U.S. Law Complicates Canadian Oilsands
When the U.S. Congress passed the Energy Independence and Security Act last December, the bill included a passage that could effect Canada’s oilsands, and that has the Canadian government nervous.
The law prohibits federal procurement of fuels that produce more global warming emissions than conventional sources. Canada is concerned because the fuel taken from the oilsands is considered alternative fuel under the new energy act and it produces more global warming emissions than other sources. It complicates things because U.S. firms have major investments in the oilsands and the U.S. government currently gets a lot of fuel from there, so the U.S. essentially passed a law that could jeopardize this arrangement. In the province of Alberta, the oilsands represent the second largest oil reserve on the planet after Saudi Arabia.
One possible solution is to reclassify the oilsands from an alternative fuel to a conventional fuel so the global warming law doesn’t apply to it. From the National Post:
The rationale for classifying the oilsands as conventional oil is that, unlike alternative fuel sources, the deposits are well established, yielding more than one million barrels a day and likely to produce more than three million barrels a day by the middle of the next decade. As such, they are no longer “a science experiment,” as one source put it.
A U.S. working group is looking into the problem and will decide whether to classify the oilsands fuel as conventional or alternative this spring.
This is so ironic. I’m Canadian and the Alberta Oil Sands is the shame of our country. We have the most horrible right-wing government in power right now who will do everything in their power to keep it going. I pray that this legislation helps in stopping this environmental disaster.