The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers has come out with its latest forecast of Canadian crude oil production over the next 15 years. Today, Alberta’s tar sands put out 1.5 million barrels of oil a day, or 54 per cent of total production output. That will rise to 2.2 million in 2015 (67 per cent of total output) and 2.9 million in 2020 (74 per cent of total ouput). In 2025 the tar sands will reach 3.5 million barrels a day, or more than 81 per cent of total output. You can so where this is going. In 15 years we see conventional production in Canada falling nearly 40 per cent and tar sands production well more than doubling alongside CO2 emissions.

Will there be any meaningful amount of carbon capture and storage in the oil sands by 2020? By 2025? Don’t bet on it. The first demonstration projects will be related to coal, and even then, they will be small and few.

Canada is on a very dangerous path unless it can figure out how to substantially offset these emissions by making dramatic reductions in other areas. Greening Alberta’s electricity sector would be a good start, but that doesn’t appear to be on the radar of those with the power to take the province in that direction. Also, it doesn’t do much to solve the major water issues in Fort McMurray.

I know the world is focused on Copenhagen, meaning a focus on greenhouse-gas emission reductions, but a study came out today reminding us that the oil sands — Canada’s fastest growing source of CO2 emissions — isn’t just about climate change. The local pollution that results from the mining and processing of bitumen is nearly five times worse than expected, according to David Schindler, co-author of a study published Monday in the U.S.-based Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. And he blamed the Alberta government for having a poor monitoring program, which explains the underestimation. The study’s findings were based on the analysis of toxins in river flow before and after oil sand operations. Researchers also found bitumen particulates covering snow up to 50 kilometres away. The amount of particulates that settle annually equate to a major oil spin happening every year, the study estimated. Not good for soil, water, and the fish and species that must survive in both.

My Clean Break column today takes a shot at the Canadian government for repeatedly touting carbon capture and sequestration as a panacea for the oil sands, while at the same time refusing to recognize — and support — the role that renewable energy can play. It comes on the heels of an appropriately critical National Geographic feature on the oil sands called “Scrapping Bottom,” and the recently yet repeatedly expressed belief of Environment Minister Jim Prentice that technology will save the day.

Perhaps technology will helps prolong our days on this planet, but it won’t be carbon capture and sequestration, which is too expensive, unproven, inefficient and, in some applications, ineffective to tackle the ghost in Canada’s climate-change closet. By refusing to acknowledge the major role that other renewables can play to avoid these carbon emissions in the first place, and to do it more quickly and economically, Stephen Harper is sending Canada’s economy down a path that’s unsustainable. (more…)