lee.
The Global Forest Watch report was funded by three non-profit organizations: the Ivey Foundation, the EJLB Foundation and Greenpeace.
Tagged with: climate change, greenhouse gases, global forest watch, alberta energy research institute, peatlands
