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.
5 p.m.
Journalist, As an Individual
I'm not an expert, just to make that clear; I'm a journalist, and I've seen nothing to indicate that, in my readings, they actually get that high from the oil sands.
The answer is no.
5 p.m.
Bloc
Christian Ouellet Bloc Brome—Missisquoi, QC
So you are answering my second question.
Given that currently, only 1.3 million barrels of oil per day are being produced and that in 2030, 3, 4 or 5 million barrels will be produced, that means that in 2030, the same quantity of CO2 will be emitted as now, and perhaps much more.
5 p.m.
Journalist, As an Individual
Yes. From the oil sands we'll be seeing a tripling, up to 140 million tonnes a year. I think we're doing about 38 million tonnes a year right now in oil sands, and the projection is that it will be up to 140 million tonnes a year by 2020. So we're seeing a huge increase, a tripling, of the emissions from the oil sands, and we don't see any way that they can actually reduce their emissions in a significant way.
5 p.m.
Bloc
Christian Ouellet Bloc Brome—Missisquoi, QC
Is your text as a whole available? We only have chapter 11.
5 p.m.
Journalist, As an Individual
Yes, it is. I'm sorry, I didn't know you didn't have a copy.
I think you can Google it on the Program on Water Issues at the University of Toronto. It's available on the web page at the Program on Water Issues. Also, afterwards I can send the clerk a link for the whole report.
5 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
We don't have it translated. Once we have it translated, we'll get that circulated.
5 p.m.
Bloc
Christian Ouellet Bloc Brome—Missisquoi, QC
Thank you.
Mr. Thompson, you stated the following: “Only limited near-term opportunities exist in the oil sands and they largely relate to upgrader facilities.”
Could you explain what that means to us?
5 p.m.
Journalist, As an Individual
What I was referring to, and I'm not too sure about the question, is that carbon capture is best done at a plant that is a large, single-source emitter, like a coal-fired plant. Now, there are plans to do carbon capture at upgraders. One of the pilot projects will be done, they hope, at the Shell Scotford Upgrader near Edmonton. It's called the Quest project. They're hoping to capture the CO2 from a plant that actually produces hydrogen. They need hydrogen to help upgrade the bitumen. So there is some limited potential for carbon capture when it comes to the upgraders.
When it comes to the actual extraction process on the ground in the Athabaska oil sands, it seems very doubtful at this point that they can use carbon capture, because, for example, in the mining of the oil sands, most emissions there come from things like the giant trucks they use to haul the tar sands. Also, when it comes to in situ development, it means burning a lot of natural gas, and the natural gas effluent stream is very expensive to capture the CO2. So it seems that the extraction process does not lend itself well to carbon capture.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
Thank you very much.
Mr. Braid, welcome back. It's good to see you come to visit us. You have five minutes.
March 30th, 2010 / 5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
It's wonderful to be back, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much to all of our witnesses for being here this afternoon.
Dr. Gibbins, if I could, I'll start with a question for you, please. In your presentation you said something that intrigued me. You indicated that in the somewhat near future, tailings ponds will be obsolete. Could you just elaborate, please, on that comment?
5:05 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canada West Foundation
You should take the statement with a very large grain of salt. This comes from my understanding of the technology.
The general point is an important one. We are looking at oil sands operations now based on technologies and an understanding of the technologies that go back 10, 20, or 30 years. When you move forward 10 or 20 years, you're into a very different kind of technological environment.
I think it's important that the committee not find itself frozen in time in terms of its understanding of what has been a very fluid technology.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Very good. Thank you.
Moving to you, Ms. Farrell, TransAlta has Project Pioneer currently. Do you have any plans for additional CCS operations in the future?
5:05 p.m.
Chief Operating Officer, TransAlta Corporation
At this point, we do not. We'd like to get Project Pioneer up and running and successful; then we'll reassess after that.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
In your presentation, you indicated that safety is a pre-eminent concern. Could you outline what some of those safety measures or precautions are or will be and elaborate on how you ensure safety?
5:05 p.m.
Chief Operating Officer, TransAlta Corporation
There are many elements to safety—safety during construction, safety of the overall project—but the key element here is the safety of ensuring that the CO2 goes to where we say it should go and stays there.
The number one element of our plan relative to that is to ensure, through the engineering studies we're putting together today and through the organization of this project, that all of the monitoring recommended by some of the world's top scientists and experts in this area is put in place, such that we can monitor where the CO2 is, how it moves, whether or not any of it comes back up through the pipes or there are any breaks in the pipes.
We'll be utilizing some of the world's best practices there so that we can monitor where the CO2 is and assure that we achieve what this project has set out to do.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
5:05 p.m.
Chief Operating Officer, TransAlta Corporation
Currently, we're doing a FEED study, a front end engineering and design study. Our partners are getting together with Alstom to basically do the first work on the design engineering and make sure that the costing all comes together relative to what we proposed, so that we and the governments will feel comfortable that if we go ahead and build the project, it will be built for the cost that we said it would and will actually secure the CO2 we said it would.
It will take us about another year, perhaps a year and a quarter, to finalize that work. It's about $20 million worth of work. At the end of that stage, we'll have proven out the cost of the projects and proven out many aspects of the well program. We'll have determined whether or not a pipeline can be built and CO2 in fact can be sold into the EOR facilities.
At that point, we'll make a decision to build the project. It will take approximately two years to build. We hope to have the project operational somewhere in the 2015 to 2016 timeframe. The current plan would have all of the CO2 sequestered for two years and then moved through the pipeline after that.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Finally, why has TransAlta embraced this technology?
5:10 p.m.
Chief Operating Officer, TransAlta Corporation
It's really quite simple. Alberta sits on about 300 years of a very low-cost, very low-sulfur, strong coal resource that we've been using in this province since the 1950s—in fact, the plant we're decommissioning tomorrow is over 50 years old. That has created a strong advantage in terms of energy costs for this province.
If CCS can be made to be commercial, that resource is developable, economic, and sustainable for the next 300 years. If it isn't, then the province will have to move to higher-cost forms of electricity, including large-scale hydro and what one of your speakers talked earlier about, such things as nuclear.
It's in our corporate best interests to extend the lives of the efficient coal plants that we have today and continue to provide a low-cost form of electricity in Alberta. It's in the province's best interests to find ways to sequester CO2 from the coal plants as its contribution toward CO2 reductions as we go forward and develop the vast energy resources of the province.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
Justin Trudeau Liberal Papineau, QC
Thank you, Chair.
To start with, I'd like to pick up on what Mr. Braid asked of Mr. Gibbins. Tailings ponds are not a technology that is a flavour of the month. They've been around for over 40 years and show no sign of being replaced any time soon.
I think one of the assertions that industry sometimes makes, that they're going to find a technological solution such that they won't need tailings ponds, was well to not go unchallenged. I thank Mr. Braid for that.
Second, Ms. Farrell, I think one of the things that has been tremendous in your presentation is that it has confirmed what many of us have suspected, that CCS really isn't much of a solution to the oil sands emissions challenge. It's very good, as Mr. Thomson has said a number of times, for single, large industrial-type emitters, but I hope this presentation today has on both sides removed from politicians the easy saying that CCS is going to be a solution to development of the oil sands. It's being demonstrated in an ever clearer way that carbon sequestration and storage is not going to be a solution to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.
When we were asking about who is an expert on CCS extraction in relation to oil sands, which is what technically we'd like to look at here today, the answer is that there do not seem to be any experts in oil sands and CCS, because it's not really a subject that develops any level of expertise.
I will ask for a response. Is that a fair assessment, that there really isn't anyone who is...?
5:10 p.m.
Chief Operating Officer, TransAlta Corporation
I actually don't think it's a fair assessment. And I don't think it's fair to say that my presentation confirms that there isn't potential for CCS in the oil sands.
To be fair to the people who are working hard on these files in the oil sands, what my presentation was intended to do was build confidence that we are moving very clearly and very solidly in a way that will confirm that CCS will work for our coal projects in Alberta.
I would really encourage the committee to get presentations from the Shell project and from the other projects—particularly the one that was mentioned from the company that's up north, Swan Hills. These are very innovative projects. I think they would give you a much clearer understanding of what the potential is in the oil sands. I think you'd be remiss if you do not do that. This committee has no expertise on it to provide you with any guidance on this other than conjecture, at this point, so I'd really encourage you to do that.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
Justin Trudeau Liberal Papineau, QC
Thank you.
One thing, then, is to remind ourselves that this is really focused on oil sands and water. In bringing in CCS, the question we had about it is what the potential impact of CCS is on underground water reserves and aquifers. Much was made of the fact that it would be separate from groundwater reserves and that the sequestration would happen in saline aquifers.
Maybe, Dr. Schindler, you could tell me a little about this, or someone else. What is the role of saline aquifers in our system? Are they inert? Do they not contribute at all? Do they have no role? Can we pollute them or fill them with carbon without any consequences other than the danger of leaking? Is that a fair assessment?
5:15 p.m.
Professor of Ecology, University of Alberta, As an Individual
I think the big danger would be their leaking through the many wells that will be driven through freshwater aquifers to reach those very deep saline ones. Somebody earlier referred to a pincushion effect. My guess is that we'll have tens of thousands of wells drilled through freshwater aquifers to reach bitumen, and for carbon sequestration, to even deeper levels. I suspect that would be the big danger.
I think if we can get it down without seepage into the saline ones, it would probably stay there.