Evidence of meeting #20 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was technologies.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Murray R. Gray  Professor, University of Alberta, As an Individual
Selma Guigard  Associate Professor, Environmental Engineering Program, University of Alberta, As an Individual
William F. Donahue  Independent Researcher, Limology and Biogeochemistry, As an Individual
David Schindler  Professor of Ecology, University of Alberta, As an Individual
Mary Griffiths  As an Individual
Jim Boucher  Chief, Fort McKay First Nation
Roxanne Marcel  Chief, Mikisew Cree First Nation
Georges Poitras  Consultation Coordinator, Government and Industry Relations, Mikisew Cree First Nation
Allan Adam  Chief, Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation
Bill Erasmus  Regional Chief, Northwest Territories, Assembly of First Nations
Albert Mercredi  Chief, Fond du Lac First Nation, As an Individual
François Paulette  Fort Fitzgerald First Nation, As an Individual
Sam Gargan  Dehcho First Nation, As an Individual
Diane McDonald  Coordinator, Prince Albert Grand Council
J. Michael Miltenberger  Deputy Premier and Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Government of the Northwest Territories
Hassan Hamza  Director General, Department of Natural Resources, CANMET Energy Technology Centre (CETC) - Devon
Thomas Gradek  President, Gradek Energy Inc.
Kim Kasperski  Manager, Water Management, Department of Natural Resources

8:05 a.m.

Liberal

The Vice-Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia

Welcome, everyone, to this more or less first formal hearing as part of our trip out west to study the oil sands and their impact on water.

I'd like to welcome our first two witnesses, Dr. Selma Guigard, who's an associate professor in the environmental engineering program at the University of Alberta; and Dr. Murray Gray, who is a professor at the University of Alberta.

We'll start with a ten-minute presentation from each witness, and then we'll proceed to our usual round of questioning.

Who would like to go first?

8:05 a.m.

Dr. Murray R. Gray Professor, University of Alberta, As an Individual

Thank you, Mr. Vice-Chair.

I'm delighted to be able to meet with the committee this morning. I'm in perfect position to follow your tour of the oil sands yesterday, as well as your meeting with the community in Fort Chipewyan.

I'm a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Alberta, and I'm director of the Centre for Oil Sands Innovation—and I've provided you with some written material on the latter. I'd like to briefly address two questions this morning that are at the top of my mind as a researcher working in the oil sands. The first question is whether the oil sands industry can adopt new technologies to improve its environmental performance. Second, what research is required to develop what we call transformative technologies that can be applied to the oil sands?

On the first question, for an industry that involves enormous capital investments in the range of tens of billions of dollars, the history has been that this industry has been enormously innovative and willing to embrace change. The plants that you flew over yesterday are nothing like what Suncor looked like in 1967 or what Syncrude looked like in 1978. The operations have been completely transformed through the mining and extraction operations, and those transformations are based on research and development, pilot testing, and industry innovation here in Canada. The oil sands industry has demonstrated a capacity for technical innovation that I think is unparalleled in the Canadian resource extraction industries.

Now, the major driver for this change has been cost. The industry has been striving through the last two decades to reduce its expenses to make itself more profitable. It may seem strange, but in 1990 Suncor Energy was seriously contemplating shutting down its oil sands division. This is the company that has at times been one of the darlings of the Canadian stock exchange and is currently in the process of taking over Petro-Canada. In 1990 it was looking at getting rid of its oil sands operation altogether because it was so marginal. Instead, they embraced technological change, revamped their mining and extraction operations, and turned the oil sands into a major profit centre.

The other driver for these companies, as we move into the future, is public pressure on the environmental front. I think you have to be realistic as to what the incentives are for companies to embrace innovation and technology change. Cost is always a factor, and environmental regulation and public expectation is, of course, the other.

I'm a researcher at the university. My particular focus is on research into long-term innovation. I'm not so much focused on what technology is available today as on what we need to do now to develop technologies that will be available five, ten, and fifteen years out. The oil sands of Alberta are an enormous strategic resource, and it would be a mistake to focus only on the near term; it's important to position ourselves not only for next year, but decades into the future.

I'd like to tell you a little bit about a unique centre at the University of Alberta that I direct, the Centre for Oil Sands Innovation. In 2003, five years ago, the international interest in the oil sands was really just ramping up. The industry was starting to expand, and at that time the president of Imperial Oil, Mr. Tim Hearn, came to the president of the University of Alberta with a unique proposition. He said, “We need help. We have major resources in northern Alberta but we do not believe that the current technology is sustainable for the long term, so we want to work with you on long-term research and development to try to come up with transformative technologies for the oil sands.”

What I'm talking about in transformative technologies is mining that has much less impact on the landscape, extraction technologies that do not use large amounts of fresh water from the Athabasca River and do not create tailings ponds, and upgrading processes that minimize energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.

Imagine a university president being confronted with a leader from industry saying, we want you to do long-term basic research. Of course the answer was an immediate yes, and we worked to establish a centre that has now grown into one that is national in scope.

Why did Hearn come to the University of Alberta? It wasn't just because Edmonton is the closest major centre to the oil sands. Through support from the Government of Canada through the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, in partnership with companies such as Syncrude and Suncor, the University of Alberta had built up a group of professors who were unparallelled in their ability to conduct research and innovation related to oil sands. So it was a long-term investment by the Government of Canada that created the intellectual capacity—the people who were able to undertake this challenge. In particular, the industrial chairs program and the partnerships programs of NSERC were keys in developing that capability at the university.

From an official launch in 2005, I am proud to report that the Centre for Oil Sands Innovation has grown to encompass 20 different projects spanning basic chemistry, biology, physics, and engineering. The successful collaboration with Imperial Oil has led them to renew their commitment. They're providing us with another five years of funding, at $10 million total, because they've been so pleased with the success over the initial five years. In partnership with the Province of Alberta and the Government of Canada, we're moving forward on another five years of research on oil sands innovation.

While I'm immensely proud of the University of Alberta and our intellectual capacity, when it comes to such major research challenges we don't have quite enough intellectual capacity ourselves. So we've been building a research network on oil sands that now includes the University of British Columbia, the University of Victoria, Queen's University, and we'll soon be starting projects in collaboration with Natural Resources Canada, the National Research Council, and the University of Ottawa.

As director of the Centre for Oil Sands Innovation, I have a fascinating challenge. I'm in the job of teaching professors about the oil sands and some of the challenges they present and trying to enlist and engage their interest and attention.

In the oil sands of western Canada, which span Alberta and Saskatchewan, we have a world-scale resource. We have, in the oil sands industry, an amazing receptor capacity for new technologies and new ideas, and we have a strong foundation in science and engineering to conduct research and development for new technologies that can develop this resource in an environmentally sustainable way.

I'd like to thank you for your invitation to speak this morning, and I look forward to questions and discussion on the topic of innovation in the oil sands.

Thank you very much.

8:05 a.m.

Liberal

The Vice-Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia

Thank you, Dr. Gray.

8:05 a.m.

Dr. Murray R. Gray Professor, University of Alberta, As an Individual

We will now move on to Dr. Guigard.

8:20 a.m.

Dr. Selma Guigard Associate Professor, Environmental Engineering Program, University of Alberta, As an Individual

Thank you very much, Mr. Vice-Chair.

Thank you to the committee for allowing me to present here today. I have a little brief that I was hoping to develop as a power-point presentation. I'd like to take some time and go through this handout if I may.

With your permission, I'm going to speak a little in French.

I'm a professor from the University of Alberta in the environmental engineering group of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. I've focused a little bit on the environmental issues related to the oil sands. These are things I believe you've seen in your previous committee meetings, but I thought I'd go back over them and set the stage in terms of the technologies we're looking at to resolve some of those environmental issues.

Some of this information you saw first-hand yesterday in your flyover, and you'll see the oil sands cover a very large surface area. We have a lot of known reserves. Most of those reserves are accessible by the in situ technologies, but about 20% of reserves are also currently accessible by surface mining. So what you might have seen yesterday was probably surface mining activities, and that's what I would like to focus on a little bit here.

What are those environmental issues that are related to oil sand surface mining? The one you're here today to discuss is the environmental issues surrounding the water use of oil sands mining and oil sands surface mining. But directly related to that is the issue of tailings ponds. And also, as Murray Gray pointed out, energy use is another one of those environmental issues. I'd like to talk a little bit about each of those.

The first one I'd like to talk about is water use. We use the Clark hot water extraction process to extract the bitumen from the oil sands. There has always been a little bit of confusion, I think, regarding how much water it actually takes to extract bitumen from the oil sands. You'll notice I've given you a figure of about 12 to 13 barrels of water per barrel of bitumen. The process uses that much water, but 80% to 90% of that water is recycled. Two to about 4.5 barrels of fresh water are needed to make up for some of the water we can't recycle. So I think that's an important figure for us to look at when we're discussing those water issues surrounding oil sands development.

What that translates into is an excessive amount of fresh water is used from the Athabasca River. The water demands on the Athabasca River will continue to grow with further oil sands development. Most of that water that's used ends up in tailings ponds. With the zero discharge policy the oil sands companies have, we don't release that water back into the environment.

Directly related to water use is the problem of tailings ponds.

I'm going to continue in French.

I want to talk about tailings ponds. These are structures that we've put in place to hold extraction residues. These residues are placed in the tailings ponds and, after three to five years, the residues form what is called mature fine tailings, which consist of approximately 30% solids, the remainder being mainly water. This water is very difficult to recycle because it is tied up in the tailings.

The tailings take a very long time to settle, which means that our tailings ponds will remain there for many years. It must also be admitted that there are nearly 130 km2 of tailings ponds. The figure you often hear is 50 km2, but the Alberta government has revised its estimates, and we're now talking about 130 km2 of tailings ponds. So these tailings ponds will increase considerably. We also need new tailings ponds to store the tailings from our development.

You unfortunately noticed the deaths of a number of ducks. When you flew over the tailings ponds, you noted that they contain bitumen, which remains from the process that has not been extracted. There is also a lot of salt and toxic compounds such as naphthenic acids and other compounds such as heavy metals.

The consequence of the presence of these compounds is that the water cannot be released to the environment. We have to retain that water, which is currently recycled, but it cannot be recycled indefinitely. This water should be treated using quite major resources in order to be able to continue using it in future.

I'd like to continue then briefly with the energy use. I know this is not necessarily the focus, but it is an important environmental issue that we must address.

The energy use, for oil sands extraction and mining and upgrading, ranges in the order of 0.7 to 1.3 gigajoules per barrel of bitumen. By calculation, that translates to about 20% of a barrel of bitumen that's needed to produce one barrel of bitumen in terms of energy. The consequence of this is essentially increased greenhouse gas emissions, which we have seen with increased oil sands development. When we look at those environmental issues, we really need to think about what we can do to alleviate these environmental issues. As Murray Gray pointed out, we need new and innovative technologies, sort of the standout or transformative technology.

I look at these technologies in two ways. I look at technologies within the paradigm—within the technology we're currently using—and outside the paradigm, really taking that sort of leap forward and looking at new technologies that would really transform the way things are done in the oil sands industry. What do we need to get to these new technologies, these either inside- or outside-of-the-paradigm technologies? There are challenges there. For example, there is a large infrastructure, and you all saw it as you flew over the oil sands yesterday. There's a very large infrastructure. Often, the comment that has come back about new and innovative outside-of-the-paradigm technologies is that we can accommodate some incremental changes—minor incremental changes, but changes that are are definitely needed, no question about it.

There's this infrastructure that we can't just abandon sort of overnight to allow for these new big-leap transformative technologies. So what we need to do and should do and can do, I believe, is encourage research into new innovative technologies. For that, we need to develop policies that will drive innovation, and we also need to provide some sort of framework that would allow the development of these technologies and demonstration of these technologies beyond the basic research.

So we need to have that extra step, extra framework, in place so we can take these technologies from the lab to the field and potentially apply those in the field. We also need to continue to support research and development in improving the current process. That's a very important part of it. We need to deal with the problems now, but we also need to look into the future and develop very transformative technologies.

In summary, I'd just like to say that there are environmental issues you're all aware of related to the oil sands, but we have to believe innovation is possible, and we have to believe substantial improvements are possible—not just some improvement, but substantial improvement—and we need to develop the oil sands in a more responsible way into the future.

Thank you.

8:20 a.m.

Liberal

The Vice-Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia

Thank you very much to both witnesses.

We'll start with the first round of questions. Mr. Trudeau, you have seven minutes.

8:20 a.m.

Liberal

Justin Trudeau Liberal Papineau, QC

Thank you very much for your presentation. It is nice to hear the scientific and the research background here.

Yesterday we had a very full day. We had a tour by industry, presenting us some of the positive sides of things, and we had a very heart-wrenching afternoon with native communities who have tremendous concerns about the impact on their lives and their livelihoods. So I'd like to get right into it.

Dr. Guigard, you talk about the water in tailings ponds that cannot be released into the environment unless they are treated. One of the things we saw yesterday morning was much to-do about reclaimed tailing ponds and restoring them. What then happens to the water that was in those tailing ponds, as it is removed from the sands in terms of reclaiming the tailings pond? Where does it go? As you said, it cannot be recycled indefinitely.

8:25 a.m.

Associate Professor, Environmental Engineering Program, University of Alberta, As an Individual

Dr. Selma Guigard

We are recycling most of the water right now.

Right now, there are two types of reclaiming of tailings ponds that we're trying to pursue. There is what we call the “wet landscapes” and the “dry landscapes”. Some of the reclaiming is with the wet landscapes—the water remains, and it caps those tailings ponds, so the tailings ponds become, essentially, a lake. So it is a wet landscape. There's a lot of work going on right now looking at the dry landscape option, looking at technologies that would allow for the tailings to settle and become geotechnically sound to be able to allow for dry landscapes.

Currently the water is not released. As far as I understand, it is capped in end pit lakes if we're trying to reclaim the tailings pond. There is only the one tailings pond that is currently under reclamation, which is Suncor's tailings pond.

8:25 a.m.

Liberal

Justin Trudeau Liberal Papineau, QC

Even in the potentially dry reclaimed tailings ponds, can you tell me a bit about the nature of the soil? Much was made about it returning to boreal forest. Having been processed and returned to sand, what remains in the soil that would encourage us to believe that it would be able to return to natural forest? Or will it not be possible? What is the science on that?

8:25 a.m.

Associate Professor, Environmental Engineering Program, University of Alberta, As an Individual

Dr. Selma Guigard

As far as I understand it, the solids in the dry landscape would be placed and buried in much the same way as the solids in a landfill. The solids would be capped with soils that could support biotic life.

8:25 a.m.

Liberal

Justin Trudeau Liberal Papineau, QC

The numbers you gave, that 20% of the energy of a barrel of bitumen needs to go into creating that barrel of bitumen, does the bitumen then need to be transformed, itself, into synthetic crude and to other things, or is bitumen largely used as is?

8:25 a.m.

Associate Professor, Environmental Engineering Program, University of Alberta, As an Individual

Dr. Selma Guigard

That calculation includes upgrading, so it's the energy requirements for upgrading. By no means is it a complete life cycle of bitumen, but it does include the mining, the extraction, and the upgrading of the bitumen.

8:25 a.m.

Liberal

Justin Trudeau Liberal Papineau, QC

But into bitumen.

8:25 a.m.

Associate Professor, Environmental Engineering Program, University of Alberta, As an Individual

Dr. Selma Guigard

Into crude, which then has to be refined.

8:25 a.m.

Liberal

Justin Trudeau Liberal Papineau, QC

Do you have the numbers on the “then” processing? I'm trying to get a sense of how much energy in bitumen goes into getting it into a format that we can then use and consume, either in our cars or in heavy industry, in that level of transformation. Do you have any idea how much energy goes into that?

8:25 a.m.

Associate Professor, Environmental Engineering Program, University of Alberta, As an Individual

Dr. Selma Guigard

I don't have those numbers.

8:25 a.m.

Liberal

Justin Trudeau Liberal Papineau, QC

Does Dr. Gray, perhaps?

8:25 a.m.

Professor, University of Alberta, As an Individual

Dr. Murray R. Gray

Once the bitumen has been transformed into synthetic crude oil, it takes about 10% further energy use to make transportation fuels, transport it to the end user and so on. The refining side, once you have a synthetic crude, is quite efficient.

The only other comment on the energy requirement to transform and recover the bitumen, as Dr. Guigard mentioned, is that there are two main technologies that are in use. There's the in-situ technology. I'm not sure if you saw any of those operations in your flyover yesterday. It's a completely different approach but with much higher energy consumption. Then there's the mining technology, which, as Dr. Guigard mentioned, is about 20% of the resource, and has much more land and water disturbance but much higher energy efficiency. So there are two sides of the industry. It's a little bit schizophrenic. So when you look at the statistics, you're looking at two very different sets of issues in terms of the pattern of environmental impact and the pattern of energy use.

8:25 a.m.

Liberal

Justin Trudeau Liberal Papineau, QC

So is the 20% in situ, or is it open mine?

8:25 a.m.

Professor, University of Alberta, As an Individual

Dr. Murray R. Gray

That would be an average.

8:25 a.m.

Associate Professor, Environmental Engineering Program, University of Alberta, As an Individual

Dr. Selma Guigard

It's an average.

8:25 a.m.

Liberal

Justin Trudeau Liberal Papineau, QC

Can you give me a sense—I won't hold you to the exact numbers—of what in situ does use up in terms of percentage?

8:30 a.m.

Associate Professor, Environmental Engineering Program, University of Alberta, As an Individual

Dr. Selma Guigard

My calculations went from roughly 15% to as high as 25%, I believe. Roughly 15% to 30% would probably be the range.

8:30 a.m.

Liberal

Justin Trudeau Liberal Papineau, QC

How does that compare to other technologies or other sources of energy—coal, natural gas—in terms of energy costs for extraction?

8:30 a.m.

Professor, University of Alberta, As an Individual

Dr. Murray R. Gray

I think the appropriate comparison is to look at alternate technologies. Don't look at conventional crude oil, because we don't have that available, and don't look at normal natural gas. The two comparisons I like to make are to coal, which is abundant in western Canada and western United States, and the other would be ethanol from farming operations.

In the case of coal, the oil sands are much cleaner in terms of carbon emission, and much more efficient from an energy perspective. To make liquid transportation fuels from coal is much worse in terms of the energy balance.

The other comparison is to ethanol. The current ethanol plants in the United States and in Canada get about 1.25 to 1.4 units of energy for every unit of energy put in. Most of the energy put in is from fossil sources. So their yield of energy is actually much worse than from the oil sands. The difference, of course, is when you burn a litre of ethanol, that carbon is from plants and not from fossil fuels.