Evidence of meeting #35 for Natural Resources in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was alberta.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:55 p.m.
Program Manager, Climate and Energy, Environmental Defence
I'd agree with a lot of what Mr. McGowan said. I believe part of what you were making a point around is that we need to deal with energy efficiency as part of a real energy security strategy to reduce our overall use of energy.
From my perspective, a true energy security strategy would also be transitioning us to renewable sources of energy. Inherent in that is needing to address the need for jobs in the energy sector. Energy efficiency also creates jobs, as we saw with the hugely successful federal ecoENERGY retrofit for homes program, which was creating ten dollars of investment per dollar of federal funding for things like retrofitting windows and doors, etc.
Saving energy can create jobs as well, and that needs to be part of it.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit
Merci, Monsieur Ouellet.
We go finally to Mr. Allen, for up to four minutes, please.
November 30th, 2010 / 12:55 p.m.
Conservative
Mike Allen Conservative Tobique—Mactaquac, NB
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
And thank you to the witnesses for coming.
Ms. McEachern, I want to follow up on the tailings pond leakage. Mr. Coutu indicated in his testimony that they were collecting all the leakage. Then you're indicating those were industry estimates—the 11 million litres per day.
When they gave that information to you, was there any indication from the industry with respect to that being collected? Mr. Coutu seemed to say it was being collected, and at the same time he also indicated in response to Mr. Andrews' question that we have not suffered a major breach in Canada.
12:55 p.m.
Program Manager, Climate and Energy, Environmental Defence
Those numbers were based on industry estimates after they had accounted for what they collect, so that was their estimate of what gets through. It was a compilation of all the industry assessments of that from their environmental impact assessments.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
Mike Allen Conservative Tobique—Mactaquac, NB
I'm not going to put words in your mouth, but you're inferring that Mr. Coutu saying everything is getting collected, the only thing they were emitting out is really their potable water and other types of things, which will be treated almost like a municipal water system.... You're inferring that's not correct.
12:55 p.m.
Program Manager, Climate and Energy, Environmental Defence
We compiled it for the entire industry, so I cannot provide Syncrude's specific numbers. But as an industry, each company estimates how much gets through after they take into account the pumps that pump the leaked water back into the tailings ponds. That's what our number was based on.
It is an issue of concern. Since they've created those impact assessments perhaps they've developed better technology to collect the water, but there are no numbers around that, which is part of the problem.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
Mike Allen Conservative Tobique—Mactaquac, NB
Okay, that's helpful.
Mr. Coutu was also talking about the transition from the open pits, which we've seen. We travelled to Fort McMurray and we saw that. But he said we're going to be drilling in the future to where 80% is going to be more on the in-situ side.
Have you done any studies with respect to the change in greenhouse gas emissions that would be coming because of that change?
12:55 p.m.
Program Manager, Climate and Energy, Environmental Defence
Yes, the greenhouse gas emissions from in situ are higher than the open pit mines because they require more energy to pump the steam underground and extract the oil. So over time, the greenhouse gas intensity per barrel is projected to go up.
We hear a lot about the reduction in intensity over the last 20 years—Mr. Coutu referred to 40%—well, the key is it is per barrel. The absolute emissions have continued to rise. A large part of the reduction in emission intensity over the last 20 years was when the industry switched from burning coke to natural gas. That was a one-time shift in reduction, and since then it's flatlined.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
Mike Allen Conservative Tobique—Mactaquac, NB
Can you talk a bit about the future? We've heard a lot in this committee about shale gas, natural gas, and the resources we have, which are huge and all across the country. In fact in New Brunswick, my home province, we have an opportunity with shale gas that is developing now.
With regard to the International Energy Agency estimates, what are your thoughts on our usage going out to 2035? With that amount of natural gas, do you see that as potentially being a proxy, I guess, or a change in our use of standard oil and maybe our mining from the oil sands, as opposed to just going more to natural gas? Because the opportunity is there for natural gas fleet vehicles and that type of thing, as well.
Do you see those estimates being a bit fuzzy because of the amount of natural gas that could come onstream?
1 p.m.
Program Manager, Climate and Energy, Environmental Defence
Yes, I think natural gas will definitely be an important transition fuel, but where we need to be tracking is to transition ourselves off fossil fuels over time. Obviously it's decades-long to do that. So natural gas will play an important role.
The IEA estimated that if the world actually acts to tackle climate change, tar sands expansion will not be nearly as great as some of the current industry projections.
1 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Allen, and thank you to our two witnesses who were with us here today: Gillian McEachern, program manager, climate and energy, from Environmental Defence; and from the Alberta Federation of Labour, Gil McGowan, president.
Thank you very much.
The meeting is adjourned.