Evidence of meeting #6 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was co2.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Professor of Ecology, University of Alberta, As an Individual
One of the reviewers of the one that was published was a senior scientist with Environment Canada.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
And have you had a response from the minister, for example, or from the department in terms of how it intends to proceed with this evidence now in front of them?
Professor of Ecology, University of Alberta, As an Individual
No. I'm told by my colleague that it's under consideration right now, and they're expecting at least to be able to upgrade their monitoring, which in recent years has been pathetic, to put it mildly.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
So, Dr. Schindler, I guess we can take it then that you've lost complete confidence in the CEMA process. Is that right?
Professor of Ecology, University of Alberta, As an Individual
I wouldn't say that I've lost total confidence in CEMA. I certainly have in RAMP. CEMA seems to have a spotty future. They have been some good reports and some bad reports. Some of them, like the 2009 one, actually include some of the NPRI data, though one wonders why I can get 2008 data and why they, in reporting a week earlier, could only get through 2006.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
So, Dr. Schindler, you're calling for a much more enhanced federal role in both monitoring and the enforcement of existing federal statutes around the oil sands with respect to water.
Professor of Ecology, University of Alberta, As an Individual
Yes, I am.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
Have you had a reaction from the Alberta government with respect to that call for enhanced federal presence in enforcement?
Professor of Ecology, University of Alberta, As an Individual
I don't expect it would be a good call.
Environment Canada clearly has the responsibility under the Fisheries Act, and I think it should be up to them to go in and enforce it.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
So far you're still waiting for an answer or some kind of response from Environment Canada to your evidence in your research.
Professor of Ecology, University of Alberta, As an Individual
I know it's accepted by the scientists because I've talked to several of them. I haven't heard anything from higher levels in Environment Canada.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
Can you give us an idea of what you mean by harder goals? Perhaps you mean more onerous targets for reclamation of mines and tailing ponds.
Professor of Ecology, University of Alberta, As an Individual
I would say some actual deadlines by which reclamation might be done. I drive by the TransAlta coal-fired power plants every day on my way home, and there is nothing but a little slit that's being mined there, with reclamation within a year or two behind the actual mining. I would have thought the oil sands should be held to something similar.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
Dr. Schindler, the government has brought in new environmental enforcement measures. This committee worked together on those measures, including enhancing fining, more environmental prosecutions, and so on.
Can you give us an idea of what you mean? Perhaps you are not in a position to say so, but I'll ask you anyway. What do you mean that oil sands companies should be charged under the Fisheries Act?
Professor of Ecology, University of Alberta, As an Individual
Well, subsection 36(3) says clearly that no deleterious substances shall be discharged to fish-bearing waters, and Environment Canada is responsible for enforcing that subsection of the Fisheries Act. I don't know, given the evidence that we have and that they have in their NPRI database, why they're not doing it.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
Is this something that has been going on for quite a long time, Dr. Schindler?
Professor of Ecology, University of Alberta, As an Individual
It has.
The most recent airborne monitoring in the oil sands was done by AOSERP in 1978 and 1981. If we match our particulate emissions with theirs, they have roughly doubled, which means that industry has put out to the air less per barrel of oil mined, because they've increased much more than double. But it means that we've known this was happening since the late 1970s.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
Finally, Mr. Thomson, the thing that struck me most about your testimony is that CCS, according to what you've written, does not apply most appropriately to the oil sands but instead to coal-fired plants. I just learned that the U.K. government is considering making it mandatory that any new coal-fired plant actually have a CCS installation constructed beside it.
I guess the conclusion to draw from your testimony, finally, is that CCS is not anything like the panacea that different governments, industry, and other folks are claiming it to be. Is that right?
Journalist, As an Individual
Yes, but my conclusion would be that there's a big gap between what we know now and what we can say in the future.
We're hearing governments say—Alberta's, for example—that we will be sequestering 140 million tonnes by 2050, but there's no scientist that I've found saying that with any authority. We don't know that we can do large scale. And certainly there's a big question mark regarding the oil sands, because ideally you need a large, single point source, such as a coal-fired plant. The oil sands don't lend themselves well to carbon capture, so that's one reason.
It's the cost as well. Even if it were proven that this could be done safely at large scale, there's also a cost involved. In Alberta alone it could be $14 billion a year by 2050. That's according to Andrew Leach with the University of Alberta.
Conservative
Bloc
Bernard Bigras Bloc Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First, thank you to our witnesses. My first questions will go to Ms. Farrell, from TransAlta Corporation.
The ecoENERGY Carbon Capture and Storage Task Force estimated that three-quarters of Canada's greenhouse gas emissions could be captured and stored.
I would like to know, Ms. Farrell, if you agree with the conclusions of this task force.
Chief Operating Officer, TransAlta Corporation
I am not familiar personally with that task force. I don't know whether any of my colleagues is. TransAlta participated in that task force. I would imagine that the work we did on it would have substantiated this by looking at the various power plants and at who had possibilities for sequestration formation under their power plants. Then, that would have—
Bloc
Bernard Bigras Bloc Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC
It's feasible, but how do you reconcile your statement with that of Mr. Thompson who claims, with regard to Alberta's oil sands, that capture and storage programs cannot be applied? There did not seem to be a consensus. Don't you think that you are somewhat overestimating the carbon capture and storage capacity with regard to CO2 in Canada? Do you agree with the three-quarters estimate, because I find that somewhat paradoxical?
